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Digital Fusion Plugins

Our plugins all bear the name "Pel", which is an old-school term for "pixel," or literally "Picture Element."

Pel Unsharper Mask
Unsharper Mask is an advanced sharpening tool for Digital Fusion. Designed for professionals by professionals, the Pel Unsharper Mask allows fine-grade control over sharpening your images, while limiting the effect on grain or noise.

Let's face it, many of us have gone for a long time without sharpening our images at all in Fusion because the built-in USM tends to oversharpen grain and noise, doing more harm than good. Even when we have sharpened images in other applications with a USM featuring a threshold we have still lamented the plethora of little speckles that are a common side effect of a single threshold. Pel Unsharper Mask provides a dual threshold, smoothing out the threshold artifacts, while protecting the grain and noise from being sharpened.

Don't confuse the Threshold in the built-in USM with the Threshold in the Pel Unsharper Mask. The built-in threshold just limits the brightness values of the sharpen effect. The Pel Unsharper Mask threshold actually modifies the edge detection. Thus, reducing the sharpening of grain or noise.

Ever since creating The Unsharper Mask as an internal tool we have used it in every single project. A little bit of sharpening, judiciously applied without sharpening grain can make almost any shot look better. Sharpening with the Pel Unsharper Mask can benefit just about any video source, and is especially useful for resized footage, like when down-converting HiDef to StandardDef. Several major studios working exclusively with floating point film images have tested it and found the results superior to both no sharpening at all, and the internal USM.

But don't take our word for it, download the demo below and try it on your own system today! Read the documentation online.

Traditional Unsharp Mask Amount and Radius controls.
Dual Thresholds to limit sharpening of grain or noise, while reducing artifacts present in other USM implementations that have a single threshold.
Option to enhance apparent sharpness by smoothing (blurring) areas determined NOT to be edges. This can also be used for stylized effects at higher blur radii.
Independent control over the white and black halos used by Unsharp Masking to accentuate edges - you are given the option to scale the white or black halo separately, not just turn it on or off.
Independent controls over white and black halo clipping. Set a maximum effect amount for the white or black halo to keep high-contrast areas from becoming oversharpened when attempting to sharpen lower contrast areas in the same image.
Production-friendly settings to speed your workflow - Configure the plugin to work faster when HiQ is disabled, or even have it pass-thru automatically until HiQ is turned on. Select from multiple blur algorithms to trade off speed vs. quality for the final output as well.
Fully compatible with floating point images - ideal for film work and the quality-conscious.

View a Comparison of Pel Unsharper Mask vs. the built-in USM
(includes other samples) - Requires Flash 6
(Non-flash version. This one is actually BIGGER.)

Download the DEMO, and try it for yourself! (~120K)
(Works for interactive or render node with watermark.)

Right now, we are offering a special introductory price of $65 US.

Render node licenses are available for $25 ea in quantities of 3 or more. See the order page for other quantities. This is also an introductory price.

Introductory pricing ends soon. So act now!

Pel Unsharper Mask - Interactive License(s) $65 ea.

Pel Unsharper Mask - Render Node License(s) $75 three-pack (see order page for additional qty info)

Orders are processed through RegSoft. The order page gives you options to order online, or by phone, or fax. See the order page for details.

Volume discounts can be arranged for larger quantities. Please inquire.

See Other Fusion Plugins