© 2003-2006 Mike Russell, All Rights Reserved

Using Pins

This section is a detailed discussion of how pins are used. If you like examples better than the rather technical narrative that follows, check out the sections on pinning flesh tones, a logo color, and restoring a famous painting. For the rest of you who want the technical nitty gritty, you've come to the right place!


Figure 1. The pin palette.

Let's start by looking at the pin palette. If your computer is handy, start your copy of Curvemeister and follow along. Figure 1 shows the pin palette, docked in its default position on the left edge of the image window. If you do not see the pins, click on the silver pin in the upper left corner of the image window to bring up the pin palette.

Typically one or more pins are dragged onto a carefully chosen location in the the image. The pin, which is now a a pinned sample, causes Curvemeister to create curve control points that modify color of the image.

Each pin has a source color, which is set by its location on the image, a permanent target color, which defines the color that will be used for the pin operation, and a pin mode, which determines the what sort of change the pin will make to the image. These values are passed on to the pinned sample that is created as a result of dragging the pin onto the image.

Note: press the control key while dragging the pin palette to prevent the palette from docking.

Click on the upper edge of the pin palette to drag it around to any location on the screen, away from the edges of the image window. Release the mouse to create a small, floating window containing the pins. This is called undocking. You may resize a floating pin palette by dragging either a horizontal or vertical edge (but not a corner). Drag the pin palette to one of the other edges, or the bottom, of the image window and you may dock the window on that edge. Press the control key to prevent the palette from docking on an edge. The location and size of the Pin Palette is saved between runs, so you won't need to do this often..


Figure 2. The undocked Pin Palette, showing a highlighted pin.

In figure 2, notice that the cursor is pointing to a pin in the bottom row of the palette. The name and other characteristics of the pin are described. The WGCMYK designation indicates the current working mode of the image.

The actual pin color value may be defined in any color space, with Lab generally being the most preferred because Lab values do not depend on Photoshop's profile settings.

 When using a pin, it is important to be aware of the pin mode. In this case the mode is ever popular pin hue and saturation. This means the pin will modify the curve to control everything about the color, except the brightness. Hue and saturation is used where the intensity of the illumination of an object is highly variable. The complete set of pin modes is discussed in the Creating Your Own Pins section.

Use a simple click and drag operation to apply the Cedar wood pin onto the image, as shown in figures 3, 4, and 5. Notice that we are pinning a leaf to match cedar wood, but what the hey, this is an example, right?


Figure 6 - drop the pin on an appropriate object. Note: The cursor is positioned over the pin icon on the palette, which is used to temporarily "unpin" the new sample.


Figure 3 - click on a pin
and the cursor changes.

Figure 5 - drag the pin
over the "target" area.
The end result of this operation is a sample that has an associated pin color and pin mode, also known as a constrained or pinned sample. The pinning parameters associated with the pinned sample may be modified at this point, without affecting the original pin used to create the sample.

Figure 7. The resulting curve.

Here is the Lab curve created by the above pinning operation. Because this is a hue/sat pin, the lightness curve is unchanged. Notice that the curve control points are in the selected state. This happens when you click on the pinned sample that created the points. Cool, huh?

At this point, you would normally switch between the various color modes and pick a favorite. Lab is generally best for one pin, while RGB does better for multiple pins for colors of differing brightness.
Note: There is another way to pin that you may find useful. First alt-click on the image window, creating a normal sample that displays a value without emitting curve control points. Drag this sample onto the pin palette, and note that it takes on the color of the pin you are dragging over.

The advantage of this procedure is that it allows you to visually compare each pin with the current image color.

Pick your favorite color, and drop the sample onto the pin. Your sample has taken on the pin's color and mode. Finally, drag the new pinned sample back over the image to pin your chosen item to the new pin color.

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