Topic: Try this image

[themightyzog]

What's this Greg - no images posted?  When is the class going to start?

Unfortunately I'm not as good as you are in taking problem images - but will this do for starters?

Does anybody else have some images they would like played with?

Zog

[Greg Groess]

Hi Chris...
Thanks for the image...

I was waiting till Sunday to open the doors but what the heck...let the good times roll...
Everyone...Take a swing at this please...

Greg

[themightyzog]

Oh dear - real old age, I thought the 'pre'-course started a week before the 5th!!
But as you say, what the heck

[Greg Groess]

Not a bit of a problem...by the way...Nasty little problem you have posted....

Almost as bad as one of mine...
Greg

[Greg Groess]

Greetings everyone...

As usual Zog has given us a good challenge that will show off some of the techniques we will learn in the CM 101 class and some that are a bit beyond the CM 101 class as well.  I'll start off with an overview of what I am seeing in the image and what I want for my goals on this image.

First of all the image appears to be under exposed but it really has a full range of exposure values.  You have everything from full on whites in the highlights to nearly complete blacks in the shadows.  The vast majority of the image is in the mid tones and the darker end of that range.

If you look at the Image I have posted you will see 3 Hue Clocks on the image.  In Curvemeister these hue clocks are sticky and can be displayed by holding down the "Alt" key while left clicking on the image in Curvemeister.  You can configure the display so that it shows whatever color space you want to using the wrench Icon and making settings in the configuration tabs. 

Currently my settings are showing the RGB color space and both the hue clock and the number values for each channel.  The Hue clock shows you a visual representation of the color.  The Arm of the clock points to the color in terms of Hue degrees.  It also shows rough saturation by the length of the arm.  A shorter arm is a less saturated color and a dot in the center of the clock is usually a neutral.

So, What am I seeing...

I am seeing that the highlights and shadows are neutral.  All values are equal in the RGB color space.  This is a good thing because it tells me that the color cast is located in the mid-tones which is where the majority of the correction needs to occur anyway.  The Middle Tone clock I chose was placed on the clouds in a common sense point where I would think logically that the clouds should be neutral.  Currently this is a subjective choice and it may change as I make adjustments to the image. 

What do I want to do?? 
I want to open the mid range of the image while not losing the highlights and opening the shadows considerably.  While they do have values, not quite zero; they are very close to zero and I want to open the shadows to see some interesting features on the castle. 

I want to make sure that I correct what I perceive to be overly "cold" meaning blue clouds based on the mid tone hue clock but, I do not want to extend any color shifts into areas where it will cause a noticeable cast. 

I want to maintain as much detail and texture in the image as I can and I have to decide If the highlights are worth saving or if I can live with the "blown out" colors in the brightest areas.

Lastly, the color is flat and lifeless, I want to make it brighter and reasonable "real" looking. 

So I started with a slight color adjustment.  Instead of just adding Red to the image I decided to remove some blue and green instead.  I based this choice on the fact that when I added red to the mid tones the rest of the image warmed up too much in my subjective judgment.  I tried subtracting the green and blue and found I liked the "feel" of the image better..again this is subjective but to me at this point...real. 

More to come....
Greg

[themightyzog]

Wow Greg, you are giving us a great Master class on this image

It is going to be hard for us mere mortals to come up with a different approach.  I'm looking forward to accepting that challenge.

I'm off to photograph a church today, but will have a bash at it tomorrow.

[Greg Groess]

I'm trying to step it up a bit to keep up with the likes of you...lol 
Actually I am changing the approach a bit as I write and prepare the 201 stuff...

And...

We are showing off a bit this week right??

OK..So now I am going to work on the contrast range of the image.  There are a few ways I can do this part. 
I can apply a curve to the L channel in Lab to try to pull the shadows up into a better range but...When I tried that I was not satisfied with the rest of the image. I also tried applying a HSB curve using Curvemeister but again...no luck.  See attached shot.  The Green halo around the sky /tower edge would be impossible to work with...

I then moved on to trying to adjust the "Exposure" of the image with the Photoshop Exposure command.  When I tried the Exposure command and adjusted the Gamma; it blew out the sky and I really want to keep that part of the image as intact as possible.  No screen shot sorry...

All of these tests only take a few minutes to do and really eliminate bad choices at this stage.  I work with Layers to do this so that I do not destroy any of the work I have done so far.  I can add and delete a layer as needed to try out these adjustments.

I settled on using the shadow / highlight command in Photoshop.  I found that 1 application using conservative settings did not open the image enough for my taste.  This is partially a subjective adjustment.  I have my goals for the image your might be different...When I was done I had applied my S/H settings to the image 4 times.  Each step was slightly better and I probably could have done this in one step but I wanted to be conservative and not over adjust this part of the image.  See attached shot.

I'll post my Shadow highlight adjusted image in the next posting...
Greg

[Greg Groess]

Here is the resulted image after the shadow highlight command.

I would like everyone to note that this is one place where curves will not get you where you want to go. 

Why?? 

Well,  there is not enough range in the image data at this point. < math problems drive me crazy>  The exposure has most of the data grouped into a very narrow part of the range.  Adjustments to that narrow range do not spread out over the image as well and you get results like the HSB curve with hard transitions or solarized parts of the image.   

Using Shadow Highlight forces Photoshop to recalculate the entire image and it spreads the pixel values out across the entire range of the image.  < Again, too much Math for me...> the result is nice so I'll work with that...

Greg

[Lee Harper]

Hi everyone

Greg - I'd never considered applying Shadow/Highlight more than one time; I really like the results, but I've a question for you: why not just increase the Shadow Amount slider? Do multiple applications of Shadow/Highlight at low values get you to a different place than hitting the image just the once with more aggressive settings?

Cheers,
Lee.

[Greg Groess]

I have a hard time getting a good setting that allows me to do this in one jump.  I like the conservative settings I have for a lot of stuff and I have used S/H multiple times in the past...I like the "feel" of the stones in the foreground better this way...there seems to be a flatness in the 1 pass image that does not develop in the multiple pass version...
Is it better??  I'm not 100 % but for this image I think it is...
I have also applied the Screen layer mode to images to see if I can get better shadows. 

See the compare below.
Greg

[Lee Harper]

Here's my version...

I've been playing with this image since it was posted, and was using the Image > Adjustments > Exposure: Gamma slider to brighten it up - until Greg's post suggesting Shadow/Highlight. I decided to apply Shadow/Highlight just once, but as Greg's screenshots show, just increasing the Amount value makes the stonework look lifeless - so I played with the other two settings to get some shape back into the stone.

I've been experimenting with single vs. multiple applications of Shadow/Highlight today; I think that one of the reasons that multiple applications of Shadow/Highlights works so well on this image is that with each application the color is receiving a saturation boost (from the Color Correction slider, when it is left at its default value). I decided to tackle saturation separately, so I didn't mind loosing out on this - but it does improve the image if left to do its own thing...

My version probably looks a little over-the-top (I've not left it 24-hours; though I did ask the wife ), but one thing that I'm increasingly watchful for is that I don't put too much contrast into cloudy skies. I feel that too much contrast (in skies) makes images look overtly 'manipulated'. Of course the rest of the image probably looks overtly manipulated too

This was a real challenge, thanks Chris - and thanks for the sage advice Greg

Cheers,
Lee.

[themightyzog]

Well that is pretty impressive Lee.

To all you people about to take this excellent course I’d like to say that not only listen and learn the technical side from Greg, but also try and follow his mind-set.  I took this course nearly 3 years ago and Greg has managed to improve my photography no end. 

His first post on this topic is probably the important one – inspect & decide what you want to do.  Then take it in stages – colour & tone as separate steps before finally tarting it up.  Dan Margulis’s (new) PPW is basically just saying that this is the workflow to follow – but there is one important ingredient missing.  Greg said I could/should cheat.  Yes learn to curve, but also cheat as much as possible.

I’ve never played with this actual image before, so I thought I’d try something completely different and really cheat with it.

So my 3 steps were
a) Image>Adjustments>Auto Color – to remove the green cast
b) shadow/hilight ACTION (I’m still using PS7), which just prompted me to move the mid slider of the Level dialog twice + adjust saturation.  All automated and very quick.
c) Local Contrast ACTION – completely automated and an excellent tool to improve contrast.  I reduced the Opacity of this layer to 85%

And that I think gives a presentable picture for this image!  Total time under 2 mins!!

This ‘bad’ image is actually one from a set I took on holiday at Carcassonne, France when the light was getting difficult.  I took 10 sets of this subject, 3 exposures for each set (+/- 1EV + normal) to get this panorama image (some sets were rejected) by combining them all.  The image did not look interesting enough, so I added a bit of sunlight using dodge/burn.  As I do not have CS2+, I used other programs (CombineZ + AutoStitch) to align and correct the photos before playing – it made a great holiday snap.  Perhaps I should go back and do it properly now!

Zog

[Greg Groess]

Very Nice Chris!...

Thanks for the encouragements...

Now for my finish....

After the image has been "opened" up so we can see shadow details.  we now have to turn our attention to the color.  To make the color "pop" I decided to use the "Man From Mars" Technique taught by Dan Margulis.  Essentially you make some very wild adjustments to the LAB channels to force color into the image and then you reduce the opacity of the layer until the color looks more "real"

1) To do this you open the image in CM and switch to the LAB color space.  Select a point in the image that represents the predominant color that you want to keep "normal" and Ctrl-Click on it.  This will place a adjustment point on each channel in CM so you have what will become a pivot point.

Looking at the image I want to make the greens and yellows stronger.  Select the end point of the A and B channels and move them towards the center of the channel window until the channel colors really show up in the image.  <MFM1>

2) After the MFM move shown the greens look "odd" the hue clock shows them to be on the right side of the green marker but for grass and leaves we really want more yellow than green so the hue clock should be closer "in general" to the yellow marker but not past it.  To achieve this in 1 move I used a Curvemeister tool called the "Contrast Pin";  this will be taught in the class but adding this to the MFM technique might be new to most of the forum. 

To do this I hover the mouse over the grass in the image and note on the B curve where the grass color is found.  The color worm Allows me to set two control points by Ctrl-Clicking on the B Curve line.   When they are linked the red dashed lines show up as shown in the <MFM2> image.  I use the Contrast pin setting to "rotate" the curve and spread the two points apart on the curve line.  I can also move them around on the curve using the arrow keys.  I adjusted the color until I was satisfied with the hue clock for the grass and then I closed Curvemeister.

3) After the MFM adjustment the sky was way too blue.  I decided the best way to handle this was a mask.  I opened the background layer in CM and clicked on the mask Icon to see the mask pallet and choose a channel for the mask. 

NOTE  There is currently a bug in the masking that makes the K channel of CMYK not work for CM masking.  I choose the L channel in its place and I inverted it ansd adjusted it to make the sky black so that the MFM adjustment was blocked from the image as shown in Shot <MFM3>

More to come...
Greg

[Greg Groess]

Ok the rest of the story now...

1) Paste the mask into the Layer as shown in Shot <MFM4> and adjust the opacity of the layer until the colors look real.  the mask should hold the sky back.

Final Image posted.

Greg

[Lee Harper]

Select a point in the image that represents the predominant color that you want to keep "normal"

Greg, that has got to be the best description of selecting the pivot point for the Man from Mars technique that I've ever heard. You've just made something that a lot of people find difficult incredibly simple - I tip my hat to you

Lee.