American Iron

[ggroess]

Ahhh. make this car a "classic"...

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Final image .Steps below.GregM

[mikemeister_admin]

vette 1 was to start lightening the image based on the white stripe of the tent.
vette 2 was to see what detail might lurk under the car and in the grilles.I also boosted the colors.
The resulting image was  sort of the frame for the following color corrections.

vette 3  just a highlight,shadow and neutral pin  in Lab
vette 4 I used multiple neutrals figuring that the cloud ,tent stripe and whitewall were whiter shades of grey and  would push the car body color  to correct Corvette  blue( '58 502A silver blue).GregM

[leeharper_admin]

Hi Greg,

Could you discuss briefly why you chose to use CMYK for your second correction - for those of us who do not use that color space very often :)

Thanks,
Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

Lee,I could have used a lizzard tail for shadow detail((a slight pimple at the bottom of the lightness diagonal),but they work best if the histogram is spread out down in the dark tones.Shadow/hilight in CS4 was a possibilitybut people have done nice shadow recovery with the K channel so I thought I'd give it a try.Fact was there wasn't much detail hidden and since the picture reminded me  of another image  with the same colors,object shapes and sky I had done,I stuck with CYMk.GregM

[mikemeister_admin]

Well I just played with the colour of this one and opened it up a bit - really having a bit of fun.  Nothing serious

[ggroess]

Ok...
Here is how I went about this image. 

1) The overall darkness really is the easiest to cure.  I copied the background and set the layer to screen.  I then repeated that 5 more times.  Cheap but effective...
2) I did a rough "By The Numbers" color correction taking perceived neutrals in the image and correcting to make them neutral.  applied the changes and closed CM flatten the layer  (Shot 1)
3) I went after the overall color saturation in the image using LAB and the saturation slider.  I added an adjustment point on the B curve to hold back the bright yellow in the tent a bit. applied the changes and closed CM flatten the layer( Shot2.)
4) Back into RGB to fix the sky. applied the changes and closed CM flatten the layer (Shot 3).

My final image to follow.
Greg

[ggroess]

Final Image...

Greg

[imported_julie]

Greg

I think this is ok but.... I think the tree on the right looks a bit odd. I tried to lighten up the shadow under the car but couldn't make a difference. I tried to make it punchier but it just ended looking gaudy so I took the colour back a little

Julie

[mikemeister_admin]

I took my image above and added a bit of brightness using two simple methods,lifting the lightness curve in Lab and a new layer set to screen.The colors I wanted to keep saturated were the mustard stripe of the tent,the red stripe of the tent in the rear and the red of the fender at left.I think the increased brightness improves the white of the tires and the cove on the side.GregM
Should the blue cast  be removed the crome wheel or will that look too processed?