Open Week Begins with a vacation Photo

[ggroess]

Everyone,

Some initial thoughts.  When you read this PDF it will seem like a lot of stuff...I was able to do this in about 3 minutes It took me much longer to re-size and write this up.  There is more I could do and probably should do but for the first week we are jumping in very deep. 

This is about getting you thinking and seeing what tools you bring to the process.  I restricted myself to CM as much as possible and could have looked at other methods for some of the steps.  I used no masks and I processed the image as described.  I will tell you that I will be better speaking about it than writing...

This is by no means the definitive answer rather, it is a way of showing you different approaches and techniques in CM to use.
(Edit - This is why I hate posting my solutions...the discussion has stopped...)
Greg

[imported_Tanja]

Hi Greg,

hopefully discussion don't stop! Maybe everybody is reading now. Like me.

I'm still at the beginning by setting the neutral, black and white points and learning to work with the program.
Try to find exaktly your points by numbers. Blacks and whites are fixed now, but I have a problem to get the neutral point in the curves. Strg+Click (Ctrl I think on english keyboard) don't work on the point, where I set the hueclock. Cursor changes into another symbol then.
I see the little "n" in your picture on the neutral point and try to set the neutral by menu but gets other numbers.
Also my blackpoint changes a little bit then.

Another problem is, that I don't now how to delete a wrong step. Only find the reset and all curves are reversed.
For example when I rightklick on the neutral, the menu shows a delete option, but it's not avaiable.

Great result!

Greetings, Tanja

[Rickypics]

Greg, The discussion has not stopped. Time zone changes, work schedules, and shopping for food come into play here.

A lot of what you have done to reach your finished image is beyond my present knowledge. It will take me some time to digest the information and take another stab at the image.

Your work gives me something to work toward, not a stopping point. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Thanks,  Rick

[ggroess]

Rick and all...
Forgive me..It was my cheeky way of spurring the discussion.

In the past, and I know each class is separate; the posting of mine or Mike's process usually grinds the process to a halt...

By all means take your time and ask any questions.

It may be beyond what you understand but hopefully by the end you will totally get it and it will be easy...

Greg

[imported_artmar]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for posting the steps you followed to correct this image. I attempted to duplicate them but encountered several problems, some similar to Tanja's, with resultant sentiments similar to Rick's.

I set the white and black points, following your diagrams, and input/output values, but noticed that you had also made an adjustment in the overall RGB curve. It seems I could only obtain the values for the white and black points that you did by making that overall adjustment as well.  At what point in your workflow did you make that overall adjustment? It looks like you also pinned the curves. How did you determine where to place the pins?

Setting the neutral point created problems for me.  After setting the white and black points, the image was looking better. However, I soon as I pinned the neutral point in approximately the location you did all the colours were shifted and it looked terrible.  But the settings up to that point were very similar to yours, so I was unsure how to proceed with this, so I deleted the neutral pin. I just alt-clicked on that point instead, and nothing changed, which was a "better" result, at least provisionally.

Undaunted, I went on to try the contrast adjustment, but couldn't determine very well at what place in the image you had chosen to set the contrast pins. Once a contrast point is selected and pinned, can those pins be moved on the curve to obtain a wider or narrower interval?  The Lab values you show in the upper right hand corner of p.3,  L=37,a= 53,b=24, do not correspond to anything I can find in the image. Perhaps those are the post-correction values? I couldn't rotate just the interval between the pins. It seems that the entire curve was being shifted -- is that what should happen?

Also wondering why you exited CM after setting the white, black, and neutral points.  Is it possible to apply those changes and continue onto the next step without exiting and re-entering CM?

Lastly, the CM manual has all of the examples showing the curves, except for CMYK space, with black on the left. But your diagrams have black on the right for both RGB and Lab. Should we all set it up that way for this course?

Clearly, I have lots to learn!

Thanks,
Art

[ggroess]

Try this for the RGB.

I sometimes use a threshold feature of CM to find the darkest shadow and brightest highlight.  I may have done this without thinking and left it in place...A video would have shown this and I missed it in the document...for that and the confusion I am sorry...

If you click on the left or right edge of the RGB master frame you enable the Threshold features.  You will see a dashed blue line vertically on the curve edge.  If you drag this line away from the edge your image will be threshold-ed and you will find the darkest shadow or brightest highlight.  They will appear in the color of the darkest channel.  In this image the blue channel was the darkest at 7 and the threshold shows me where to place the shadow point. 

As for the neutral.  Start by looking in the image with a Alt-click hue clock and moving the sample point around until you find a place in that area where the values are similar to the left hand set of numbers in the hue clock I have set as the neutral.  Then you can convert the point to a neutral by clicking on the little arrow in the upper right of the colored hue clock frame and selecting the pin mode > neutral.  This will convert the pin to a neutral.  Since there is a blue cast you will not find an actual neutral but the part of the image is close enough that setting it helps.  This is where sample size becomes an issue for me I use 3X3 samples.  It is a setting in the configuration panel.

I exited CM at the end of the RGB step to apply those calculated changes to the image.  CM will allow you to work in multiple color spaces during your correction but it will only apply 1 correction to the image when you exit.  If you have an RGB and LAB correction and you are set on the RGB space; the RGB correction is applied and the LAB correction is discarded. 

I also usually work on a layer.  I exited the CM module and applied the correction using the layer flatten in PS.  I then created a new layer to do the LAB part.  I did not address this in the document as it is a workflow item for me and I did not feel you needed to know all of that at this point.  Using a layer gives me options to apply my changes as color only or luminosity only changes.  For this step I made no mode change to the image layer if I was doing this "for real" I would apply the changes as color only at this point...Much more on that later in the class.

To make the application of my curves visually you can set up your interface the same as mine.  If it is opposite your usual and you understand it feel free to keep your settings.  I work form a "exposure curve" standpoint and the old exposure curves were always left to right when working with negatives.  It's one of my little idiocies.

Greg

[imported_artmar]

Thanks Greg, I'll try the steps you suggest.
I don't really have an established interface for black on the left or right, so I'll use your configuration. (Since it's the same as Dan Margulis' it should make his books easier to read!)

Cheers,
Art

[imported_Tanja]

Ahhh, that's the secret how to get a point in the curve! Great, works.
Contrast Point is a great feature too and I hope we will learn more about this later in the class.
Don't really understand how the choise works.
And no idea, how I get these points in the a and b channel of lab. Mine are much closer, when I make a contrast pin.
But really learn a lot in these three days of using the curvemeister. And absolutly impatient to lear more  :D.

A Hello to Jerry from me!
Great what you doing only in the raw-converter.
It's maybe not the theme here, but I would really like to see your settings there.

Art, thanks for the keyword. I found my manual now. (But not the Hitchhikers Guide, which I want to read again for preperation to the class  ;D ).
But hard to read for a german. I can't find how to delete a neutral point (which is not that problem any more, because I can delete a pin). How you do that?

Rick, I look at your picture on flickr yesterday. Not that bike-fan, but I love the colors.

Greetings, Tanja

[imported_artmar]

Hi Tanja,

I right-clicked on the hue clock rectangle and checked "disable pin" and then moved it out of the way. If this option is not active, move the pin and it comes back to life (don't understand this).

By the way, I discovered that control-z will undo the last adjustment on a curve.

Good luck with your reading!  (I'm finding reading Jane Austen to be quite a nice diversion when the colours on the screen all start to run together.)

Cheers.
Art

[imported_artmar]

Hi Tanja,

Just realized that what I wrote about the neutral pin was not correct. I right-click on the pin itself, disable it, and then move it out of the way. I don't know why the delete option is not active. (?)

Cheers,
Art