U Point^TM Technology

When selectively retouching or adjusting a digital image, the definition of the area to apply adjustments to (The mask) is one of the challenging operations, as it usually consists in using selection tools, magic wands or even skills to draw that mask. All these methods are either cumbersome or not precise enough.

In the early 2000s, Nils Kokemohr (founder and former CTO of Nik Software) and his engineers created a revolutionary alternate and ultra-efficient method to make this operation of selection/masking as seamless as one can dream: The U Point Technology.

Since then, this technology has been widely acclaimed and awarded as it is present throughout the 7 plugins of the Nik Collection. DxO acquired the Nik Collection from Google in 2017 and modernized the U Point technology experience and interactions to implement it on Raw image  files in DxO PhotoLab, the advanced photo editing software.

What is it, and how it works?

U point, literally meaning “You point”, is an invitation to an as-natural-as-possible action to designate by pointing with the mouse, a reference pixel -called a Control Point.

This action comes form natural designation action – You point to what you want to adjust.

Then the user can adjust a radius with a size slider to define the perimeter of influence of the adjustment, or distance bias.

The designated reference point is used by the technology to understand its characteristics in terms of Color channel values (red, green, blue) but also hue, saturation and brightness that are computed by the U Point engine.

In addition, the U Point technology also analyzes the neighborhood texture to be able to make the distinction between lookalike pixels according to color components and textures.

The magic of the U Point Technology is that the user can place as much U point as he wants in the image, to

• refine precision – as the similarity is analyzed per various control points entities thus helping the engine to differentiate from other reference pixels and balance the similarity diagnosis
• help with selection of non-roundish area
• extend the selection to a slightly shaded reference point to consider
• designate different reference pixels on different objects

U Point Technology in DxO PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab is the only software to feature the U Point Technology on RAW image files with the most complete set of adjustments. You can now edit your Raw images, with non-destructive workflow.

• White Balance
• Hue
• Sharpness
• Focus/Blur