Topic: An easy image?

[themightyzog]

Hi Greg,

We tend to start off with awkward images, so I thought I throw in a simple one - to me it demonstrates how sensitive one must be while curving.
One could just accept the colour cast because of the low lighting, but I think it might look better with a slightly more natural looking stone.
One of the great features of CM, it that one can made the curve dialog as large as one likes and therefore achieve at more refined curve than using PS.
Good luck to you all for the course
Chris

[joann]

I don't have a clue where to start. Is there a diagram somewhere that shows what & where each tool is located and what that tool does? Sorry to be so clueless.
JoAnn H

[Greg Groess]

No need to feel bad Joann.

Zog has placed a challenge in front of us and it will help you to get to know the interface.  What Zog is asking you to do is enlarge the curve window so you can get a much larger curve window and make smaller adjustments.  The way to do this is to hover your mouse over the line that separates the curve window from the image display and drag it to the left to make the curves grid larger.  If you have only 1 channel selected by using the tabs at the top of the curve window. you can make a single channel huge and the adjustments are very precise at that point.

See screen shots below.  Shot1 is where to grab the border
Shot 2 is a resized window.

Greg

[gremurphoto]

You said it would be easy,Chris.It wasn'tStill not pleased with image

[Greg Groess]

We tend to start off with awkward images, so I thought I throw in a simple one - to me it demonstrates how sensitive one must be while curving.
One could just accept the colour cast because of the low lighting, but I think it might look better with a slightly more natural looking stone.
One of the great features of CM, it that one can made the curve dialog as large as one likes and therefore achieve at more refined curve than using PS.

Class: The point of this is to show off some of the things you will be able to do after taking the class and opening your eyes to the possibilities...

Chris,
Another Zog Easy Image??  lol I think you need some Tungsten to Daylight filters...I'll get you some when you get me a photography lesson....we can exchange for Christmas...

Great image...

For the rest of the class...

My goals for the image were as Zog stated...More natural color for the stone...whatever that really means...it just needs to look better than orange...better shadows and highlights....and as Zog has asked...a subtle control correction.

Well....

First step is to open the shadows and try to save some highlights...For this I used the "shadow/Highlight" tool in PS or PSE it is under the image adjustments menu.  <Shot5>

Next step was to go into the LAB color space.  For some of you this will be new areas of exploration but many find LAB to be the easiest color space after they get into it a bit.  I made no adjustments to the L channel since the first step was to get the shadows and highlights from PS.  I did add a neutral to the tops of what appear to be the frosted glass candles in the image.  Bright spot at about 4:30 from the red alcove area in the center bottom of the image.  This made the image look much better but not quite far enough for the "more natural stones" goal.

I needed to remove the yellow color in the brighter parts of the image so I used the B channel first in LAB.  I need to keep the blues so I pinned them using a right click on the center of the grid and I chose the pin to grid option and selected the "upper right" for my configuration yours might be different but we want to pin the blue side of the B channel curve.  I placed the mouse in the image in an area of the image that I wanted to reduce the yellow cast and looked at the curve.  The color worm showed me where one end of my adjustment had to be located for that area.  I then moved the mouse around a bit to see where the other end of the adjustment needed to be.  This is very hard to describe but if you want to try it, place your mouse on the image and slowly move it around a bit, you will see a color worm bounce around the curve a bit.  Find a place different from your starting point.  these two points will set the boundary of the color cast correction on the curve.  

Once the yellow was reduced I went to the A channel and repeated.  Minor tweaks were added until I liked the "tone" of the stone...I allowed it to be a bit yellow since the color was actually there.  But as you reduce the yellow the red part of the light comes out...

<See shot 6>
Once I was satisfied with the over all color I looked at the shadows again because they were an odd blueish color that would just not do.  I re-opened the image in CM and went to the CMYK color space because I just wanted to add some black to the shadows to make them look better.  Place the mouse in an area you want to darken this way and look at the color worm on the K channel.  place two control points on the curve below where you want to adjust and then move the curve until the blacks look better.  <Shot7>

In summary you can get really creative with how you adjust the image... I used 2 color spaces and a few techniques we will get into later in the course.  One involves what is called a contrast pin.  That helped me reduce the color in the yellow areas by locking two points of the curve together and allowing me to move them to a different value as a pair.  the other involved the highlight curve command to help me locate the areas I wanted to adjust.  Again we'll get there later.  

final image to be posted next...

Greg

[Greg Groess]

Here is the final image.

Greg

[gremurphoto]

Great image,Greg.I'll have to try that shadow/highlight tool,lizzard's tails only always work in magic spells.GregM

[julie]

Greg,
I seem to be having trouble posting this. Keep getting message that post already done but not visible on web site. So I will try again.
I had a go on this one but it looks a bit blue in the shadows. I used the wizard first and am trying to remember "dont panic" at the mention of turning it off. This is the first time I have tried to use curves and I really just fiddled without knowing what I was doing. I suppose it's how I will learn. Any suggestions please let me know I am looking forward to some feedback. The second image is just sharpened a lttle using the neat plug in and I used a small adjustment in levels.
I downloaded the program for acv files and it worked a treat!

Jule

[julie]

Greg,
oops no second image. I forgot to attach

julie

[curvemeister]

Good stone colors.  The shadows are indeed blue - there is an easy trick to fix this, that will be covered later.  It involves doing a second pass of Curvemeister, moving the dark end of the B curve toward the middle.

[curvemeister]

Joann.  This first week of the class is a preview of what is coming, with spontaneous images being presented along with various solutions.  The actual class will be more similar to what you're used to with Sara and other on line classes, with more structure, including explanatory text and illustrations.  

We do encourage you to take a crack at the images presented here, and then try them again after the class is underway, to see how the techniques you learn compare.  Or post an image of your own, that you've already worked with, and see what people do.

[Greg Groess]

Greg,
I seem to be having trouble posting this. Keep getting message that post already done but not visible on web site. So I will try again.
I had a go on this one but it looks a bit blue in the shadows. I used the wizard first and am trying to remember "dont panic" at the mention of turning it off. This is the first time I have tried to use curves and I really just fiddled without knowing what I was doing. I suppose it's how I will learn. Any suggestions please let me know I am looking forward to some feedback. The second image is just sharpened a lttle using the neat plug in and I used a small adjustment in levels.
I downloaded the program for acv files and it worked a treat!

Jule

Julie,
Your correction for this image is really very nice.  The shadows, as Mike mentioned are still a problem but a minor one.

Multiple "passes" or corrections in CM is a very powerful technique and you will be learning more on how and when to do it.  The bottom line is that there are corrections that sometimes need to be made that conflict with a correction you have just made.  Rather than undo something you just worked hard for; you can apply the first correction and go back to PS or PSE then re-open the image in CM and make a second correction.  Sometimes in a separate color space.  I for instance used LAB and CMYK in my correction.

Sharpening is almost always recommended.  CM can do some sharpening and we do cover some techniques for doing that.  No need to worry about using other tools.  We want CM to be a part of your work flow,  that means we use other tools to complete the image as needed.

Greg

[themightyzog]

Really an excellent correction Julie - you are going to keep Greg on this toes during this course
Chris

[gremurphoto]

What I like about Julie's version is that the painting on the wall  has just enough detail to anchor the diagonal from 11 o'clock to 4 o"clock.I tried and wound up with noise and casts.Well Julie,you won the right to buy the next round,congrats!GregM

[Greg Groess]

Awesome Catch Greg...
I might have to take another swing at this one...that painting is now going to bug the heck right out of me....

Greg