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Dave's Shifters

Disciplines > Photography > Affinity Photo > Resources > Dave's Shifters

Download

Click here to download the latest 'Dave's Shifters' macro set.

To insert this into your library, simply click on the 3-line 'hamburger' on the top right of the library panel, click on 'Import Macros...' and point it at the downloaded file. Then click on the layer for which you want a model and click once on the appropriate macro in the 'Dave's Shifters' library group category.

To use these macros, simply make sure that what you can see is what you want to adjust, then click on the relevant macro.

Histogram Squeeze'n'Shift

Description

The Histogram Squeeze'n'Shift has two primary functions:

• Squeezing or Stretching the Histogram to occupy more or less of the Luminosity space.

• Shifting the Histogram left or right within the Luminosity space.

The Luminosity space ranges from 0 to 1 and corresponds to RGB possible channel values. When all of RGB are 0, the colour is black. When they are all 1, the colour is white. When only one of RGB are 0 or 1, then this may affect displayed colours accordingly.

There is also a Mono Protect set of controls which prevent the squeeze and shift effects from being applied to pixels, based on how little colour they have. This can have a startling effect in making adjusted images more realistic.

Controls

The controls available are:

• Squeeze -- Stretch: slide left to squeeze the Histogram and right to stretch it.

• Shift Left -- Shift Right: slide left to slide the Histogram left and right to slide it right.

• Mono Protect: Slide right to increasingly prevent pixels with less colour being affected by

• Feathering: Gradually reduce the effective opacity of pixels from the Mono Protect level back to zero, hence allowing the squeeze/shift effect to steadily be seen.

Discussion

This can be very useful when applied with other controls, for example Blend Modes (eg. Overlay).

With the RGB Shift control you can tilt colours to more Red or Cyan, to Green or Magenta, or to Blue or Yellow. For each you have both a main control and a fine control so you can be really exact. Use this to remove or create colour casts. Again, using Blend Modes (such as Colour) can more subtle effects. You can also adjust the opacity if desired.

The 3M Dominance shift control lets you shift the colours in the maximum, middle and minimum value of RGB in every single pixel, with Shift and Scale adjustments for each of R, G and B. Note that adjusting the Maximum or Middle values can be very noticeable, but using Blend Modes again (eg. Soft Light) can help make this more subtle. You can sometimes create subtle effects by adjusting just the Minimum sliders.

Macros

Macros created include:

• Histogram Squeeze'n'Shift: Literally squeezes, stretches and slides the histogram up and down for visible results.

• RGB Shift: Shifts RGB up to add each colour and down to add Cyan, Magenta and Yellow.

• 3M Full Shift: Adds shift to Maximum, Middle and Minimum colours in each pixel, for subtle or daring effect.

• 3M Smart Shift: Adds shift to Maximum and Minimum, with the Middle

See also

If you are having problems downloading the macros, click here to download as zip file.

For reference, here are the Version 1 macros and here they are as a zip file.