Blue Sand

[leeharper_admin]

Hi all ;)

I took this shot yesterday and can't decide how to approach it. I'd appreciate seeing how you might interpret an image like this.

Cheers,
Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

Selected sand and used warming photo filter till there was some green in the seaweed.
Inverted selection and set a Lab neutral on the shadow behind the sleeve at about five o'clock.
In wgCYMk I pulled down the magenta and cyan curves for the hat which I had quickselected.
Unsharp mask. GregM

[ggroess]

Two Passes through CM both LAB...

1st pass was through a Saturation mask to reduce the blues in the background and to try to hold the skin tones in some reasonable way.  The bright green shading is the highlight mask tool showing me what is being masked and what shows through...  Shot1.

Second pass was to correct the skin a bit and add some local color back into the shirt and the blocks.

Greg

[leeharper_admin]

Thank you both for your corrections :)

I like aspects of both of them; Greg M - I think that applying a warming filter through a mask to the sand was a really clever technique for working on the sand. Warming the sand until the seaweed looked appropriate was a good call. Greg G - I like the skin tone in your correction more, and the overall balance of brightness values across the image works well.

It's an interesting shot to have other people interpret. The background is intentionally blue (I just couldn't decide how much I wanted to keep). It was shot in the middle of the day, with a flash gelled for tungsten light and the camera set up to a tungsten white balance. I did this because the sky was really overcast, and I wanted it to look more interesting. I also wanted the background to look a bit darker than the foreground (I think it looks kind of cinematic).

Because of the way that it was shot the colors where the flash hit are close to being correct (obviously the skin tone is a bit out). Both the hat and beach toys are pretty much correct in the original shot; and though you can never bet the image on the color of clothing, young children love saturated colors so most toys aimed at youngsters are very saturated - something that you can bet the image on in terms of saturation, even when you don't know the color.

Thanks so much for helping me out. I've got a better idea about what I want to do with the image now. I'll post my version when I've fixed it up.

Cheers,
Lee.

[ggroess]

You know Lee it does help if you give us just a tiny bit of intent... ;D

[ggroess]

Lee,
Mike has provided some ACV files for Daylight to Tungsten and vice versa.  You might want to start with those and see what you can do...


Greg

[leeharper_admin]

it does help if you give us just a tiny bit of intent...

In terms of my development as a color corrector, I think that I can benefit more from seeing how you would approach an image without my biasing your approach beforehand. Once the basics are understood (setting shadow, highlight, and neutral points; ensuring that memory colors are dealt with) this process quickly becomes subjective. I am beginning to see that there is not simply one 'correct' way to approach an image. You are right - it is about intent. But who is to say that my intent is the right way to go? Just because it is my photo, doesn't mean that my intent best serves the image. It was really informative and useful to see the way that you both approached this picture. I learned a great deal that perhaps I wouldn't have done had I sought to guide your corrections.

Thanks again for the valuable input. :)

All best,
Lee.

[ggroess]

Well...

Ok, I guess I can see your point in light of some of the things I have asked of you over the last week or so... ;D

Did you find the ACV files in your install??
Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Yes, I found the curves - thanks for pointing me towards them. I had seen them when I first installed CM, but had completely forgotten about them. They could be very helpful with this image :)

I've just emailed you a couple of things ;)

Thanks again,
Lee :)