Question BackscatterXterminator (BSXT)

[BoltSnap]

I don't think it will work with BSXT?

No, it won't work with it. It needs PS nothing else as far as I know.

 

[rmorgan]

That's not Photoshop, it's Photoshop Elements. It's a different product. I don't think it will work with BSXT?

Correct. It's my understanding that only works with Photoshop because neither Elements nor Lightroom permit calls out to third-party actions. Erin is the Lightroom guru, and I'm sure she would love to have her baby able to work with Lightroom, but Lightroom subscribers have to go out to Photoshop to use the product. Photoshop is believed to be the most-pirated software ever, so while I chafe under the subscription and product-validation requirements, I do understand Adobe's point (and their tools are upgraded regularly and quite well, so there's that).

Is it ok if I hate this idea and crap all over it? Remove the backscatter and add some dolphins or something. Maybe just ask ChatGPT to generate a better picture that you are capable of taking.

It is very possible to take wide angle photos in low-vis conditions without creating tons of backscatter. It just takes practice, technique, and careful control of your strobes.

Of course it is--you have as many SCPs (ScubaBoard Curmudgeon Points) as anyone! I take it you don't adjust the color, sharpen, crop, or anything-else your pictures, and everything is straight out of the camera, perfectly framed, lit, and exposed. Ansel Adams was a master of post-production, i.e. darkroom, work, and the backscatter plug-in is not adding anything to the image; it is in essence, using the darkroom technique of dodging in a highly-precise way to eliminate artifacts to get to what the photographer thought she saw. That said--who doesn't like dolphins?!?

Some processing software is a good thing for folks who can use it, I am with David Haas, I just shoot like I was still loaded with 36 exposures film and try to get it right. Of course I rarely do and I am a post processing idiot and cheap so there is that. Oh, and also lazy.

My father said that laziness is the mother of invention, and that has some application here. But lots of images, even with properly managed flashes (although mostly without), show enough particulate in the water to be unusable. In the grouper chin-chuck picture, Nancy's dive skin was so poxy that I couldn't do anything with it. But it was a "grab shot," and the flashes might've been set up for something else, or come forward, or who knows. Whatever, it's going to be fun to go back through the archives to see what was abandoned as unusable.

I'm surprised the astral application wasn't found and adapted sooner although in Erin's presentations and interview on Alex Mustard's The Underwater Photography Show on YouTube she says it took a couple years fine tuning it with the two incredible developers.

I was with Erin on a liveaboard in January, and she teased us with the possibilities, but the results show that the training time was fruitful. It's interesting that even the developer of the deep-space application hadn't connected the dots, so to speak, until some divers came along.

In the second picture with the yellow fish, I didn't see any difference between the before and after. They looked to be the same.

If you A:B them, there are very small differences. What I think is remarkable about the yellow-fish pair is that the program did no damage at all to the scene, but still found some bits of particulate to remove.

 

[rmorgan]

Is it ok if I hate this idea and crap all over it? Remove the backscatter and add some dolphins or something. Maybe just ask ChatGPT to generate a better picture that you are capable of taking.

Dave—Just for you!!

 

[BoltSnap]

Dave—Just for you!!

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I think a killer whale would be better, can you do that for him please?

 

[bvanant]

I am pretty sure it won't work with elements, only with the full subscription version.
Bill

 

[tursiops]

After using the last LR non-subscribe version for several years, I gave up and subscribed to the Photography bundle in order to get LR Classic, which I wanted because sometimes I have no internet available.
This give me Photoshop as well, so I'll be trying the backscatter-removal tool soon!