Irish Boy

[mikemeister_admin]

Not done with Smart Objects  -- done in Elements.

[ggroess]

Brian,

The image has an overall reddish cast to it....at least here on m monitor.  Can you use a By the numbers correction to get rid of it or possibly a well placed neutral?? 

Concrete is not pink in my part of the country....Kidding...

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

I now see that too.  I thought I had a hue clock on the sidewalk!  I'll take a look at it again whan I get home.

FYI:  I was fighting against a yellow cast in the boy's skin and might have fought too far.  I tried several different ways to skin the cat on this one and this was the best result (but for what now looks to be an overcorrection).  There also did not seem to be much room to manuver on improving contrast.
 
Could you expand on the "by the numbers" approach?  I  did try a neutral on the sidewalk and moved it all around, but I think I was not successful in eliminating a really strong magenta cast off the boy's left lower leg which only got worse with my efforts to get rid of a yellowish tone in the hands (and I think somewhere on the legs).  Can't remember if I was working in Lab or RGB ... pretty sure I tried it both ways.

I assume hue clocks work independently of monitor calibration, so even if my monitor is out of whack a color cast should show up with a hue clock, right? (No excuse though ... I just calibrated last weekend.)

By the way, I hear pink concrete is very "in" in some parts of the world ...

[mikemeister_admin]

This is a difficult image in PS Elements, that scrap of paper and the boy's collar go toxic the minute you start correcting.Since the collar highlight is blown out you might as well dial it down,the neutral is on the grating and the extra hue clock shows what happens when you move the top of the green channel to the left.I might do a second pass with a small lizzard tail in Lab lightness to bring out detail in the boy's shorts and shoes.Good luck,Brian,GregM

[ggroess]

The By The Numbers approach to this is just like we did on the conference call.

In RGB select  a shadow, highlight and neutral that should be neutral.  So in this case the darkest part of the sewer grate, the collar of the shirt and part of the sidewalk should work well. 

Adjust the shadow until the three color values are equal to the lowest one at the start.  i.e. if the r channel is 235 then make G and B = 235 as well remember not to start in the corner of the curve when setting the point you want to move.

Same for the Highlight.

For the Neutral gray value  they should all equal the average of the values in the hue clock from after the shadow and highlight correction.

See this posting for more info...

http://www.curvemeister.com/forum/index.php?topic=2269.0

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Greg,for by the numbers,do you slide the top of the curve left(or the bottom right)to reach the target number or do you put  a point on the curve at an approximate location and then raise or lower?GregM

[ggroess]

I have done both...
I usually go about 1/4 of the way up the curve so I am moving the end of the curve less less than the 1/4 area. 
In RGB I definitely use a point that I raise or lower.  You need a highlight point, a shadow point and a midtone..

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

I can't get that video to play at my end.  I suspect Zonealarm is the reason, but not sure.

Any ideas?

The By The Numbers approach to this is just like we did on the conference call.

In RGB select  a shadow, highlight and neutral that should be neutral.  So in this case the darkest part of the sewer grate, the collar of the shirt and part of the sidewalk should work well. 

Adjust the shadow until the three color values are equal to the lowest one at the start.  i.e. if the r channel is 235 then make G and B = 235 as well remember not to start in the corner of the curve when setting the point you want to move.

Same for the Highlight.

For the Neutral gray value  they should all equal the average of the values in the hue clock from after the shadow and highlight correction.

See this posting for more info...

http://www.curvemeister.com/forum/index.php?topic=2269.0

Greg

[ggroess]

It might take up to 4-5 minutes to download. 
It is a flash type video.  Is your flash up to date?
If you are using Internet explorer, you could try ..."gulp"  Firefox...I know your an MS household...

The file size is 32 MB. 

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Updated flash.  I will try to give it more time to load.

Is this better???