Something you might like to play with

[ggroess]

well now...I can tell you that they did not look like that on the monitor before posting...I bet yours didn't either... (nudge nudge...)

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Had a very difficult time using curves. Very little to start with so I "chose" other methods.
Thanks Joe S

[ggroess]

Well Joe...

Here is how I "Tackled" this image...

I really tried hard to do this just in curves but found like most that there was not enough to work with...

Step 1 was to go into Levels and bring the middle up significantly.  This cost me a large amount of color so I went to CM and used RGB to bring back some color and manage the Red.  I also adjusted the blue down a bit...

Step 2 Close the image in CM and return to PS.  From there I was not satisfied with the brightness or contrast so I took it into
Step 3 LAB where I could adjust both lightness and color but separately. 

This is where I found the clouds to be confusing and asked zog if he had spiked the image.  I found the clouds reacted like they were masked there was most definately a hard line that was formed somewhere in the adjusting....

After working on the image for quite some time I posted the result that was least offensive to me...(kidding) I had about 4 versions and this was the one I was least dissatisfied with

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

I was willing to give up some detail in the upper 2/3rds of the image even burned the upper panel of stainedglass in order to focus attention on the altarpiece.I tried to give that a golden oak-gilt look.I sharpened a bit ,if you can't see detail in the carvings ,at least you can see the edges.Greg M