White Balance / Highlight Recovery Plug-in Information

[ Get the plug-in ]
How highlight recovery works
Applying gain on the R, G, and B channels will cause one or two of these
channels to exceed white level. Normally these values above white level
are clipped. However, it is possible to use this information to make an
intelligent guess about the other channel(s) that did not have gain applied.
The ungained channel(s) will usually contain clipped values; highlight
recovery will make an intelligent guess about what the original unclipped
values were. If the original image does not contain perfect white balance,
then highlight recovery offers the possibility of increasing dynamic range
compared to no highlight recovery.
RAW
You will get technically superior results by shooting to a RAW format
and applying any white balance and highlight recovery there. This tool
is for situations where you do not have a RAW file to work with.
Gallery
Original. This image is from a scanned photo (shot on film).

Normal white balance, no highlight recovery. *This image has its luminance
normalized to match the next image for the sake of comparison. Due to
mixed color temperature lighting, there is no white balance that can make
all the whites appear white.

White balanced with highlight recovery. Roll-over the image to compare
with the version without highlight recovery. Note the additional highlight
detail near the barrel of the gun.

Get the Plugin
Similar white balance plug-ins sell for $39.95 (Imaging Factory White
Balance v2.0).
Download: [ Mac
] [ Windows 32 & 64-bit
] | Installation
instructions + manual
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Changes:
v1.0.7 - Full GIMP support (PC only; via PSPI).
v1.0.6 (Mac only) - Mac Photoline support, save + load settings
default directory now sticks
v1.0.5 - Multi-threaded for faster performance, clicking on preview
shows original image, x64 support for PC
v1.0.4 (PC only) - Plugin now compatible with older processors that
lack SSE2 instructions. Fixed tab order.
v1.0.2 - Fixed bugs with the eyedropper in 16-bit and 32-bit modes.
v1.0.1 - Compatible with Irfanview and Paint Shop Pro.
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