Topic: Quick Curves: Candied Apples

[sikarlse]

Hi, I run CM first in LAB, setting low,high neutral,  lightness curve adjusted, increased saturation .
Then into WCMYK and gave the black curve a  tweak.
Finally Noise Ninja in a separate layer, masking and recovering cakes and edges from layer below

Sikarlse

[themightyzog]

I'm interested in you using NN at the end of the work flow.

Do you think this is better than running it at the start?  And why did you have to mask out some of the effects?

Chris

[sikarlse]

Hi, normally I will do noise removal during raw processing,
 In this case I saw another person deemed noise removal not appropriate due the low resolution.
So as I saw some noise in my version, I thought I would give a try.

I removed the NN effect from areas, where sharper edges was wanted  and from some well exposed areas.

Sikarlse

[themightyzog]

I'm not a raw person (unless exposure is difficult), and for (important) photos I tend to run Neat Image (no sharpening) before Focus Magic.  When I've tried it the other way around, then FM can sometimes enhance the noise!
Finally at the end of the workflow I will tend to sharpen (unsharp mask) or apply some Mid Tone contrast.

So does this agree with your view on workflows, or do you tend to do something different?

Chris

[henchard]

Hi folks I'm on the class this session (another uk member)

Here's my attempt


I pretty much understand the highlights, shadows, neutral thing

but not much else. I also applied some high pass sharpening to sharpen it up and hopefully give more impact.

[Greg Groess]

Not to worry...hopefully we'll get you "the rest" 
Welcome to the class and thanks for posting your version of the image.

Greg

[derekfountain]

You are welcome to sit back and see what others do, or try your hand at fixing this image, with curvemeister or any other tools you prefer.

First pass over the file was for highlight, shadow and neutral. Shadow went in the darkest area, highlight in the icing (do Amercians call it "frosting"?) on one of the cakes in the lower left. Neutral was a tricky one - there's all sorts of colours in this image, many of which shouldn't be there! Neutrals in the more obvious white areas pulled the curves all over, so I ended up with a single neutral on one of the paper wrappers on the top shelf.

Second pass was for contrast. The image is taken through a window at a slight angle, so there's more contrast in the left side than in the right. So I created a horizontal gradient mask and pulled a S in the L channel. This increases contrast on the right side without overdoing it on the left.

Third pass was to open the darkest shadows. As much as I like CM, I've found the best way of doing this is to run CS2's highlight/shadow filter in Lab mode. This brings out detail in the very bottom shelf.

Fourth pass was for saturation. After a gentle general tweak upwards, the only bit that really needed a significant boost was the M'n'Ms in the lower right. I used an isolated bump in the S curve - anything else made the wooden window frame look distractingly yellow.

Finally I sharpened the L channel.

There's still more that could be done with it. It's still lighter on the right than on the left. The icing in the top right is slightly magenta; most of the rest is slightly blue. I guess that's from assorted reflections and mixed lighting. Given that it's only those very bright areas that show it, I'd probably be tempted to just desaturate the extreme highlights of the image. But I've spent enough time on it already!

[English Paul]

I agree - jacobolus' versio is very rich and warm, in keeping with the subject. I want to learn how to do THAT!! 

[Greg Groess]

I think we all would...lol. 
He is using a newer technique that he has developed, and continues to explore,to enhance the image even beyond what we are going to do in CM Class. 

Don't worry too much that you are not going to be able to do that...you will get there...

Greg

[Leonid Romanov]

I did that image like I normally do when dealing with strong color cast:
1. Auto Levels
2. Use paper as Gray point
3. Use top of the cake as White point
5. A bit of saturation boost
6. A little curveing to allocate more contrast to the cakes with chocolate on top
7. And finally, a bit of HIRALOAM sharpening. I can't predict yet if HIRALOAM sharpening is going to work for particular image or not, so I usually just try it and see if I like the results. In this case, I did.

[Leonid Romanov]

And here is a second version I made after comparing my first version with images posted by others. I used "Color Balance" to remove some of the yellow cast (I'm sure there are better ways to do it, like going to LAB may be, but I'm not comfortable with them yet). I also added a bit of conventional sharpening.

[Monkeyrun1]

I tried 2 different ways. Everyones looks so much better... Still learning.

[gremurphoto]

The M and M's in your RGB image seem perfectly edible.I think you moved the saturation slider to the left in the Lab version.GregM

[Greg Groess]

grab that saturation slider in lab and give it a slide...the m's will love you for it...

Greg