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Part 1. Introducing ALCE. Introductional Video | By Marco Olivotto

1.1 and 1.2. Presentation of RBG, Roberto Bigano Group. The birth of ALCE

Presentation of RBG, Roberto Bigano Group, Marco Oivotto and Davide Barranca.
The birth an the basics of ALCE. About this instructional videos

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1.3 What is local contrast? Understanding ALCE's working principles

The concept of luminance ratios. Dark and light points and the use of the info palette. Overall contrast and local contrast of an image.
Fist application of ALCE

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1.4 Getting ALCE to work. Installing and running the script

Installation of ALCE2 on CS4 and CS5 using Adobe Extension Manager: Please follow the instructions of the video for CS5 and of the installer for CS4. ALCE2 don't work with CS3. You must use ALCE1.
Unistall of previous version and auto update via AEM. How to run ALCE the first time.
The ALCE main window and the extended radius value. How to get support, info, download videos and documentation.
The new Batch processing option.
The formats where ALCE works: How to apply ALCE. A first comparison between different radius values.

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1.5 Between radius and saturation. Choosing ALCE's radius and dealing with colors

What is radius. The difference between various radius values. Re-allocation of contrast, The relationship between radius value and file size. The saturation issue and the perceptual saturation.

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Part 2. Working with ALCE. Advance Instructional Video | By Marco Olivotto

2.1 ALCE in the Abbey. Simple ALCE layers tuned with Opacity and hand-made layer masks

The re-allocation of luminosity. Use opacity to control the ALCE effect. What is a layer mask. Create manually simple masks to protect some parts of the image.

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2.2 Smoked ALCE. Comparison and blending of ALCE layers with different radii

ALCE's application at different radii on different layers. Layer masks and painting of the effect to combine ALCE at multiple radii in a single image.

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2.3 ALCE goes plastic. Separating light and dark halos, and beyond

Use of Darken and Lighten blending modes in order to split the effect of dark and light halos across two layers. Usage of opacity to modulate them separately. Advanced processing for further detail enhancement.

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2.4 ALCE on Wuthering Heights. Using combination of Channels and layer Masks

Making ALCE's author look like a fool. HiRaLoAm comparison. Finding a suitable RGB channel to be used as a layer mask. Channel operations on a layer mask.

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2.5 ALCE: portrait or fashion? Difference leads to different approaches to the same image

Different masks can enhance different features on the same image. Mask blurring. Use of Difference blending mode to create a skintone mask.

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2.6 ALCE gets married. Enhancing shape where there's little

Use of channel operations on a duplicate image to create a mask, via HardMix blending mode. Application of two ALCE radii through the mask. Multiply blending mode at reduced opacity. Hue/Saturation correction.

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2.7 ALCE in the Lab. A Diversion into a powerful colorspace

Lab color mode. Separation of contrast (L channel) and color (a,b channels). Use of Lab channels as a foundation for a mask. Usage of Gray 50% fill to isolate colors, plus blending modes and further mask optimization.

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2.8 ALCE, Leak-a-boo. Localizing the effect by conditional blending

Image analysis. Explanation of Advanced Blending Options and "Blend If" sliders. Their use in Lab to wipe halos out from saturated areas.

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2.9 ALCE finds the Key. A difficult case which requires Black Magic.

Roundtrip RGB->CMYK->RGB conversion. ALCE on CMYK. Retaining the effect on the K channel only. Applying the CMYK effect back to RGB.

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2.10 ALCE. The ultimate nightmare. Improving impossible cmyk conversions

Out-of-gamut colors in CMYK conversions. De-saturation as the standard option to recover detail. ALCE in CMYK as a better choice.

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Credits:

ALCE V2 © 2010 Roberto Bigano Group

Alce was developed and coded by Davide Barranca
based on an idea by Jay Ryness

RBG is
Roberto Bigano
Giuliana Abbiati (aka Cromaline)
Davide Barranca
Pietro Bianchi
Marco Olivotto
Francesco Piras

RBG would like to thank
Matteo Discardi
Fred Drury (www.marklandimaging.com)
Sara Lando
for sharing their pictures and allowing us to use them in this video

Marketing, promotion and motivation by Roberto Bigano
Screencast by Marco Olivotto
RBG logo and opening video by Giuliana Abbiati
Website maintenance by Francesco Piras and Roberto Piludu

Heartfelt thanks to the Adobe PSIt Community and especially to
Alessandro Bernardi
Marco Diodato
Daniele Di Stanio
Tiziano Fruet
Dan Margulis

Thanks also to all the betatesters, all over the world!

Marco Olivotto would like to thank Davide Barranca for his trust and friendship.
"My color, your contrast."

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