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Effects
Grayscale
Use this feature to ensure a picture doesn't lose its contrast during conversion from color to black-and-white. You can add contrast to a picture in grayscale by adjusting the color-channel values and the Method used.
Some color contrasts will disappear after conversion to grayscale (e.g. the difference between green and blue or red), making the result look especially “gray” compared to a color picture. An elegant solution to this is color-channel-based grayscale conversion, which can give you a picture with good contrasts even in cases like this.
To use this function, go to Edit | Effects | Grayscale [Ctrl+G] in a Browser window, or Effects | Grayscale in an Editor window. This window offers you several methods for converting to grayscale. They affect how the individual color channels will be processed:
- Grayscale—uses all channels in a fixed ratio that corresponds to the typical way that the human eye perceives light. This is a useful method for most photographs.
- Desaturation—this removes the color elements from the picture.
- Advanced—this uses a complicated conversion method. The results are comparable with the first method, but more demanding on your computer.
- Average of channels—the average value among all color channels is calculated for each pixel.
- Maximum of channels—this uses the color channel with the highest value.
- Minimum of channels—this uses the color channel with the lowest value.
- Red channel—this uses the red channel only.
- Green channel—this uses the green channel only.
- Blue channel—this uses the blue channel only.
- Custom—the channels are used in the ratio that you set under Source channels. This method gives the most opportunity to choose which elements should receive how much emphasis. Turning on Normalize will ensure that the sum of the percentages will be an even 100%.
More Information
Black and White Landscapes: See How to Add Life to Black and White
Create Your Own Black and White Pictures
Mix Channels
This function changes a picture's tinting by assembling colors from the original color channels in a new relation to each other.
Work with RGB channels is especially useful when repairing defective pictures with misassembled channels, for advanced color balance adjustments, and for reconstructing the colors in infrared photographs. For infrared photography, due to extremely strong exposure of the red channel, we recommend conversion to black and white, or swapping of the red and blue channels, for a more natural feel.
To reach this window, use Edit | Effects | Mix Channels… in the Browser, or Effects | Mix Channels in the Editor.
The first three items in this window's Channel menu set what channel's output should be affected by the source channels listed below the menu. Offset gives a flat strengthening/weakening of the whole channel. Setting the channel to Grayscale switches the whole window into grayscale mode. Unlike the Grayscale function, it enables subtraction of individual color channels.
Gradient Map
Use this function to tint the picture towards a pair of colors of your choice. The input picture is first converted internally to grayscale. All output colors are mapped to shades in that "hidden" grayscale step.
You can reach this function using Edit | Effects | Gradient Map in the Browser, or Effects | Gradient Map in the Editor.
The darkest shades in the picture will receive the color on the left of the gradient; the lightest shades get the color on the right. You can set the endpoints of the gradient by clicking the buttons at the two ends of it. You can add other colors of your choice in the middle of the gradient. To do so, either double-click the gradient or click Add. To change a color on the inside of the gradient, select the marker for it and then click Active. You can also move the marker to a different place inside the gradient. Clicking Erase will erase the selected color from the gradient; Erase All will erase all colors inside the gradient, leaving only those at the two ends.
Custom
The Custom Filter is made for highly advanced users. Use it to apply a customizable convolution matrix to a picture.
Use Edit | Effects | Custom… in the Browser or Effects | Custom… in the Editor to reach this function.
How this function works:
The matrix contains 5×5 coefficients, which set how the value of each individual pixel in the future picture will be calculated. Each coefficient multiplies the brightness of the given pixels during processing. The value stored directly in the middle of the matrix represents the value that is used directly for the given pixel itself. The other coefficients are used for processing this pixel's surroundings. For example, the coefficient at the top left is used to multiply the brightness of the pixel two pixels up and to the left from the given pixel; all 25 coefficients are used in a similar manner. The resulting values are summed together one by one, and then their sum is divided by the Divisor value. You can have its value Set automatically by the program to the sum of all coefficients. The Shift is then added to the result of the division, and the result is the final brightness value sent to the given pixel. The whole calculation is repeated for every pixel in the picture and for each of the three color channels.
The function's practical use depends on what matrix you use. For example, a high positive value in the middle and negative values in its immediate surroundings cause sharpening of a picture, doing the inverse blurs it. Using the Shift value, you can lighten or darken the whole picture by a specified amount.
Variations
Use the Variations function to edit a photo's brightness and tinting "visually"—by viewing variations of the current picture and picking the best one.
To reach this function, use Effects | Variations in the Editor.
The preview at the far left shows the original picture. Use the three pictures directly to its right to lighten and darken it. Use the six pictures to the right of those to change its tinting. The column for lightening and darkening includes the original for comparison. The hexagon for tinting also includes the original for comparison. To edit the picture's colors, click the preview with the new look that you desire. To return to the picture's original look without leaving the window, click the preview of the original.
Use the slider at the top right to change the effect's Strength to any of five levels from Small to Large.
Envelopes
You can find the Envelopes function under Edit | Effects | Envelopes… in the Browser mode, and under Effects | Envelopes… in the Editor module.
Use envelopes for themed crops of photographs, e.g. in the shape of a heart, bubble, frame, etc. Zoner Studio can set the envelope’s background color and the sharpness of the transition into the envelope. It can also do a “fading” crop into the envelope.
You can choose from several types of envelopes:
- Black-and-white and Color Templates —The photo will be “cropped” to fit the envelope (frame) you choose. You can move the envelope around the photo and resize it. The crop receives the color you set under Color. The borders can be made blurry, by increasing the value for Blur.
- Postage Stamp —Use this to add a postage stamp border that goes around the picture or fits into it. You can set the stamp’s color, background color, and width, and a position and rotation for its shadow.
- Puzzle —Use this to divide a picture into puzzle pieces with a pen width, pen color, and percentage of missing pieces of your choice.
- Filmstrip —makes the picture look like a frame in a filmstrip.
- Notebook paper —makes the picture look like a piece of notebook paper.
Custom Envelopes
You can create your own envelopes in addition to the ones already provided. Envelopes “crop” pictures based on masks that are saved in one of the system folders of Zoner Studio: C:\Program Files\Zoner\Photo Studio 19\Envelopes. Black-and-white envelopes are defined using a GIF-format picture with a size of 1024 × 768 pixels and a preview (also in GIF format) with a size of 60 × 45 pixels. Color envelopes are defined using a picture in the PNG format, with alpha channel transparency, and another picture for the preview (also a PNG file), with the same sizes as above.
Give the files that make up your custom envelopes numeric filenames following the existing pattern in the Envelopes folder. Your envelopes will then automatically appear in the program’s list of envelopes. . The Envelopes folder contains a sample file (envelope.ZMF) to help you prepare custom black-and-white envelopes.
More Information
Turn Your Photos Into Greeting Cards: We’ve Got Downloadable Photo Frames for You.
Borders
Fading Borders
Use this feature to “smooth” the picture’s borders. In this window, you set either a single fade width for all sides (if the Symmetrical option is on) or set them separately for all four sides. The Transparency setting determines how strongly the picture will be made transparent at its borders. You can also set the color of the background that the picture will be placed upon.
Soft Shadow
The Soft Shadow effect makes pictures seem to float above a background. To reach this function, use Edit | Effects | Soft Shadow. You can set the horizontal and vertical offset for the shadow in pixels. The Blurring setting determines how strongly the edges of the shadow are matted. Transparency affects how the color obtained from mixing the Shadow color and Background color will be finalized.
3D Buttons
Use Edit | Effects | 3D Buttons… to reach this window, where you can make pictures look like buttons by lightening/darkening their edges. These buttons will have a 3D look.
Cartoon
Use this filter to make a picture look like a cartoon. It detects and emphasizes the picture's main outlines, and suppresses the rest.
When applying this effect, the program first smooths the picture – how strongly depends on the Smoothness. Then it redraws the picture's major contours, using lines with the requested Thickness. To control how intensely lines are added to the picture, adjust the Strength.
High Pass
Use High Pass to eliminate low frequencies in a picture while keeping higher ones. The result is a final image where high-contrast areas are kept as-is, while the rest is replaced with 50% gray (when the Normal blending mode is used). How this based effect is harnessed depends on the Mode setting.
Radius sets to what extent this filter is applied to nearby pixels. Raise this value to make contours more visible. The best value to use here depends on the picture’s resolution.
Switch the Mode setting to Overlay to increase the picture’s local contrast in dependence on the radius setting.
The Soft Light mode emphasizes details in the picture.
The Normal mode simply displays the high-pass output, where low-contrast areas are replaced with 50% gray.
Use the last of the settings here to set whether or not to Preserve edges and the Intensity for this. In Preserve edges mode, the transitions at edges in the image have less contrast, and contours at these transitions are suppressed.
More Information
High Pass: Master Contrast and Sharpness
Plug-ins
The Editor module can work with third-party .8bf plugins. However, this function is not supported by the Zoner Studio developers. Hence, some plugins might work whereas others don't.
Zoner Studio does not include these plug-ins, but both free and commercial plug-ins are available on the Web. To find free plug-ins on the Web, search for e.g. “free 8bf.”
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