Curvemeister Forum

This was a fun image to work on  :)

I tried this one in Lab, RGB, and CMYK. I won't waste bandwidth posting the CMYK version - it looked awful! My favourite version is the RGB one. It has got the most contrast in the reflections (in the spheres). I don't mind losing a bit of the water in the background - it seems like a good trade...

Lee.

Lee,
did you find any color in there??  the lab version has hints of color that can be brought forward...the details in the image are well handled good work.

Greg

Greg,
I wasn't really thinking about the colour in this image. I will take another swing at it  ;)
Lee.

I've had another try with this one, and the new version is much more convincing.

I think that the real breakthrough this time was using the knowledge picked up from Greg's 'Keeping Abe Honest...subjective neutral choices' video. I set three hue clocks (for shadow, midtone, and highlight), and managed to find a great place to locate a neutral pin. I have uploaded a small comparison image which shows yesterday's Lab correction next to today's, and I think that it clearly shows the benefit of a well chosen neutral.

I used the Lab saturation slider to bring out the colours at Greg's suggestion (moving the slider to 1.90 - I couldn't bear it any higher ;)). Having done this, I put a hue clock on the water at top-right of the picture. The green seemed a bit off, so I adjusted the B curve to put this right (curve file attached).

I'm glad that Greg encouraged me to give this picture another shot  :)

Lee.

I think overall it looks much better Lee.  I have even seen it brighter..but you have figured this out very well..

Greg