Curvemeister Forum

ARG--I just typed a very long question and attached two images, both under 300kb.  I then got a message saying my attachments were too large, and the long post was lost.  When this happened yesterday, I copied the written text to my clipboard when I redid it, but didn't remember to do it tonight.  Got to cook dinner.  May try again later.  Bummer!

Later:

Luckily I copied the text this time before I tried to post, because there was another error and I lost the message again.  4th try:

My issues with this were related to trying to get the major colors right.  I managed to get the pointers on the hue clocks to be fairly strong (on the red, green and black), but I couldn't get the numbers right.  Isn't my goal to have the red be red, green be green, yellow=yellow, etc.?  What is your workflow to achieve this?  Here was mine:
1.  Set highlight
2.  Adjust saturation by eye
3.  Start refining colors.  I started with hue clocks around the "field" then set the white point with a hue clock where the highlight first showed up.  100 is blown out and I had it at 99, but for some reason it ended up 100--perhaps not a problem for one spot that doesn't need detail?  Then went to work on red.  I worked on this yesterday (before I lost everything trying to get a screen shot) and got the hue clock to point strongly to R, but the numbers didn't correspond to your numbers on the assignment page for Red.  Today, I couldn't make it to Red--perhaps doesn't need to be TRUE red?  Then I worked on the green in the trees, but had to keep working back and forth so as not to lose my red or get a blue cast. You can see what an ant trail my b channel is.  Is this the way it works or is there a more expedient way?

(OK in looking in the Help section and reading the assignment notes, I see that trees are not true Green, but rather yellow/green, so I went too far for the green.)

Also, please explain again about neutral.  I am trying to remember what having equal numbers has to do with neutral--was that in RGB?  I am still mixed up about neutral being a brightness but not a .....

Also 2: I found the floating hue clock once, but can't find it again...

Thank you much.

Rhonda 

Rhonda,
I'm sorry you lost your text...It happens to me writing an answer more than I care to tell you...

BTW...Your B channel curev??  umm maybe too may points there...let's try to simplify....
Greg

Greg, I added some text above with some questions when I reconstructed my lost entry.  Any thoughts you have time to share would be helpful.  Thanks, as usual!

Rhonda,
A question...Why are you trying to specify colors in this image??  I reasonably certain you cannot "know" what hue of red is found in the image.  By trying to "fix" the color you have created a wider array of problems for yourself.  If you want to try to fix the hues you really should go to RGB, but the color is in there and only needs a good neutral to set it straight.

Remember that blown highlights are only a problem if they are in areas that are important to the image. otherwise you can and should let some small areas go.  The page is a problem and you are right to try to go after the highlights there.  but 100 is ok so long as the entire page is not at 100.

Regarding neutrals...A neutral is when the color channels all have an equal value so on RGB 100,100,100 is neutral.  In LAB the A and B channels must be zero for the pixels to be neutral.

When you save the screen shots.  Use "Save for web" rather than "save".  This allows you to set the size of the file in Photoshop. I have started checking the file sizes before I type my responses.  I have been burned too often.

Greg
Greg

Webshots:  I use CaptureWiz and you can save to various formats.  I save to a bit map because it is the largest size in Photoshop.  I then resize in photoshop to 1024 on the long end at 100 resolution and save as a jpg that is less than 300kb.  Has seemed to work OK recently.  Have seen discussion about whether you'd like the Photoshop result or the screenshot of the CM curves.  I've assumed you wanted to see the curves to tell exactly where we went wrong :-), but am happy to send the PS result instead if you'd prefer.

You're right about trying to fix a color that might not be red in the beginning.  My mind got stuck on numbers and all the talk about the hue clock having a long pointer and toward the right color.  After I finished the image, I stepped back mentally and said--"wait a minute--what's my goal here, anyway?"  Thanks for refreshing about the neutrals--don't know why I'm having so much trouble with this!  Again--stuck in old incorrect thought patters that are hard to correct.

We specialize in correcting old thought patterns...lol..OK maybe not so much...
I would say screen shot the curves interface and then save the image as completed to less than 300k.  Then post both.

Something to note...Windows and Web servers can calculate the file size differently.  An image my PC says is 300K will not load to CM forum because when I look at the actual byte count it is actually 302 or some other number that is close. 

I try to hit about 295-297 KB for most of my images...

Greg