Curvemeister Forum

I find HSB very strange to use and I'm a bit confused about the Worms - what decides their length?

Thought I might try contrast pins, but that just remove all my curves and set them back to straight!

Hope they still look like US pumpkins!

I was reading the new features and trying out the Hilight option - but I then button just to the right of ShowMask (in View) is grayed out.  Any ideas how I get it to work (I've selected 2 points on the curve using the control key).
Also my ribbons items under view do not agree with the help page.

Agree, I also do not like HSB (perhaps my incompetence with it at this stage.)
Chris, your pumpkins look more like african tomatos ( just get them a bit more red ;D)

Agree, I also do not like HSB (perhaps my incompetence with it at this stage.)
Chris, your pumpkins look more like african tomatos ( just get them a bit more red ;D)

Chris,
I believe you are looking at the highlight mask option.  If you have a mask you can highlight it so you can see the areas effected by the mask.  you can choose a mask color.  That way you can see the mask while adjusting the other curves.

Greg

Agree, I also do not like HSB (perhaps my incompetence with it at this stage.)
Chris, your pumpkins look more like african tomatos ( just get them a bit more red ;D)

Ganna,
HSB is not one of the easy areas to correct color.  The curve gives you very little information except when you hover the mouse over the image.  Again this is where a "mark" helps.  I would say you should try more corrections in HSB especially very colorful ones.  It can be a great area for specific images. 

Part of learning CM is also learning what you don't like.  That is perhaps a better message...

Greg

The length of the worms depends on the range of color values that are occupied by the area under the cursor - this is very dependent on the sample size, with larger sample sizes having longer color worms.

Contrast pins are a way to set a pin at each end of a worm.  I tried, but could not create a situation where the curve would be reset to straight by creating a contrast pin

I would say you should try more corrections in HSB especially very colorful ones.  It can be a great area for specific images. 

I love HSB! I've not yet found a use for the H, and the B is the same as L as far as I can see so I don't use that much either. But the Saturation curve is, on occasion, incredibly useful.

I've attached an image of the Red Arrows display team. They flew by with their colourful smoke trails on, and it's these trails and the red planes themselves that are the focus of the image. The problem is that there's a cloud of fainter red smoke lingering in the air from a previous pass. The challenge with this image is to pump up the colour in the trails and the planes without pumping up the colour in the lingering red smoke.

The first image shows what happened when I boosted the saturation in LAB mode. The trails and the planes came up a treat, but so did the lingering smoke. The focal points of the image remain lost in the background. Isolating out that background red smoke is possible but tricky - it's the same colour as the red smoke in the trails I want to highlight, so how do you boost one without boosting the other?

The answer (or at least, my answer) is the saturation curve. The colour in the planes and the smoke trails is more saturated than the fainter colour in the background. It's the same colour, just less saturated. Remember that the S curve has less saturated colour at the lower left end and most saturated colour at the upper right. That means the colour I want to boost is at the upper end of the S curve so that's the bit I steepen. The fainter background smoke is less saturated, so that information is in the lower end of the curve, which I pull down to reduce its appearance in the image.

This solution whacks up the brilliant smoke from the planes and makes it the highlight of the image. I'm not sure how you'd do this so effectively with any other colourspace.

Excellent Example of an image that needs HSB...

Nice shot!

Greg

Agree, I also do not like HSB (perhaps my incompetence with it at this stage.)
Chris, your pumpkins look more like african tomatos ( just get them a bit more red ;D)

Ganna,
HSB is not one of the easy areas to correct color.  The curve gives you very little information except when you hover the mouse over the image.  Again this is where a "mark" helps.  I would say you should try more corrections in HSB especially very colorful ones.  It can be a great area for specific images. 

Part of learning CM is also learning what you don't like.  That is perhaps a better message...

Greg

Fully agree with you Greg. My problem is to avoid things I don't like and when you force me to work with it, just like you said... I'm actually learning the most then. Thanks
Ganna