Topic: Quick Curves: Candied Apples

[curvemeister]

This image kicks off the "quick curves" section of the class, where any and all, including non class members, are free to participate, or just watch.

Shadow, highlight, and neutral will go far with this image.  More advanced students might use the hue clock to look for any unnatural hues that remain, remembering that chocolate is a deep shade of orange.

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.

[gremurphoto]

Yum,yum.A pass in Lab,then a sat boost in HSB

[gremurphoto]

Forgot the orange component.

[Greg Groess]

Greetings everyone!

Please take a swing at the image Mike has posted.  It is a very nice opening image for this week of "play"  For the new students I think you can make a great improvement in the image by using the shadow, highlight, neutral drill we will be starting on this week.

Start by opening the image in PS or PSE and then using the CM wizard to choose a S/H/N.  The try using the saturation slider to increase the color.

I took this image a bit further using a "Color by the Numbers" approach. 

Using CM you can quickly do a CBN correction.  Greg1 is the result of the CBN correction alone.  After I was done with the CBN correction I closed out CM to apply my changes.

The second part of the correction (a second pass so to speak) was done in LAB. I adjusted the L channel to increase the contrast, reduce the reflections, and then used I the saturation slider to add some color.

Greg3 is the result.

Give it a try and Please post your images.. 
We can only help you if you post images and take the ever so slight risk of critique.

Greg

[themightyzog]

Oh dear dear me - another of Mike's terrible images, luckily I'm eating home made cake!

If you look carefully, all the left sides of the icing has a blue tint, which I reckon is wrong

So I concentrated on getting this right rather than setting a neutral - just to be awkward (am I ever), I did lab to set the shadow & highlights - found the tint too difficult to cope with.  So 2nd pass in rgb - still too difficult to completely remove, so I cheated - which is Greg's motto - and used Jacob's Ladder.

I wonder how the blue cast got there - were there 2 light sources?

[English Paul]

First attempt:
- with CM
- with the Wizard
- with gadwin
- with the Message Board
Am beginning to wonder if I've used a PC before 

[English Paul]

Second try - just repeated what Greg suggested in LAB (I have no idea WHY it works - but it seems to be better)

[English Paul]

One final point: I've joined you from the UK, so I'm 8 hours ahead. Am going off-line pretty soon, so don't expect any responses before tomorrow.

My first 30mins with the CM, and it's already very impressive. Am looking forward to understanding the controls and getting even more from my photography.

Looking forward to to hearing from you and speaking with the rest of the community.

Regards

English Paul

[fomrock]

I went with a black, white and neutral point adjustment, and a slight saturation increase in LAB mode.

Brian

[stevelop]

I used the wizard to set black, white and gray points in RGB mode, then adjusted the brightness and color saturation in Lab.

[Greg Groess]

First attempt:
- with CM
- with the Wizard
- with gadwin
- with the Message Board
Am beginning to wonder if I've used a PC before 

It can be addicting so you better watch out...next thing you know we'll have you formatting hard drives and installing network servers...

Greg

[jlowell]

Hi All,

It was probably overkill, but here are the three steps I took to create my final image:
1. Did a rough color balance with Levels
2. Used Curvemeister for H/S/N
3. Used Pixel Vista (a color enhancement plug-in) to increase contrast and saturation.
Jim

[curvemeister]

Great results here, folks. To answer Zog's question, the blue cast came from a combination of the lighting - a storefront window in open shade, and my cell phone camera's interpretation of colors. 

So far I find that jlowell's is the most appetizing.

[jacobolus]

Needs a pass for noise, but since it's a low-res low-quality jpg, it's not worth the effort.

[curvemeister]

Gorgeous.