Curvemeister Forum

Hi everyone,

I'm working on putting together a "By the Numbers" checklist - both for myself, and others; something that could be used prior to beginning the correction, to help analyze the image.

I've already got something together, but I want to make sure that I've covered everything... So, what do you analyze in the image before you begin your corrections? What type of objects do you check? What numbers/hue-clock positions are you looking for? (I'm thinking about things like checking that the skin-tones fall close to 12:30 on the hue clock - that kind of thing...)

I appreciate your input - cheers,
Lee.

Lee, what I normally do is to scan the image; see if there's a difference in colour cast between highlights and shadow areas. Is the cast uniform over the whole image, or more from one side.  Knowing the hugh clock's position for different elements in the image, like skin colour, the blue sky, foliage, etc will help to determine the cast and the extent of it and how to rectify it.

Hi Ganna - thanks for your reply :)

see if there's a difference in colour cast between highlights and shadow areas

Would you mind explaining how you do this, please?

Cheers,
Lee.

I think that "by the numbers" work very well here. When I see for instance there is a yellow cast, then I look at the extend of it in different areas. SAy an image of a zebra and part of the animal is in shade; take the white and black in bright area and compare to the same in the shadow. Sometimes the bright parts may be OK but you may have a blue or yellow cast in the shadow areas.  Other things to look for is human hair, it cant be blue or green. Then to quote Dan Margulis " Our language is replete with misleading phrases involving colour. The whites of our eyes are in reality pink. Red wine is purple and white wine greenish yellow. Both white and black people are more red"

BTN numbers?  Besides the skin tone, sky, greenery, rocks ideal numbers, the impossible numbers should be shown.  Also max /min saturation.  When I am in a hurry  /lazy, I will do a CM layer just to do a HSB adjustment of skin saturation. 

I used to keep a card of info by Dan Margulis.  Later a printout of Greg's color wheel.  I probably should do that again.

Hi Lee,

I amnew to CM and just saw your post.  How is your By the Numbers checklist project coming along?  I would love to have a copy if you don't mind sharing.

Lowell

I'm reading Dan Margulis' books again and we tend to forget things. Remember to change colours to what is more believable if we dont know exactly what it should be. For instance I may not know what the correct colour of the persons hair is, but I know  It cannot be green or blue.  Secondly, do not force things to 100% neutral if you are not sure it is so. Cement surfaces may have a slight  blue tint etc. Thirdly, do not focus on one small area of the image only; scan over the whole area and watch the Hue clock and get a better idea.

By the numbers is good, but with the hue clocks we get lazy.  I should generate 4 by 6 photo with a card per color.  One for skin, sky, foliage, ??  Each card should have hue clocks and number hints by color space.

It is a small project that I have procrastinated on.

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your replies so far. I have attached the checklist that I've been putting together as a PDF.

The checklist feels very much like a version 1 to me - I'm hopeful that with everyone's continued feedback we can all make it much more useful. Please download the PDF and have a look at it; if there is anything that you think that I've missed, or if you think that any of the steps should be worded differently (if, for example, you think that a step seems vague), or in a different position, please add a comment to this thread.

I plan to continually develop this. I already have a few new ideas, and welcome any that you may have.

All best,
Lee.

Very well done.  Perhaps one of the positive things about the riots was to keep you inside to develope things like this for us  ;D