Topic: Incoming Storm over the Imperial Valley

[sjordan93436]

(yet another farm / artichoke picture)

I stitched together a pano of a storm in California.  the foreground is an artichoke field, which is the subject.  I would like to improve this photo by fixing the color and contrast of the artichokes.  Also, I would like to bring out several artichokes.

Technical side, I shot in RAW and compressed the highlights and shadows to retain detail and spread it out.  It is 17 images and about 180 degrees and the light is challenging.

(I have some excuses for not doing a better job of composition.)

[gremurphoto]

With a HD sharpening action.The glare that results could be the sun reflecting off the leaves from the left.GregM

[sjordan93436]

Hey.  I just did another pass.  I added contrast to the right side.  My generic problem is that I focus on parts and leave off some obvious.  I got a green color in the clouds.

I tired a little spotlight on two artichokes in the bottom.  I also tried a little lab brightening, but the picture could not take it.  I also tried shadow highlights and got a little.

My brother, who is the artichoke breeder, wants a large print of this.  Not because it reminds him of Ansel, but because of the subject matter.

[Greg Groess]

I'll have a go at this as well.  just give me a bit of time with it.

Greg

[sjordan93436]

Thanks, Greg.  This is a work in progress.  I had to mask out a shadow and enhance the artichokes.  Other than that no masks.  Considering where this photo started, that is good.  Masks may look okay on small images, but my brother wants this big.  There is an International Artichoke Congress in Italy next year (is it on your calendar yet?)and he also wants to give large prints to his collaborators.

At this point, the image is missing something.  I got detail in the clouds which were blocked and blown.  The color of the leaves are about right.  Perhaps more blacks and brighter. 

The board is quiet, perhaps I will post a few images.

[Greg Groess]

Ok..

From where I see it the real problem is the lack of Reds in the Artichokes themselves.  Any color contrast you want to introduce has to account for that.  Trying to brighten them only makes the image look odd.  My approach was the following:

1) Start with a BTN color correction to make sure the image is balanced.  There are some slight issues in the shadows but otherwise it looks pretty good.

2) Knowing I have to control Saturation I create a L channel mask in CM and leave it for later.

3) Knowing that I need to find red in the image I looked at the artichokes as well as the bare ground on the left.   I opened the image in CM using LAB and selected the A channel.  I manually set up a contrast pin using the bare ground as one selection and the brightest part of a artichoke as the other end. 

4) Set a hue clock on a neutral part of the clouds on the right and used that as a home base marker to keep the color correct.  I adjusted the A channel using the contrast pin fairly violently.  I know I have to control saturation so I'm not going to worry about it just yet.

5) using the same contrast pins selected before I adjusted the B channel as well.  Again I was un-concerned with saturation as I know I have to fix that later.

6) Controlling the saturation:  This is a bit difficult as we are trying to protect the color separation from the saturation.  There are a few methods we can try including a saturation adjustment in HSB but I settled for an inverted  L channel mask in which I made a Parabolic Arch in the L channel mask to protect the brightest and darkest parts of the image from over saturation. Screen shot attached.

Steve...  The image is about the scene and the view I know the Artichokes are important but only in so much as you can see them as being there.  If you go to far in finding them the image will look false and "photo-shopped"  I think what makes the image special is the fact that a knowing eye will see the artichokes and yet appreciate the vista for what it is...a wonderful day for growing artichokes.

I attached a second version with more in the reds for the artichokes.  Not sure if it helps or not...
Greg

[sjordan93436]

A couple of questions...

What is BTN color adjustment?

You said the artichokes lacked red.   My hue clock said between 1 and 2.  Reddish side of yellow.  I thought that greenery should be between Y and G but close to Y.??

I pumped up the A and B curves then when they where linked I used the cursor to lower  a and B to get the neutrals close.

I think it is better.  Did I do it right?

Next attempt, I may try the Dan M color blending mode.   

[Greg Groess]

Steve,
By the numbers is when we set the S/H/N using hue clocks and points in the image we choose to adjust the color manually.  This is a week 3 item if you want to refer to your class notes.  I checked the image when I downloaded it and found a slight color cast to the shadows so as I processed the image I removed it.  I also adjusted the individual channels to open the shadows.

As for the "red" in the Artichokes I was referring to the edge of the artichoke "petals" see shot1.  I wanted the reds to come out more so that I did not have to go looking for the "fruit" it would show up by having that color in the image.  You are correct in the leaves and grass should not have Red in them but there are always exceptions...

If I got it wrong it was bad assumptions on my part rather than your image.  I rather like the overall image by the way...By all means try various blending modes..my solution is not the end of the line...

The issue I see is the fact that the Artichokes are very close in color to the leaves and that makes masking them a very difficult process. Your choice in "Color Contrast" is limited to colors that are present in the artichokes but not present in the leaves; hence I went for the red which is not very strong throughout the image. 

[sjordan93436]

BTN - my duh.  I did not translate that to by the numbers.   I did fix the shadows, but they got worse.

They are green artichokes.  At this resolution, you might see some red and the base of those two artichokes, but the petals (actually bracts) are green

Here is another version that shows this process can be overdone.  This is overcooked in lightening up the greens.  I ran another s/h and did a channel mixer.  green channel - greens up 30% and blues down 30 %.  I did this on a smaller copy of the original.  So all work will have to be redone anyway. 

The clouds went green, so I went back to CM and messed with rgb.  The clouds at the left are now yellow.  Better than green.  The big blue spot of sky in the center is also over the top.

I will have to restart from almost the bottom soon.  For me this is an interesting experiment.  Shadow highlights have a big impact.

[Greg Groess]

The Shadow Highlights can be tackled many different ways...

You could:

Adjust the exposure
Adjust the Gamma
Adjust the Separate Channels in CM using the Zone System Pins. Then Replace the Blue Channel with the Red or Green using Image> Apply Image.
Use the S/H tool in PS.
Use Screen on a Layer and Blend it back in.

Too many choices....I think It depends on the "look" you want to achieve.
I used the Adjust separate channels in CM for my versions.

Any additional instructions or Gaols would be helpful for us to figure out the corrections you might want.
Greg

[Lee Harper]

Ok - here's my version. It would be good to know how close the color is to your field Steve...

The image as downloaded was untagged (i.e., hadn't been saved with a color profile); I knew that it probably should be set to sRGB, but Apple RGB opened the image up more, so I chose that (I converted back into sRGB prior to saving the version that I have posted).

The color seemed as though it only needed a slight By-the-Numbers adjustment - and the clouds were bothering me - so I began by working on the tone of the image. CS5's 'HDR Toning' adjustment did a far better job than 'Shadow/Highlights' (I tried both) so I used that (masked for the clouds only using Select > Color Range).

I then applied the image's Red channel (in Luminosity mode, at 50% opacity) to the foreground - as I felt that the field looked unnaturally dark against the sky.

Finally (for tonal adjustments), I went into CurveMeister and applied a Zone 6 pin (from one of Greg's pin libraries) to the sky near the horizon. I didn't like the effect in every area of the image, so I used the mask I have attached to this post to hold the adjustment back in certain areas.

For color, I did a quick BtN adjustment in CurveMeister, and then used some Lab contrast pins to increase hue and saturation variation into the field (I masked the contrast pin adjustments, to protect the sky).

Is this a fair representation of the scene?

Cheers,
Lee.

[sjordan93436]

Lack of color profile?  My mistake.  I did not check the box in save for web and devices.  It was sRGB.  That adds about 4 k to the file, I think.

A couple of questions about that.

How do you tell what color space it is saved in?  I do not get that warning.

What color space should I use?  In the CM classes, I thought sRGB was okay since it was for web viewing.  I use LR which has prophoto as default.  Now that I am printing, should I go to aRGB or prophoto?

(sorry for the basic question).

At the posted resolution, you cannot see certain problems.  I have to start over, now that it is approved.  No reason to add fixes on fixes.  I did a poor touchup of my shadow in a crucial spot. 

Back to the color, the sun was setting, and some of the color were remnants of that. 

I will try using the hdr toning adjustment.  And later try to reduce the field color. 

It is a fair representation of the scene.  Since the destination is artichoke people they want bright color correct foliage.  The original was dark on the left and yellowish and washed out on the right.  I think the greens are good.

Thanks.  I may post the "final" image later.

[Lee Harper]

Hi Steve,

Don't be sorry for asking questions! And they're not basic - most people never give them any consideration...

I have attached a few screenshots to show you what to do to have Photoshop alert you to missing profiles. The largest screenshot is Photoshop's Color Settings dialog window (open this by choosing: Edit > Color Settings... - it's near the bottom of the list). If you turn on the checkbox that I've highlighted, you will receive an alert message whenever you open an image saved without an embedded profile.

If you've asked Photoshop to alert you whenever you open an untagged image (Photoshop calls images without embedded profiles 'untagged'), you will see the alert message that I've attached.

I don't use this method myself, because the Missing Profile dialog has no Preview functionality, so you cannot choose 'visually' which profile is most appropriate.

What I do instead is to set the info area at the bottom-left of the image window to display 'Document Profile' (again, please see the screenshot to see how to do this); with this method it's easy to notice when an image is untagged - but it allows me to visually choose an appropriate profile to assign (via Edit > Assign Profile...).

In the case of your image, I knew that most likely I ought to assign sRGB, because you had posted the image online (and - as you say - it is a very good idea to post sRGB images online; I converted my correction to sRGB before posting it too); nevertheless, although I knew that assigning sRGB would show me the image as you intended for me to receive it, I felt that the image was too dark - so I assigned Apple RGB.

The question then is "Why assign Apple RGB?" Sure, I could have brightened the image up after assigning sRGB, but I wanted to kill two birds with one stone (so to speak), and Apple RGB allowed me to do that because the gamma of Apple RGB is lower than the gamma of sRGB (1.8 instead of 2.2). Color profile gamma values are used to interpret the brightness of images; lower values are brighter than higher values - therefore an image interpreted via a color profile with a 1.8 gamma value will appear brighter than via a color profile with a 2.2 gamma value.

The downside of intentionally applying the 'wrong' color profile to an untagged image is that the colors in the image can be thrown off; however, in the case of sRGB vs. Apple RGB the colors are interpreted in a very similar manner - so I knew that any color shifts would be small (and therefore easier to manage in CurveMeister). Knowing that there would be slight color shifts I watched the Edit > Assign Profile preview very carefully (just in case!)

---

As to your other question, your choice (between ProPhoto RGB and Adobe RGB) will be governed by how saturated you like the greenery in your photographs, and what type of printer you are using. There is a good webpage here http://www.cardinalphoto.com/content/choosing-colorspace-when-go-large that breaks down the choice nicely.

---

If you have any other questions - or would like me to clarify anything that I've written - don't hesitate to ask

All the best,
Lee.

[sjordan93436]

This is going off target.
------
Thanks, Lee.  I was looking under preferences, not color settings.  I did not know about the info pallet.  I am now cognizant of that.  Your link on colorspaces was very helpful and believable.

srgb is a smaller color space.  Argb is larger.  Prophoto the largest.  Does moving between colorspaces lose data?  When I saved the file under different profiles the size stayed the same.  ??   The link said that a larger profile causes PS to work harder.

I assume that going from 16 to 8 does lose data.  There are some (Dan Margulis) that say that there is no difference when it comes to real world editing between the two. 

I use lightroom to catalog the photos.  I then use the develop module to move the exposure, recovery, fill light so that nothing plugs or blows.  I then go to PS to use CM and other tools, or just casually do snapshots within lightroom.  But ...  LR saves the file as a tiff with the colorspace and bit depth of the preferences.  If I want to change colorspaces of the tiff on the outbound, I need to change the preferences.  I can go to explorer and open the file directly into PS and then ACR.  And if I made adjustments in LR, the tiff includes them. 

Is there a way to open the original raw file out of lightroom in PS?

Apple color profile?  Hmm...  I will try that.

The other item is out of gamut during printing.  I think that deserves another topic.

[Lee Harper]

Does moving between colorspaces lose data?

That depends on whether the new colorspace can describe the colors that are in your image and whether you are assigning a different colorspace, or converting into a different colorspace.

If you are simply assigning a new profile no damage is done - the colors are just being visually interpreted differently.

If you are converting colorspaces, if you move into a larger colorspace you won't lose any colors; if you are moving into a smaller colorspace you can lose colors if the new colorspace cannot hold some of the colors in your image - usually the problem occurs in areas of your image that are quite saturated (the problems depend on how -and where - the two colorspaces overlap).

If for example you edit in ProPhoto, when you convert into sRGB for posting your images online your images will be too saturated, and therefore the translation between colorspaces will change some of the colors in your image. There are two methods for handling the transformation - Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric 'rendering intents'.

Rendering intents give the application information about how you would like it to deal with 'out-of-gamut' colors. As you say, such a discussion probably shouldn't be hidden in this part of the forum. I will write up an article to break this all down - I think that will be more helpful (I can use some diagrams to help describe some of what is going on)...

If there is anything else you would like me to cover, please let me know...

Cheers,
Lee.