Make this one A postcard....Maybe not Perfect...

[ggroess]

OK,
Now we go after color strong, good looking color...
The current method I am using in CM is a variation on the Contrast Pin feature of Curvemeister.  Curvemeister allows you to set a "Contrast" pin on a curve and boost the contrast between the two points.  If this is applied to a A or B channel of LAB you get a very nice color variation and saturation boost in the image. It give you local control over the color you are boosting and it is a visual adjustment. No guessing and no need to run this multiple times to get it right.

In the screen shot below you see two hue clocks.  They are placed in areas I do not want to change the color in.  Notice one is the clouds and one is the Branch of the dead tree.  I chose these points because I wanted them to be protected from the next correction.  These are my "Anchor points" I will adjust the curves to keep these points as near to the original setting as possible.  As you can see from the screen shot I have to make some compromise in this image but in many images I can hold the adjustment to an exact value.

If you look at the A Channel curve you will see the linked "Contrast Pin" displayed.  The double red dashed lines show me that the two adjustment points are linked.  I have adjusted the curve by rotating these two points using the contrast pin feature.  You place your mouse on the edge of the curve frame and it turns into a double headed arrow.  Left Click and drag the mouse left or right on the frame and the two linked points on the curve will rotate.  This causes the color in between the two selected points to gain saturation and for the individual colors to become more separated / differentiated.  After you make this move the hue clocks are all messed up but since the pins are linked you can use the arrow keys to move the linked segment up or down until the second value on the hue clock is back where it started.

In the B channel curve I have already set the contrast pin and made my adjustments. 

Notice the colors being boosted.  Notice also that the reds are starting to be over saturated.  In the second screen shot...I fixed the over saturation in this case by using a mask on the layer and painting 20% gray over the red areas that were trouble to hold the adjustment back a bit...Usually I apply a special mask curve that holds these areas in check but since it was only red the mask proved too difficult to edit.  It was faster and easier to paint out the areas that were over cooked. 

Next I'll fix the sky and sharpen...
Greg

[leeharper_admin]

Ok, for what it's worth - this was my process:

• I start my corrections by removing (as far as possible) color-casts (colors that our experience tells us must be incorrect - as Greg points out blue shadows fall into that category). I began by applying a curve to the Blue channel in CurveMeister (in RGB mode); unfortunately I didn't screenshot this... Upon applying this adjustment, I used Photoshop's 'Edit > Fade' command, to ensure that my color adjustment didn't also change the image's tonality.


• My initial RGB curve reduced - but didn't remove - the blue cast in the image, so I returned to CurveMeister to finish taking it out. This time I used CurveMeister's Lab mode, and curved the B channel (see the screenshot: 'step-2.jpg').


• These initial two curves took care of the blue cast, but left the clouds needing a bit of help. Before returning to CM I made a selection of the clouds/sky in Photoshop. With the selection active I returned to CM (the deselected areas are red in the screenshot - 'step-3.jpg'; I again used Lab curves to correct this cast).


• Having duplicated my

Background layer in Photoshop, I selected the Red channel (of the Background-copy layer) in Photoshop's 'Channels' panel; with this channel active I opened CM and curved the B/W Red channel to enhance the contrast (see the screenshot: 'step-4.jpg').

I repeated this process with the Green channel (see the screenshot: 'step-5.jpg'). Returning to Photoshop, I decided to replace the Blue channel with the Red channel (using 'Image > Apply Image).

I applied a 'Shadow/Highlights' adjustment to the Red channel (see the screenshot: 'step-6.jpg') to put more detail into the bright foreground rocks. I then changed Background-copy's layer blend mode to 'Luminosity' (so that my adjustments to the Red and Green channels would improve the tonality in the image without changing the color that I'd corrected in the first few steps.

Finally, I boosted the color variation (hue and saturation) in CM, using the same method that Greg described above (contrast pins); I applied my curves through a L-channel mask that I applied a curve to which protects the darkest and brightest areas in the image from the boost in saturation (see the screenshot: 'step-7.jpg'); using a mask like this pushes the saturation enhancement into the midtones (where your eyes would notice saturation the most).

I'm not certain that my correction is quite right - it seems as though it ought to be redder - but hopefully you will find my screenshots helpful.

Cheers,
Lee.

[ggroess]

Alright then...on to the sky.

As Lee described I too masked off  the sky and restricted my adjustment to it.  I chose to use the  Brodie Sky pin that is found in the nature folder of the CM pins pallet.  You can manually correct the sky but with a fast pin and a slight adjustment to make the clouds neutral I was done. 

To finish off the correction I sharpened the image using the High Pass filter in Photoshop set to 1.6 Pixels on a layer copy with the mode set to overlay.  The opacity can then be adjusted to suit your tastes in sharpening.

Greg

[leeharper_admin]

Your correction looks great Greg! Puts me to shame ;)
Lee.