Curvemeister Forum

Following our discussion on Saturday I thought that it would be nice to approach this like a picture postcard. ;)

The final result took about 4 passes in CurveMeister, but it's quiet at work so I've the luxury of being able to work everything to death!

I made a mask for the sky in Photoshop (to get around the CM bug), using a custom CMYK conversion with Light GCR. To make sure that I had good detail along the tree line I used CS5's Refine Edge feature to clean the edges up. I set a neutral and highlight in the sky, and bumped the colour - all in Lab.

I approached the foreground in two passes (with my mask active - and inverted): the first pass was a by-the-numbers correction; the second was to boost contrast and saturation (with minor tweaks for colour).

Lastly, I flattened the two layers and returned to CM to work on the image as a whole (all of the curves are attached). Let me know if you think I've gone too far with it - or whether I should have pushed it a bit harder. ;)

Thanks again for the chance to chat at the weekend. You've been so generous, both with your time and knowledge. As much fun as the forum is, it was wonderful to have a chance to speak with you - I feel as though I know you much better now.  :)

I've never used Skype before, so I hope that I didn't babble too much!

Cheers,
Lee.

I should have mentioned, when correcting the foreground I neutralised the black rubber tiles on the right hand side of the image. I felt pretty sure that they ought to be black...

Lee.

I like it a lot...great job...

The foreground colors in the tree are wonderful....The clouds are a bit over done but they are a small price to pay...the CS5 tools even took care of the tree fringe...hmmm...interesting I have not tried CS5 yet...

I enjoyed our conversation and hope that we did not take too big of a bite out of your evening...The talk removes the frustration of trying to type our responses and not yet completely covering the topic...I love to do those and I am always willing to share...I learned from generous folks and I feel that to keep the information to myself is well...selfish...

Greg

As I was cycling home from work this evening the sky looked a lot like the sky in this image, and it made me realise that I had overdone the contrast in the clouds. Taking this course has made me notice the world around me more. I'm a long way from being able to look at something and know how many units of Magenta it's out by, but I am more aware of colour than I have been in the past...

As pleased as I was with the first version, I wanted to correct the sky, and improve the colour. In my first attempt I only did a by-the-numbers correction in the foreground, and I wanted to do that before separating the foreground and background this time.

The other major change in approach this time was in the adjustment to the sky. This time I multiplied 12% of the Red channel into the sky whilst I was still in Photoshop. I thought that this would give me more rope in CurveMeister.

I think that I prefer this version, but I'd be interested to know what you think...

Cheers,
Lee.

In comparing versions 1 and 2, the saturation of the water in the foreground was bothering me, so I've layered the saturation in the foreground of version 1 over version 2 to knock the water back. I think that this helps out the boats too.

Must stop fiddling and get to bed! I'm having too much fun  ;)

Lee.

Lee nicely done...I don't think you went too far...I might look at the 1/4 and 3/4 quarter tones but nothing major...possibly play a bit in those areas to see if the overall tonality is where you want it to be...

Highly subjective at that point...on my screen it looks a bit bright but your actual mileage may vary....

Greg