Phocus Changelog

What's new in Phocus 3.1

Oct 20, 2016

Keystone correction:
A new keystone correction tool has been added. Here you can adjust the horizontal and vertical correction using sliders and you can make fine tuning of the aspect. Apart from the slider based interface there’s also 3 different viewer tools available to setup the correction using guidelines. After having aligned the guidelines press the Apply button to update correction settings. Note that the amount slider can be used to select the percentage of vertical and horizontal correction applied. The guideline tools will adjust the vertical and horizontal offsets to match the exact theoretical correction - however for many images this may not look natural, therefore the amount slider will default to 80%. If you are actually doing reproduction work or similar you will probably want to set the amount to 100%.
Also note that the Crop & Orientation tool has a new Allow crop outside image check box. This is relevant both in relation to keystone correction but can also be useful when using just regular rotation.
Local adjustment of highlight recovery
A recovery slider has been added in the Adjustment Layers tool. Viewer background and margin options
First of all theres now a proof mode available - a button to the right of the compare mode button has been added to toggle proof mode on and off. In the Preferences General tab you can control both background color and margin independently for normal mode and proof mode. Also note that you can toggle between proof and normal mode using the keyboard short cut o.
Added response options:
In previous versions you could select between a standard film response and a linear response via the Reproduction Mode check box in the Reproduction tool. This check box has now been replaced by a Response popup menu. The following options are available:
Standard:
This corresponds to the Reproduction mode check box being unchecked in previous versions. It will give you a standard film curve response suitable for standard photography.
Reproduction:
This corresponds to the Reproduction mode check box being checked in previous releases. It will give you a linear response thereby providing the best possible color reproduction. The linear response is tuned so that it will give you correct ISO sensitivity.
Reproduction Low Gain:
The old reproduction mode added some gain in order to obtain the correct ISO sensitivity. This Low Gain mode also provides a strictly linear response but avoids adding any unnecessary gain and therefore in situations where you are able to increase the exposure correspondingly, using this low gain response will result in better quality images.
Negative:
This inverted response will be suitable if you are reproducing B&W negatives. Please note that the EV, Shadow Fill and Highlight recovery adjustments apply to the image before the inversion has taken place. While of course you can also use this mode for color negatives handling those will also require the ability to specify separate shadow and highlight points for R, G and B and this feature has yet to be added.
Rodenstock eShutter support
With this shutter connected via USB you will know be able to control it’s aperture and shutter setting from within Phocus. The camera should be configured as pin-hole and a trigger cable connected from camera to eShutter.
Various improvements:
support for 10 bit deep color displays
CinemaDNG export has been changed to obtain better Adobe Premiere
adds support for the XCD 30 lens
also contains a large number of stability and usability improvement

New in Phocus 3.0 (Apr 25, 2016)

Local adjustments:
It’s now possible to have image adjustments only affect selected parts of an image. For this purpose the Adjustment Layers tool has been added. Using this you can add a number of adjustment layers. For each layer you can control which parts of the image are affected using a combination of these tools:
a) Brush:
This will let you paint brush strokes - holding down alt will make it erase from existing strokes. Brush options will show up at the bottom of the tool when the brush is selected. Note that the brush size can also be changed via the mouse scroll wheel (or equivalent).
b) Gradient:
Lets you construct a simple gradient on one side of which the layer will be 100% active
and on the other 100% inactive. The track handle with the dark ring indicates the active side of the gradient.
c) Radial gradient:
With this tool you can draw an ellipsis. By default it will add an active part to the layer inside the shape but note the controls at the bottom where you can select to invert the effect and also control feathering.
The best way to get an idea how these tools work is to enable the Show mask check box next to the color picker control - this will illustrate the coverage of the layer (keyboard short cut: y).
The adjustments that can be affected by a layer are EV, Sharpness, Saturation, Moiré, Temp and Tint. Each of these are represented by a slider controlling the offset compared to the global setting of the corresponding tool. So if for instance you have a global EV setting of 1.5 and set an adjustment layer EV offset to -1.0 the areas covered by this layer will have an effective EV adjustment of 0.5. Do note that several layers can affect the same adjustment - it’s still simple arithmetic adding combined offsets to the global adjustment value.
Using the action menu at the bottom of the tool you can easily clear all brush strokes, duplicate a layer or automatically generate a brush layer that is suited to use for moiré removal. You can experiment with 3 different levels of sensitivity for this moiré layer generation, and of course once generated you can edit this layer using the usual tools in order to get a perfect match.
H6D support
This release adds support for the new H6D-50c camera including support for tethered operation via USB. Also support has been added for the mp4 video files that can be generated with the H6D, they can be browsed and played back and editing of metadata is possible. Metadata will be placed in sidecar files.
It should be noted that live video and browsing of an inserted card are features that will be added in an upcoming update of Phocus combined with a corresponding firmware update.
Enhanced Eizo monitor support
All current models of self calibrating Eizo monitors are now supported by Phocus. Also as a new feature scheduling can be configured to ensure that the monitor gets calibrated within regular intervals.

New in Phocus 2.9.2 (Feb 12, 2016)

New in Phocus 2.9.1 (Nov 4, 2015)

New in Phocus 2.8.4 (Feb 23, 2015)

New in Phocus 2.8.3 (Feb 23, 2015)

New in Phocus 2.8.2 (Oct 25, 2014)

New in Phocus 2.8 (Mar 11, 2014)

New features:
Capture Sequencer:
This new tool enables various kind of tethered capture automation like interval capture, self timer and exposure bracketing. In an existing installation you will need to manually add it - or select to load the default tools for the Capture tab. Included is a number of factory presets demonstrating the various possible usage scenarios but you are free to set up your own sequences and save them as additional user presets.
Basically a sequence consists of a number of capture steps. For each step you can define aperture and/or shutter offsets relative to the exposure settings set when the sequence is started. Using the cycle button you can setup a number of repeats of all steps and indicate a timing interval for the repeats. It’s also possible to setup a pre-delay thereby delaying the start of the sequence after pressing play.
Compare mode in landscape orientation:
When using the viewer in compare mode it's now possible to select between portrait and landscape format. In the middle of the top viewer bar there's an A-B button that can be used to toggle between the 2 modes.
New Hasselblad L* RGB working space option:
In the Reproduction tool a Working Space popup has been added that will allow you to select between Hasselblad RGB and Hasselblad L* RGB. In previous versions of Phocus the working space would always be Hasselblad RGB. The new Hasselblad L* RGB working space is especially relevant if you are working with image reproduction. As the name implies it's using an L* gradient but also at the same time the gamut of the working space has been expanded compared to Hasselblad RGB.
Related to this new option the UI for selecting the input profile has changed slightly. Previously unless you were using your own custom profile you would want to select Hasselblad RGB in the profile menu. Since the profile needs to match the selected working space the profile menu now has an entry that says Factory. In effect this will select the factory input profile that matches the currently selected working space. If the working space is Hasselblad RGB factory will translate to the old Hasselblad RGB profile. If the selected working space is Hasselblad L* RGB factory will be interpreted as the new Hasselblad L* RGB profile.
Of course it should also be noted that in case you are doing custom profiles any existing profiles will need to be recalibrated if you select to use Hasselblad L* RGB.
Integration of self-calibrating Eizo displays:
Calibration of these displays can now be handled directly from Phocus. This ensures that the display is setup to provide the best possible results for the viewing of Hasselblad images.
Once an eligible monitor is connected Phocus will show a dialog asking whether you want to handle calibration. If you choose to do this you will be guided to an extra Eizo tab in the Preferences window where it’s possible to setup calibration options and start the actual calibration. This preference tab will also let you toggle whether Phocus should handle calibration or not.
It should be noted that it’s not currently possible for us to integrate with calibrations made by Eizo’s own ColorNavigator software.
Therefore once you’ve made a calibration using Phocus launching ColorNavigator will switch the display back to the last calibration made by itself. When you switch back to running Phocus you will be prompted about this change and will get the opportunity to restore the calibration made by Phocus or alternatively stop handling the calibration from Phocus. In fact just running the ColorNavigator Agent will interfere so we recommend that you switch off that option in the ColorNavigator preferences dialog.
The calibration target chosen by Phocus will of course be optimized to work with our Hasselblad RGB and Hasselblad L* RGB working spaces but it should be noted that the resulting calibration will also work well even if using a somewhat smaller working space like Adobe RGB in Photoshop. However if you routinely view images in much smaller working spaces like sRGB you should make a special calibration for this purpose using the Eizo Color Navigator software.
Other improvements:
an issue that would prevent using live video on an H5D in flash sync mode has been fixed
some issues with dust removal in the viewer has been fixed
Also a number of minor fixes are included.