Curvemeister Forum

This wasn't easy .....

That this is a difficult image is certainly true.  It is quite common though...

The trick is in the extreme shadow end of the curve.  You need to control that area.
The Lizard tail is one way to do this....

Use the "color worm" on the RGB master curve window and place the cursor in the deepest shadow you want to open.  That is the area you need to move.  Shot2 mouse is circled.  Place a point near the red X and move it downward until the shadows open.

Shot3 - move the rest of your points down as well to increase the contrast and brighten the image overall.

Sorry for the long delay in response...I want to think a bit before I answered your posting.

Greg

Greg you did a great job here, but I still prefer to fix this image in Lab.

I would hope that you understand that LAB is one of the tools you have but it not the only one.  I agree this image is much easier in LAB and in fact I would use LAB to correct it.  The question here is what are you going to do when you cannot fix it in LAB...CM offers some other solutions.

Greg