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Piccure+ Version 3 Released Share This on LinkedIn   Share This on Google   Tweet This   Forward This

31 May 2016

Intelligent Imaging Solutions has released its Piccure+ 3.0, a free update to the $79.99 image reconstruction tool.

Piccure+. A new interface for batch processing.

Highlights of the update include the following features:

  • Completely redesigned and improved Adaptive Heterogeneous Computation Engine for an increase in speed of up to 6x faster for Nvidia cards in Windows thanks to CUDA.
  • Significant overall increase in speed even without AHCE: 50 to 75 percent faster Raw processing speed; 20 to 50 percent reduction in computation times across settings (CPU only, all platforms)
  • Additional settings for finer adjustment of optical aberrations (five instead of three) and finer adjustment of Sharpness in Quality+
  • Support for 56 new cameras have been added, bringing the total to 689 cameras
  • Improved and redesigned user interface
  • Bugs fixes

We've reported extensively on prior releases, which we've found makes enough of an improvement to our native captures to include in our image editing workflow. We expect to have more to say next month about the new version.

To update and existing release, use the Menu>Update option "and if that doesn't work, simply download the latest installers," the company suggests. A 30-day trial version is also available.

For more information see the news release below.

Piccure+ 3.0 offers a significant increase in speed thanks to the leveraging of Nvidia GPUs

GERMANY -- In November 2014, a world revolution was launched. Piccure+ was the first software solution to provide the public with the means to correct optical aberration through a process called deconvolution. Unlike other solutions, this approach modeled complex optical aberrations by determining "point spread functions" and then reconstructing every pixel in the image based on the information that was taken from several hundred surrounding pixels. Since how this information from surrounding pixels is used varies for every pixel in the image, the computational complexity for this problem has been tremendous. Also, as the software auto-calibrates itself for the equipment used, no specific knowledge or calibration is needed.

Figure 1. Optical aberrations are quite complex. This image shows what happens to a point source after passing through an optical system of an expensive lens (point spread function). The point source spreads out several hundred pixels in the image plane. These aberrations often cause a lack of sharpness in images and cannot be corrected with classic "unsharp masking..

The team behind Piccure+ has now released version 3 of its image-correction software. Current users of Piccure+ will receive the update for free. Leveraging the processing capabilities of graphics cards, users can expect an increase in speed of up to 6x compared to version 2.5. Compared to version 2, the increase in speed is 10x faster. Piccure+ has come a lot closer toward integrating adaptive deconvolution technologies to the general image-processing pipeline. Due to the complexity involved and the large optical aberrations found in lenses, it is very challenging to reverse optical aberrations without additional calibration information.

Piccure+ offers the user a solution to a wide range of imaging problems that cause a lack of image sharpness:

  • Counter lens softness for any lens/camera combination, particularly for fast apertures.
  • Counter varying degrees of sharpness across the image.
  • Counter slight camera defocus (e.g., if you micro-adjusted your autofocus).
  • Counter lens-to-lens sample variation.
  • Counter diffraction.
  • Counter the effects from optical low-pass filters.
  • Counter the effects from micro-shakes.

Piccure+ currently is the only software solution on the market capable of reversing spatially varying optical aberrations, which are responsible for a non-uniform sharpness in an image, particularly at open apertures. For several years, the team behind Piccure+ has been developing breakthrough technologies from the field of computational photography -- focusing on blind image deconvolution, in particular. It has become very popular among professional and ambitious photographers, particularly in the full-frame and medium-format segment.

The complete list of improvements for Piccure+ version 3 includes:

  • Completely redesigned and improved Adaptive Heterogeneous Computation Engine for a maximum increase in speed -- up to 6x faster processing for nvidia cards in Windows thanks to CUDA.
  • Significant overall increase in speed even without AHCE: 50 to 75 percent faster Raw processing speed; 20 to 50 percent reduction in computation times across settings (CPU only, all platforms)
  • Two additional settings for finer adjustment of optical aberrations (five instead of three).
  • Finer adjustment of "Sharpness" in Quality+
  • New cameras are supported. Fifty-six cameras were added to the list bringing the total to 689
  • Improved and redesigned user interface
  • Additionally, several bugs were eliminated

Piccure+ has built-in Raw processor and batch-processing capabilities. It also works as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It can also be called as an external application from Adobe Lightroom, DxO Optics Pro and Phase One CaptureOne. Pricing starts at $79.99 for a single license.

A 30-day trial version can be downloaded from http://www.piccureplus.com without registration.

About The Technology

Piccure+ adaptively determines a virtual lens, which represents the optically flawless equivalent of the actual lens used and then corrects the image through a sophisticated deblurring process (deconvolution). The picture is corrected with the aim of reconstructing the scene as if it were taken through this optically flawless lens. The approach of correcting optical flaws through the process of deconvolution is not entirely new. NASA was able to correct the flawed mirror of the Hubble space telescope and save their $10 billion project from failure through this process.

The disadvantage of existing software solutions is that deviations from the modeled optical system over the true errors in the image often lead to disappointing results. Lens-to-lens deviations due to manufacturing tolerances cannot be accounted for. In addition, if no lens or camera profile is available, no correction is possible at all.

Piccure+ differentiates itself from other solutions through several key features:

  • More complex and accurate modeling of optical aberrations through non-parametric "point-spread functions"
  • Optical aberrations are determined for the equipment and for each image individually instead of relying on possibly ill-defined lens profiles
  • Sophisticated deblurring routines reverse optical flaws

Piccure+ has the capability to automatically correct the unique optical imperfections of a lens without relying on any predefined lens profiles. As a result, Piccure+ can even be used for analogue film archives.

Even though the software was designed for improving the images produced by high-end camera lenses, it will also provide a number of benefits to the average photographer because the improvement in images taken with lower-priced zoom lenses can be even more impressive.


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