Week 1 is about to begin but this will be an interesting challenge...

[ggroess]

Sunday begins the new class of Curvemeister 101. 
This is the open class week where everyone gets to jump in and add to the discussion.  For the new people there will be some things that are very confusing presented this week but do not worry too much I will do my best to explain the how, what and why of the processes that you might be seeing.

For those of you wondering if you can join in the fun by all means yes...please take a swing at the images posted and be prepared to discuss how you got your results.

For this weeks starter...I am going to throw a very different challenge out to the group...Make the image below into a B&W image with solid range and good details in all areas of the image.  Please describe what did and why....

Have Fun!
Greg

[imported_ganna]

Hi there. Here's my attempt :)
1. I first separate the colours in LAB so that it shows better in B&W (Screenshot 1)
2.In RGB mode (with Mikes' B&W attachment  for CM) played around with the curves for better separation and contrast
3. Sharpened and resized
I hope to learn about B&W images here, as I'm not so sure what the requirements are

[mikemeister_admin]

test.I can't come up with an image resizing that keeps the sharpness when you click on it.I first sank the red channel in RGB,thendrained the saturation in levels,then some work on the clouds and the last ridgeline in Brightness in
hsb.I would like the billows of the cloud to be as white as a puff of white smoke from a steam locomotive,the whitest point in the image.GregM

[ggroess]

Greg is some of the artifact on the image color channel noise??
The sky looks suspect, I know mine is...I also note that the darkest shadows in my image are blocked up on the web. This will make it difficult to show off the real images...

For this image I tried something a bit different...
I took the original image  and I opened it in PS.  I then switched to channels in RGB and used the "split channel" command to make 3 separate images out of the original.  One B&W image of each channel.  This will close the original image but you can re-open it in PS.

I re-opened the original image in PS and using CM I created a mask using Skin Tone as the source for the mask.  This actually gave me a satisfactory mask for the sky to the orange rocks transition.  I blurred the mask lightly using the CM mask command "Light Blur"  This helped the transitions a bit between the sky and the ground.  I then made a background copy of the red channel image, added a mask layer to it and pasted the skin tone mask into it.  I then painted out any foreground so that my adjustments went right to the sky and far background.  I adjusted the layer copy in CM to make the sky dramatic.  I then applied the mask to the layer so that the foreground was removed and only the sky was left.  

I moved on to the Green channel where I tried to get the most out of the middle tones in the image by making a contrast adjustment using CM to increase the overall contrast in the green channel image.  I then copied the red layer image with the mask applied to it and pasted it as a layer to the green image.

I then moved onto the Blue channel where I found a mess...but I decided I needed some of the details from the highlights of this channel in the brightest areas of the combined red and green image.

I went back to the RGB image and re-did the skin mask using CM, only I inverted it so the sky was protected and the foreground was exposed to the adjustment. This time I copied the background of the blue channel and pasted the mask as onto the copy layer.  I then adjusted the blue channel in CM to bring out the highlight details I wanted without adding too much tonality to the brighter areas.  I applied the mask again so that only the foreground was in the image.  I copied this layer and pasted it into the green image as a new layer.  I then adjusted the opacity of each layer until I was satisifed with the results.

I know there is more but I wanted to make the correction in a reasonable amount of time.  I then sharpened using un-sharp mask.  This is by no means the definitive solution to the image.  This is simply one possible path to follow.

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Yes,it's there in the color image I put through CM.GregM

[ulfstr]

Hi!
Great work Greg! I really want to understand why you are doing this and that. But for me your description is too difficult to follow. I´m no beginner but this is over my head. Sorry. Is this the level of the classes this is nothing for me. I want to start from a lower level.
Anyway when / where do the classes begin. I don´t understand?

I looked a little closer at the schedule and now I understand. This week is a little warming up. Then next week comes the teching. Am I right?

Regards Ulf

[mikemeister_admin]

I've made two attempts:
1. This is in HSB, leaving Hue unchanged; Saturation at 100>0; and Brightness tweaked (two points: 75>78 and 25>22 - a shallow S-curve).  It has some residual orange/brown pixels which disappeared in one attempt (which I've lost), but I've failed to eliminate them here.
2. This used the Adobe Photoshop Elements process: Enhance>Convert to Black and White. . .
Regards
Richard

[ggroess]

Hi!
Great work Greg! I really want to understand why you are doing this and that. But for me your description is too difficult to follow. I´m no beginner but this is over my head. Sorry. Is this the level of the classes this is nothing for me. I want to start from a lower level.
Anyway when / where do the classes begin. I don´t understand?

I looked a little closer at the schedule and now I understand. This week is a little warming up. Then next week comes the teching. Am I right?

Regards Ulf

This week is to give you an idea of what can be done in Curvemeister.  The coursework starts next week on Sunday this week I'd like you to try what you feel you can and play around with the images posted.

This is a beginners course so we will be dropping the level of technique down to what ever level we have to to make sure you get the information you need.  When the class is open this week, we push the images really hard.  I do not want to scare you off just know that by the end of the class you will have a very solid foundation in Curves and how they work and what you can do with them.

Next week we start with some basic images and a few tough ones...the basic images give you the information you will be using throughout the rest of the course.  The tougher ones are for the people who already understand and want to push further.

So in a nutshell yes we really begin next week...this week is to get the housekeeping out of the way...learning how to post images and seeing what can be done with the tool.

Greg

[ggroess]

I've made two attempts:
1. This is in HSB, leaving Hue unchanged; Saturation at 100>0; and Brightness tweaked (two points: 75>78 and 25>22 - a shallow S-curve).  It has some residual orange/brown pixels which disappeared in one attempt (which I've lost), but I've failed to eliminate them here.
2. This used the Adobe Photoshop Elements process: Enhance>Convert to Black and White. . .
Regards
Richard

Richard,
Welcome to the class...I am really curious about the freckles...do you remember how you did that?? Was the HSB conversion in Curvemeister??  again just curious..

The second one does look better overall.  Is there a way in PSE to work on the Sky??  I have never used PSE for b&w conversion...time to open up the program I guess...

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Third attempt.Tried to clean up sky with Neat Image,slight improvement.I'm using PSE 8 with a plug in that  lets me use some of the functions of CS4.I used its BW converter which provides control over RGB and CMY channels.GregM
Bottom Image-done using channel mixer inPSE8 with monochrome checked,then used noise filter on section of sky.On my monitor I have some detail to that tree stump which seems not to cross the ether.(my Elements+ plugin has a split channel command ,I just have to learn to use it)GregM