· What is "Shadow Illuminator"?
 · What is ShadowIlluminator.org?
 · How does the software work?
 · Do I need to register?
 · Can I buy Shadow Illuminator?
 · What about my Copyrights? What are you going to do with my material?
 · How do I get the full resolution result?
 · Things do not seem to work. Text and pictures do not display properly.
 · What is "Amount of Shadow Enhancement"? (Registered Users Only)
 · The original image I received is not the same as the one I uploaded?
 · Can I use other image formats besides JPG?
 · My original file is in BMP format. How do I submit the image for processing?
 · I have a photo editing package that does the "same thing." Why is this different?
 · I have a paper photograph. What do I do?
 · I have a question/comment.  Who do I call?

• What is "Shadow Illuminator"?
  Shadow Illuminator is an image processing software that intelligently "illuminates" dark areas of an image. The Shadow Illuminator was developed at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University to enable machines to approach visual capabilities of human eye.  Users will find that the results of Shadow Illuminator resemble what they would see  if they viewed the environment instead of a camera.
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• What is www.shadowilluminator.org?
  ShadowIlluminator.org is a web site developed for on-line demonstration and testing of Shadow Illuminator software.  It is intended for both imaging professionals and consumers. The web site allows users to upload their images and receive enhanced results in a few seconds. Both "before and after" pictures are returned for easy comparison. View our Public Gallery for examples.
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• Do I need to register?
  No, you do not need to register to be able to preview Shadow Illuminator capabilities on-line. However, there are additional benefits and conveniences if you were a registered user. The benefits registered users receive include:
  • Access to "My Gallery", a private disk space to maintain user's uploaded images for future visits. No limit on number of pictures in My Gallery is imposed at this time.
  • Increased upload file limit from 350KB to 1.5MB per image.
  • Ability to adjust amount of shadow correction. Guest's images are corrected only at the default setting.
  • Ability to generate a secured link to some of your private images and share it with others.
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• Can I buy Shadow Illuminator?
  Shadow Illuminator is not available as a commercial product yet. To be notified when it becomes available, please provide your email address by registering at the home page.
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• What about my Copyrights? What are you going to do with my material?
  Make sure you read and understand the terms of use and the copyrights section within. In a nutshell:
  • You retain your copyrights.
  • By uploading your image, you grant us permission to process your material through our software so that we can show you the results.
  • You grant us permission to use your material for internal testing of our technology.
  • If, and only if, you choose to include your material in our public gallery, then you grant us a royalty-free license to use those items only in connection with promoting our web site, service, technology and any related products.
  • All material that you chose not to include in the public gallery remains private for your viewing only, unless you generate a secured link to certain items and share that link with others over the Internet or otherwise. This link can only be generated by you from your private gallery, but once you email that link or share it in on-line forums for example, potentially anybody could access and view the corresponding item of your private material just by following the link.
  • Anonymous users can upload and temporarily view their results. Option to display submitted material in the public library or to generate a secured link by which others can be invited to view their material is only available to registered users as to prevent our service from being used as a conduit for potential unauthorized transmission of copyrighted material of the third parties.
  • All enhanced results are compressed at 50% JPG quality. The originals are displayed in the form originally submitted.
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• How does the software work?
  From the original image the software estimates the illumination field that illuminated the scene when the picture was taken. Then it corrects every pixel to produce a result that would have been seen if the scene was uniformly illuminated.   It is intelligent in that it automatically "finds" shadows just by "looking" at the original picture.
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• How do I get the full resolution result?
  When you are in the public or your private gallery ("My Gallery"), the image displayed in the right-hand panel IS the full resolution image. It may appear smaller to fit within your browser window, but you can download the full resolution file by simply right-clicking on this image and then selecting "Save Picture As". Alternatively, by clicking on the picture in the right-hand panel, a new browser window will open containing the full resolution picture by itself. You can download this picture also by Right-click -> SavePictureAs.
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• Things do not seem to work. Text and pictures do not display properly.
  This may be the browser problem. We did not exhaustively test our web site for all possible browsers and versions. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and Netscape 6.2 under windows seem to work fine. Older browsers are most likely to exhibit some kind of problem. Netscape 4.7 has been known to crash for unknown reason, not only on our site but on other sites as well. Finally, we make light use of JavaScript so it would be a good idea to keep JavaScript enabled, which is a default setting in most browsers.
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• What is "Amount of Shadow Enhancement" selector on the upload panel on the home page? (Registered Users Only)
  The "Amount of Shadow" allows you to control the amount of shadow illumination. Settings provide for more or less of shadow compensation. For most images, however, default setting produces good results. This option is only available to registered users that are signed in. Images uploaded by guest users are processed at the default setting.
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• Why does my processed image have distortion that does not show in the original image?
  Highly compressed JPG images contain compression artifacts in deep shadows that show as noise once the shadows are illuminated. Therefore, it is advantageous to upload high quality images.
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• Can I use other image formats besides JPG?
  The web site currently only accepts JPG image format in order to minimize web traffic. In principle, the Shadow Illuminator can work with any image format.
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• My original file is in BMP format. How do I submit the image for processing?
  Convert your BMP image to JPG using your favorite photo editor such as Microsoft Photo Editor or Adobe Photoshop.
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• I have a photo editing package that does the "same thing." Why is this different?
  Commonly used tools to compensate for shadows in originals include brightness/contrast adjustment, gamma adjustment and histogram equalization. Advanced users of Photoshop or similar photo editing packages could go through a tedious sequence of steps to "mask" objects from the shadows and then selectively change the brightness of one or the other.  The difference is that with "Shadow Illuminator" (a) it is automatic,  'one-click' process, (b) the results are superior to anything currently available on the market since the processing is based on a sophisticated mathematical model of how human eye perceives visual images, (c) other methods create shift in colors, or create "halos" or "auras" artifacts around the object/shadow boundary.
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• I have a paper photograph that I would like to try with your software. What do I do?
  Scan your paper photograph into a digital format. Convert the digital image into good quality JPEG, and upload it for processing.  The best signal quality is achieved in digitally captured images or images digitized from negatives and slides.  The low level signal may be lost in paper photograph, but it's worth a try.
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• I have a question/comment.  Who do I call?
  The main purpose of the site is to hear what you have to say about Shadow Illuminator.  Contact Us via email with your comments and questions. We would love to hear from you. We will do our best to reply to you via email.
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