1. What is the KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional Plug-In?

The KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional Plug-In is software that can automatically adjust both the shadows and highlights so that more detail is visible. The KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional Plug-In allows the user to set the threshold between shadow and highlight, and control how much the shadows are lightened or the highlights are darkened independently. The threshold preview shows visually which areas of the image are considered shadows, and which are considered highlights for more precise control. The professional version works with 16 bit images, allowing you to make full use of raw format camera images or film scans. The KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional Plug-In is fully compatible with ADOBE Photoshop actions, and can be run in batch mode. The KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional Plug-In works with 8 or 16 bit digital photographs from any source, including film scanners, flatbed scanners, digital cameras, CDs and the Internet. It is compatible with Adobe Photoshop and other programs that support Photoshop plug-ins and is available on both Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Back to Top

2. What is the difference between the color saturation adjustment in the plug-ins and the color saturation adjustment in my image editing application?

The color saturation adjustment slider in the KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional plug-in adjusts the vividness of the colors in proportion to the amount of adjustment applied to an area. The color saturation adjustment in your image editing application adjusts the saturation equally over the entire image. For example, using the Color Saturation slider in the plug-in to reduce the saturation on an image with the shadows lightened and no highlight adjustment, would reduce the saturation in the deep shadow areas more than in the midtones, and not affect the highlights at all.

Back to Top

3. Why does my image sometimes seem to get noisier when I set the Shadow Detail slider to a high amount of correction?

The noise was in the original image and wasn't visible because the shadows were so dark. The DIGITAL SHO plug-ins can only reveal detail that is already in the image, and doesn't try to distinguish between detail and noise. Applying DIGITAL GEM, DIGITAL GEM Professional, or some other noise reduction, to the image before applying the DIGITAL SHO plug-ins will help. If the image is very dark, you may get better results by applying the DIGITAL SHO plug-in twice with a moderate amount of shadow adjustment instead of applying the plug-ins once with a high amount of adjustment.

Back to Top

4. How can I get the best results from KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional?

The KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional plug-in works best on wide dynamic range, low noise images with no overall color cast. To make sure that your image has the widest dynamic range possible, don't apply any contrast or brightness adjustments that may clip or compress the range before applying KODAK DIGITAL SHO. If your image editing application has the ability to view the image histogram, make sure that the histogram fills the entire range available. An easy way to fill the entire range without clipping in ADOBE Photoshop, is to set the clip percentages in the Levels tool options to 0% and use the "Auto" button to expand the range.

If the image is very noisy in the shadow areas, apply KODAK DIGITAL GEM Professional, or some other noise suppression to the shadows before applying KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional. If you aren't using on of the KODAK DIGITAL GEM plug-ins, be careful not to apply too strong a noise suppression. Some types of noise removal will also remove or blur detail in the shadows, and KODAK DIGITAL SHO may reveal artifacts that can't be seen before the shadows are lightened.

If the image has a slight color cast, the color cast will be more noticeable after applying KODAK DIGITAL SHO. Applying KODAK DIGITAL ROC Professional with the black and white clip set to 0% before running KODAK DIGITAL SHO will usually take care of any color problems. If you don't have KODAK DIGITAL ROC Professional, correct slight color casts with the tools available in your image editing application. Most editors have a "Levels" adjustment that you can use to adjust the input levels for each channel, or an automatic color correction feature that will work for minor color problems.

Back to Top

5. Is there a recommended method for adjusting the settings in KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional?

When you bring up the KODAK DIGITAL SHO Professional Plug-In, the default values of the plug-in will automatically be applied to the image. If these results are not satisfactory, we recommend you first zoom out so that you can see the entire image, then switch to the "Threshold" preview mode. Adjust the threshold slider to set the areas of the image that will be treated as shadows and lightened, and which will be treated as highlights and darkened. Once the threshold value is set, if the image is mostly too dark, adjust the shadow slider until you like the results. If the highlights need to be darkened, first choose between the "Film" and "Digital" modes. In general, the "Film" mode is a stronger darkening effect and works best with images scanned from film or taken with Digital SLR cameras and that haven't been highly compressed. The "Digital" mode is a more subtle darkening, and is designed to avoid obvious contours when darkening highlights that have been quantized. The "Digital" mode works best on images scanned from prints, or that have been highly compressed. The final step is to adjust the color saturation level of the image.