Curvemeister Forum

Greg,
I know I've been absent. Not lurking, just working. 9 shifts with only one day off! I keep losing the screen print page but have just figured out that it does not like being called 'something.rgb'. Hopefully it will save now. Having lost several of the building I moved on to the flowers out of frustration but I will return tothe building. I have the lab print screen but not the rgb (but now I think I know why).
In both I used thresholding rather than shadow/highlight points. I did not use neutral at all.  In rgb i tried fiddling with the green curve and to make the greens a bit darker and the 'all' curve to make the yellow brighter. I also sharpened and increased the saturation using elements. In the lab the screen is there for you to see.
I dont know which I like more but I think I would like to get a little more brightness in. I was unsure how to do this without blowing out high lights

Julie

No worries on the participation..you and Joann are making the guys look like mutes...  I hope you are getting the information from her postings as well.  Both of you are exploring this quite well and I already can see some patterns coming out that are actually quite good.  Wanting to make the Greens better and the yellows darker is sometimes about knowing the color wheel  The opposite of Green is magenta and the opposite of yellow is blue.  

If you want to make the greens better you have to take both on both the red and the blue since combined the make magenta.    you can adjust the Green alone but that will often times make the greens look fake. Note about leafy green things...They are actually green/yellow and not pure green.  We will learn more about that as we go ...I keep saying that but you are asking such good questions I want to give you good answers...

The highlights are tough here because you need the details.  Brighter yellow is tough because you have to adjust the saturation as well as the brightness.  This is where lab has an advantage.  You can set the contrast without getting messed up in the color...then just add color at the end.  As you brighten yellow it starts to look thin and washed out.  Something to try...Make the image look as good as you can in RGB using CM.  Apply your changes and then go back into the image in CM but select LAB as the mode.  Tweak the image slightly to improve contrast as needed and then crank on the saturation...

I'll post an example of that for you to show you what can be done...I won't muddy the water too much just yet...Your really not too far off actually...
Greg

Greg,
tried again just for fun. I may have gone too far but i think its ok. I did two passes as you suggested and then sharpened and adjusted brightness slightly in elements.

I really dont understand what I am doing all the time when I move the curves! i am also going to have to get used to a different colour wheel. The one firmly stuck in my head originated inart classes years ago in school. Its very embedded and digital is very different.

I am reading all of Joann's posts. Its useful

julie

Julie,

You do not need to go to elements for brightness and levels....
CM is doing that when you set Shadow and Highlight the mid-tone setting from Levels is done by grabbing the center of the Master RGB curve and moving it.  You actually have better response in CM than you get in PS by doing this.  The L channel in LAB is even better for doing this.

You can see individual channels in CM for these adjustments if you want just click on the channel as shown in shot1.  Shot2 is the L channel displayed.

Give it a try....Levels is one of the "last resort" tools in PS for me...I used it almost exclusively prior to understanding CM.  It was my benchmark.  Now I hardly ever touch it...it is to coarse for me...