Mike/Greg, This question pertains to the overall scheme of adjustments when using pins.
Using the drummers as example and disregarding the class info sheet:
1) Would I pin first? Then set S,H,N? Then make further adjustments?
2) Would I set S,H,N, first. Then pin? Then make further adjustments?
3) Something different?
What is the overall process? We have been doing minor steps occasionally and I would like to understand how it all fits together.
Thanks Joe S
Pinning procedure
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mikemeister_admin
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Good question Joe...
I am not at a computer with CM installed so I hesitate to answer other than to say I personally would get the neutral first then the shadow and highlight. I would then check to see if I needed an adjustment to the skin tones. usually if you need an adjustment then it would be subtle in this particular case I would be looking for yellows in the skin because of all the wood around the woman.
Since you give me the yarn as a neutral I would start there. With her darker complexion I would use one of the darker skin pins naturally.
Greg
I am not at a computer with CM installed so I hesitate to answer other than to say I personally would get the neutral first then the shadow and highlight. I would then check to see if I needed an adjustment to the skin tones. usually if you need an adjustment then it would be subtle in this particular case I would be looking for yellows in the skin because of all the wood around the woman.
Since you give me the yarn as a neutral I would start there. With her darker complexion I would use one of the darker skin pins naturally.
Greg
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mikemeister_admin
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This is a beautiful photograph because of the subject matter, composition, and lighting.
In general the most important thing to tackle first is shadow and highlight. If I have 10 seconds for an image, that's generally what I do first. After that, I set a neutral. Setting up a good Lightness curve is generally the most time consuming, since it's necessary to add contrast to areas that matter, without unduly robbing contrast from other areas. In this case, I would try to add contrast to the woman's face, and the objects around her, de-emphasizing the floor and background. I would also add more color variation, since the contrast of the colored elements with the overall red-brown of the earth and wood is such an important element of this image.
The yarn she is spinning is probably light brown, since using it as a neutral makes the image too cool. For this image, the weaving on the loom seems to be a more likely neutral.
In images with mixed lighting (which this image is not - it's a uniform red cast), I either work in RGB first, and try to set a second neutral or a pin in RGB, or click Apply, or work first in Lab and come back in for a pass in RGB mode.
In general the most important thing to tackle first is shadow and highlight. If I have 10 seconds for an image, that's generally what I do first. After that, I set a neutral. Setting up a good Lightness curve is generally the most time consuming, since it's necessary to add contrast to areas that matter, without unduly robbing contrast from other areas. In this case, I would try to add contrast to the woman's face, and the objects around her, de-emphasizing the floor and background. I would also add more color variation, since the contrast of the colored elements with the overall red-brown of the earth and wood is such an important element of this image.
The yarn she is spinning is probably light brown, since using it as a neutral makes the image too cool. For this image, the weaving on the loom seems to be a more likely neutral.
In images with mixed lighting (which this image is not - it's a uniform red cast), I either work in RGB first, and try to set a second neutral or a pin in RGB, or click Apply, or work first in Lab and come back in for a pass in RGB mode.
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mikemeister_admin
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Thanks for all the comments. I'm heading out now so I'll take a better look at the details (and curves) tomorrow. What is interesting though is that everyones effort is RGB (for some reason I never work in RGB). The other is that no one tried to pin the cedar wood. If you did pin the wood what would the procedure be?
Thanks Joe S
Thanks Joe S
You'd need an Lab value for cedar wood, which could be obtained from another image (for example if you had a series of images taken in the same location), or by scanning a piece of cedar. The problem with the piece of cedar is that wood colors can vary, and the exact shade of the wood, as long as it is a reddish orange is not as important as the other objects in the image.
The same logic holds, by the way, for the bit of American flag in the upper left corner. I happen to know, courtesy of Google, that the blue and red colors for the flag are as follows:
old glory red Lab(42,64,27) pin hue and saturation ;
old glory blue Lab(16,10,-40) pin hue and saturation ;
I am very confident, though, that pinning the red and blue to these colors would be unsatisfactory. The reasons are that the lighting on the flag may be different than the rest of the image, and these colors are not related to the important parts of the image. I *would* consider using these pins if the flag were a prominent part of the image.
The same logic holds, by the way, for the bit of American flag in the upper left corner. I happen to know, courtesy of Google, that the blue and red colors for the flag are as follows:
old glory red Lab(42,64,27) pin hue and saturation ;
old glory blue Lab(16,10,-40) pin hue and saturation ;
I am very confident, though, that pinning the red and blue to these colors would be unsatisfactory. The reasons are that the lighting on the flag may be different than the rest of the image, and these colors are not related to the important parts of the image. I *would* consider using these pins if the flag were a prominent part of the image.
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