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Source nodes

Where pictures enter the graph, and the geometry applied before anything reads neighbouring pixels.

Image Source (heeler.image_source)

The photograph itself, decoded. Every graph has exactly one and it cannot be deleted or duplicated. The card names the file it decodes.

  • Ports: rgb out.
  • Highlights: Clip cuts blown channels at white; Blend fills a blown channel from the ones that survived; Rebuild reconstructs blown areas and rolls their color off.
  • Demosaic: Fast for culling, Standard for routine work, Fine (DHT) when judging detail or exporting.
  • As-shot white balance and camera matrix are the decoder's own; switch them off to start from a neutral decode.

Use it as the start of every chain. Its settings are Adjustments' Source section.

File (heeler.file)

Any image from disk: a second photograph, a texture, a logo. Choose the file in the inspector; the card shows its own thumbnail and name.

  • Ports: rgb out. No input.
  • Path is the only setting. No file, or a file that cannot be decoded, gives one transparent pixel rather than an error.

Use it with Blend Mode or Merge to lay another picture over the photograph, and Transform to place it. A preset saved from a graph with a File node leaves the path behind, since it names a file on your machine.

Catalog (heeler.catalog)

Another photograph from this catalog, as a source. The double-exposure node.

  • Ports: rgb out. No input.
  • Photo: chosen in the inspector's browser, which opens in the folder on screen, walks up and into folders the catalog has scanned, and filters by name.
  • Mode: As developed renders the other photo's own Output from the graph saved beside it; As shot decodes its file without edits.

A photograph cannot contain its own developed self, and a chain of catalogs stops at two deep; both fall back to the decode. The card wears the catalog's rendered thumbnail.

Crop & Rotate (heeler.crop_rotate)

Straighten and crop the frame. Adjustments' Geometry section, and the node the viewport's Crop and Straighten tools write to. Off and out of the graph until used.

  • Ports: rgb in, rgb out.
  • Straighten rotates within the frame; Aspect widens (negative) or heightens; Crop left/top/width/height are fractions of the frame.

Pixels outside the crop stay in the source. The crop sits right after the source so nothing downstream reads across its edge.

Lens Correction (heeler.lens_correct)

Distortion, color fringing and lens vignetting. Adjustments' Lens section.

  • Ports: rgb in, mask in, rgb out.
  • Distortion barrel or pincushion; Fringe R/C and Fringe B/Y shift the color channels at the edges; Lens vignetting and its range undo the lens's corner falloff.
  • Model chooses the distortion model (none, PTLens, Poly3, Poly5) with its coefficients.

Place it early: a warp applied after sharpening warps the sharpening.

Perspective (heeler.perspective)

Keystone correction: stand leaning verticals up, square a facade.

  • Ports: rgb in, mask in, rgb out.
  • Vertical and Horizontal tilt the frame; Zoom hides the revealed borders.

Use after Crop & Rotate and before anything that reads pixels.