As many of you know, I have been involved with Perfectly Clear for some years now, following it through its development, as an alpha and beta tester.

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As many of you know, I have been involved with Perfectly Clear for some years now, following it through its development, as an alpha and beta tester. I have been given this role, I suspect, for my ability to…break… computers (well ,drive them to their limits and beyond).

Late last year, they sent me V1.0.3, and I threw it at one of my Sony A900 files. My computer promptly had a seizure and sulked for an hour or so. So I sent an event log in and waited for results. They came back quickly, having ascertained that it was an issue with how CS address the memory code.

A couple of weeks ago, I built a new machine for pure image editing, one which does not have to share this function with all the other software on my existing machine ( Office ‘07, Dragon Naturally,Lightroom, Skype ( a system hog if ever there was one while running), iTunes etc, etc). Lately I have been moving into creating files which often exceed 2Gb, and my trusty PC was having a fit..or at least sending me out for a leisurely coffee..

The new machine has the following specs: Intel Core i7 930 CPU, ATi Radeon 5770 graphics, 12GB DDR3 1600 RAM, Gigabyte mainboard with facility for USB 3.0 (when it comes), a Corsair SSD-R120GB hard drive, a Western Digital Raptor 300GB 10000rpm drive for files storage ( transferred across the LAN via a 1GB switch), and an  A-DATA 32GB SSD as a scratch disk for CS4. It is running Windows 7 x64 Professional. They sent me a patched version, which runs just fine on my new machine. Curiously, so does the old one, so there is obviously a conflict on my old machine, which now doubles as file server. PC also runs just fine on my Vaio.

I have been busy installing all my applications on it, including Plugin Suite and Nik Color Efex, Dfine 2.0 and Silver Efex printer drivers, blah, blah blah. Last, but not least is Athentech’s Perfectly Clear, a PhotoShop plugin for CS and Elements. Perfectly Clear uses some very sophisticated technology and science, to bring an image closer to how the human eye works. It also takes account of the way in which cameras are less effective than the human eye and work differently. Visit the website and click on this link to learn more.

Time and time again, I meet photographers who complain that, while they love photography, they abhor the computer work and post-production. The good news is you can still buy film. If, however, you are committed to digital, then the computer is a necessary part of your workflow.  This does not mean you have to have a PhD in PhotoShop. There are other alternatives, for example, Lightroom or Bibble 5. If however, you have CSx or Elements, then Perfectly Clear will take away a lot of the pain. It works like this:

Open PhotoShop. Then open a file (RAW or Jpeg), and click on the Athentech Dialogue box (located under the Filters menu: Filters>Athentech Imaging>Perfectly Clear Pro). Immediately you will see a difference. Then it is a matter of playing with the few sliders available and salting to taste.

I would love to have written a 2500 word review, but there isn’t much more to say. It just works (to plagiarise Steve Jobs). It really is that simple.

For those of you who are more advanced, Perfectly Clear works on layers, optimising only that layer so, if you want to, you can use masking techniques to blend and remove parts of the effect. It also works on selections, so you can, say, lasso a face and then Perfectly Clear it. I will be demonstrating its use at the workshop in Hanmer next weekend, and giving attendees a chance to use it and learn how to incorporate it into their idea- and workflow. At the end of this article is a before-and after shot corrected in PC. Note how it has opened up the shadows in what is a tricky exposure

At the moment, it is only available as a plugin for Windows x32, so if you have Win x64 installed, then you will need to use it in the 32 bit version  of PhotoShop( which automatically installs on a 64 bit machine  in both 32bit and 64 bit versions anyway). Brad at Athentech tells me that a native 64 bit version is close, and it is available in MAC as a beta. There is also a version for the iPhone ($US 2.99) (… Nick?…). At the moment they are working on a standalone product, which should be out later this year.