Detail vs Tone brushes (Frequency Separation)

Frequency separation is a retouching tool widely used by high-end retouchers. It's application requires attention to technical details which regular users don't want to be exposed to.

I therefore propose a way to reap the benefits of frequency separation in C1 without exposing users to any of the technical details. The implementation details (such as requiring two (or more) different layers which need to be recombined accordingly) should all be kept under the hood.

The most straightforward way to integrate the functionality with C1 would be to have two tick boxes associated with the heal- and the clone brush. The default would be that both "Detail" and "Tone" boxes are ticked. Brushes then behave as they are now. If only "Detail" is ticked, the brushes only operate on detail, i.e., leave tones (low spatial frequency changes in the image) intact (this is ideal for removing small skin blemishes, for instance, without affecting the tonality of the area). If only "Tone" is ticked, the brushes only operate on low spatial frequency content, leaving detail intact (this is ideal for removing larger changes in tonality without affecting detail, e.g., like skin pores). Under the hood, this would be implemented by the standard frequency separation technique, the user would never get to see those underlying layers, though.

It would be ideal, if the user could adjust the threshold between "details" vs "tones" by a slider. This slider would affect how much blur is applied to the underlying hidden low-frequency layer.

Of course there are other ways in which frequency separation could be introduced but I think that the most common application would involve retouching skin or similar surfaces, where one wants to have control over which frequency range is affected.

Initially I thought about a dedicated "Detail brush" vs a "Tone brush" but the respective brushes would just be clone (or heal) brushes with more control. So why not integrate the feature with the existing brushes?

Theoretically, layers could offer two sublayers named "detail" and "tone". By operating on those sublayers only, other tools (not just cloning/healing brushes) could be used in combination with frequency-separation. However, an integration with brushes only is probably sufficient and less invasive.

Overall, such a feature would not just save users a trip to an external pixel editor (with the resulting duplication in files, etc.) but also make this powerful technique easier to use than it is in Photoshop.

B.O

2020年05月10日 06:45

Interesting idea. I like the fact that the slider wich controls the frequency of the separation could be tweaked in post, instead of deciding it before the brushworks starts with no chance to fine tune it later (if that's necessary I am not sure though).

From my understanding this request would make more sense for the clone brush, because the healing brush copies detail/structures from the source and adjusts it to the target areas' (and surrounding) tones? Which is the opposite to what you want when copying tones in the low frequency band, e.g. skin tones from close by source skin areas.

Class A

2020年05月10日 07:25
編集済み

Yes, the separation control should be available at all times. There would probably be a delay associated with that but it would be a great feature.

I also agree that the proposed functionality makes more immediate sense with the clone brush. However, I have a feeling that the idea of healing could be usefully extended to work in different frequency bands.

Lily

2020年06月05日 10:49

Hi there,

Thank you for feedback on Capture One - this is always welcomed and encouraged among our users and we appreciate the time you've taken to contribute towards the development of the software.

I have forwarded your comments and suggestions to our Product Management team as something to consider in a future release.

Whilst we cannot comment on future releases, we take all suggestions on board and hopefully your feedback contributes towards a future version of Capture One.

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