Xerox developing "natural language color editing"

Xerox's Geoffrey Woolfe seems to think he's found a way to make picking just the right color a bit easier, laying out his plans for so-called "natural language color editing" at the annual meeting of the Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC). While it's apparently still in the early stages, the system will supposedly let you adjust colors simply by describing them in natural langauge, using voice or typed commands like "make the sky a deeper blue" or "make the background carnation pink" -- the software then does all the rest of the work. Of course, Xerox isn't exactly giving any indication when that may happen, so you'll have to make do with the cumbersome point-and-click method of color-choosing we've somehow managed to get along with all these years for a little while longer.

[steve-o @ Apr 30th 2007 5:47PM]

So how does it know what the sky is in the picture- and how does it differentiate that from the background? This sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

[t-bone @ Apr 30th 2007 6:21PM]

It sounds like Xerox has an answer to that question but there is no way in hell they are going to tell anybody until they've made their money off of it. If they are about to sell something utilizing it, there's a pretty decent chance it will work pretty well.

[Brandon West @ Apr 30th 2007 6:11PM]

As long as I can tell it to 'enhance,' I support this technology.

Enhance.
Enhance.
Enhance.

[Mike @ Apr 30th 2007 6:39PM]

More good stuff from the folks who brought you the mouse and the GUI...

[Magallanes @ May 1st 2007 10:10AM]

Indeed, they are the grandfather of every gui interface.

[cruci fiction @ Apr 30th 2007 6:48PM]

What is the point of this? It sounds like a solution in search of a problem. I don't think I've ever said "Hey, color choosers are far to accurate and easy to use, I wish they would invent something much less precise that has the added problems of natural language processing"

[John @ Apr 30th 2007 6:49PM]

cruci fiction -- you sir then have not lived!!

[tekdroid @ Apr 30th 2007 6:50PM]

I'd have to agree with "cruci fiction".

On that note, "turn the Viewsonic monitor into an NEC"

Sorry, got carried away there.

[T-Will @ Apr 30th 2007 6:57PM]

I don't have too much experience with picture editing/clean-up, but after poking around for a while in Photoshop I'm sure I could figure out how to make the sky more blue. But do I really want to take the time to do that if I could just type (or say) "make the sky more blue".

Also, I know a lot of people who aren't computer savvy who own digital cameras, I could see how this would be really useful to them. I'm pretty excited about this (if it actually works).

[Paul @ Apr 30th 2007 8:16PM]

step 1) open photoshop
step 2) open image
step 3) image > adjustments > variations
step 4) look at the incredibly easy to use interface and just keep clicking whichever image looks "better"
step 5) win

[t-bone @ May 1st 2007 12:24AM]

You forgot step 0: Save up at $500 to purchase Photoshop.

I don't even like spending $100 on a program.

[Jon @ Apr 30th 2007 10:52PM]

Apparently there's nobody here in the printing business. This would be fantastic. I work in prepress for a large format digital printshop. (Did you see the buildings in downtown Salt Lake City wrapped during the 2002 olympics? we did that.) Those of us who have been doing this a while know what "10% less magenta" looks like. But our customers don't. They usually say things like "it's too pink". If there is an application that translates their instructions into usable data then I know we'd buy it.

Xerox knows that, too. (We have a $200,000 Xerox machine in the building, actually.)

[Magallanes @ May 1st 2007 10:26AM]

Even when im a programmer, usually the customers claim to changes in the interface, words like "more white","add blue" and such are really common request.

For example, it's absurd to say to a customers that #ffffff is white, clients only known about basic colors,flower, sky or fruit colors, the sky

I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
Theyre really sayin......i love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
Theyll learn much more.....than Ill never know
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

(instrumental break)

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are there on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
Theyre really sayin...*spoken*(I ....love....you).

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
*spoken*(you know their gonna learn
A whole lot more than Ill never know)
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself .......what a wonderful world.

[CaptSaltyJack @ Apr 30th 2007 11:19PM]

"Computer, make the poo baby shit yellow."

[Billdough @ May 1st 2007 12:50AM]

So when did Steve Jobs and Hitler have a kid?

[hhjghjghj @ May 1st 2007 5:33AM]

exactly my thought :D

[David Scott @ May 1st 2007 2:57AM]

Xerox has always been a leader in innovation. WYSIWYG,Ethernet,Personal distributed computing, client/server architecture, and laser printing.

The ideas that have spawned from PARC and the rest of Xerox have continually improved the way we work and live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#History

[simon @ May 2nd 2007 3:54AM]

What the hell was wrong with color selection and hue adjustments by hand... Far getter than voice input...

[Ben Hobbs @ May 2nd 2007 10:05AM]

Hitlers doing what?