Adjusting Images

Overview:

TOPs are a powerful way to manipulate images in TouchDesigner. We can use TOPs for everything from practical technical work with images (like making color palettes or status indicators) to aesthetic and special effect treatments. In this example we’ll look at a few different ways we might use TOPs to adjust images.  

• A Level TOP can be used for most standard image adjustments – from inverting the image, to adjusting the white and black point of an image. The Level TOP is often used for opacity controls when building interactive systems.
• Hue Saturation and Value are easily adjustable with the HSV Adjust TOP – while the effect of this TOP is often colorful when used on an input image, it’s often very helpful when working with interface elements that need subtle color shifts within a specific chromatic range. It can also be used to create fast parametric palettes.
• Many visual effects common on social media platforms can be quickly put together with a few simple operators. This effect popular on TikTock is a combination of an Edge TOP and an HSV Adjust TOP.
• Open Color IO is “a complete color management solution geared towards motion picture production with an emphasis on visual effects and computer animation.” Color lookup tables (LUTs) are often used to create specific filmic looks, and make many visual treatments easy to reproduce. 
• Monochrome and color tinted images are easy to achieve by combining the Monochrome TOP and the Constant TOP. Nearly every generator TOP allows for inline compositing to avoid adding another Composite TOP in your networks.

• TOPs – Derivative Wiki
• Level TOP – Derivative Wiki
• HSV Adjust TOP – Derivative Wiki
• OpenColorIO TOP – Derivative Wiki