Curvemeister Forum

I first did the Lab, saved and 2nd run with RGB to get the blue out of the shadows without destroying skin tone.

If anything I pick up some yellow in the shadows  on the street but overall it is a very nice correction.
Remember that the skin tones should not go past 12:30 or so on the hue clock.  You did cut it close on the drummer on the left.

Greg

Anything from 12 to 1 is actually acceptable, with 12 being more typical of very light complexioned people.  12:45 is the middle of the road "nominal" skin tone that I generally shoot for in an image with just one skin tone.

The Lightness curve of the first example is incorrect because of the downward turn at the top.  Curvemeister is warning you by making the curve turn red.  This kind of shape is normally reserved for special effects, such as solarization, when the brightest parts of the image are inverted.  Otherwise, it's better to use the downward turn to get more contrast in the image.  Having said that, I can't see that the downward curve did any harm in this case, though, and I would be interested in your reasons for using it.

Your final, third image looks just fine, with the skin tones looking good, good contrast, and the pavement looking quite neutral as well.

Thanks for the response. Mike, I turned it down to soften the highlights, esp on the car, the reflection was a bit too strong (I think :P)
Ganna

I first did the Lab, saved and 2nd run with RGB to get the blue out of the shadows without destroying skin tone.

Why are they so dark?

Frits

I do like the darker look of the car, which is in a distracting position for such a bright object.  The negative slope is scary, though.  I think you could get a similar appearance with a separate pass with Photoshop's burn tool.  As Frits says, the resulting image is a bit on the dark side, probably due to the curve shape giving up the brightness range.