Incoming Storm over the Imperial Valley

[leeharper_admin]

Ok - here's my version. It would be good to know how close the color is to your field Steve...

The image as downloaded was untagged (i.e., hadn't been saved with a color profile); I knew that it probably should be set to sRGB, but Apple RGB opened the image up more, so I chose that (I converted back into sRGB prior to saving the version that I have posted).

The color seemed as though it only needed a slight By-the-Numbers adjustment - and the clouds were bothering me - so I began by working on the tone of the image. CS5's 'HDR Toning' adjustment did a far better job than 'Shadow/Highlights' (I tried both) so I used that (masked for the clouds only using Select > Color Range).

I then applied the image's Red channel (in Luminosity mode, at 50% opacity) to the foreground - as I felt that the field looked unnaturally dark against the sky.

Finally (for tonal adjustments), I went into CurveMeister and applied a Zone 6 pin (from one of Greg's pin libraries) to the sky near the horizon. I didn't like the effect in every area of the image, so I used the mask I have attached to this post to hold the adjustment back in certain areas.

For color, I did a quick BtN adjustment in CurveMeister, and then used some Lab contrast pins to increase hue and saturation variation into the field (I masked the contrast pin adjustments, to protect the sky).

Is this a fair representation of the scene?

Cheers,
Lee.

[sjordan93436]

Lack of color profile?  My mistake.  I did not check the box in save for web and devices.  It was sRGB.  That adds about 4 k to the file, I think.

A couple of questions about that.

How do you tell what color space it is saved in?  I do not get that warning.

What color space should I use?  In the CM classes, I thought sRGB was okay since it was for web viewing.  I use LR which has prophoto as default.  Now that I am printing, should I go to aRGB or prophoto?

(sorry for the basic question).

At the posted resolution, you cannot see certain problems.  I have to start over, now that it is approved.  No reason to add fixes on fixes.  I did a poor touchup of my shadow in a crucial spot. 

Back to the color, the sun was setting, and some of the color were remnants of that. 

I will try using the hdr toning adjustment.  And later try to reduce the field color. 

It is a fair representation of the scene.  Since the destination is artichoke people they want bright color correct foliage.  The original was dark on the left and yellowish and washed out on the right.  I think the greens are good.

Thanks.  I may post the "final" image later.

[leeharper_admin]

Hi Steve,

Don't be sorry for asking questions! And they're not basic - most people never give them any consideration...

I have attached a few screenshots to show you what to do to have Photoshop alert you to missing profiles. The largest screenshot is Photoshop's Color Settings dialog window (open this by choosing: Edit > Color Settings... - it's near the bottom of the list). If you turn on the checkbox that I've highlighted, you will receive an alert message whenever you open an image saved without an embedded profile.

If you've asked Photoshop to alert you whenever you open an untagged image (Photoshop calls images without embedded profiles 'untagged'), you will see the alert message that I've attached.

I don't use this method myself, because the Missing Profile dialog has no Preview functionality, so you cannot choose 'visually' which profile is most appropriate.

What I do instead is to set the info area at the bottom-left of the image window to display 'Document Profile' (again, please see the screenshot to see how to do this); with this method it's easy to notice when an image is untagged - but it allows me to visually choose an appropriate profile to assign (via Edit > Assign Profile...).

In the case of your image, I knew that most likely I ought to assign sRGB, because you had posted the image online (and - as you say - it is a very good idea to post sRGB images online; I converted my correction to sRGB before posting it too); nevertheless, although I knew that assigning sRGB would show me the image as you intended for me to receive it, I felt that the image was too dark - so I assigned Apple RGB.

The question then is "Why assign Apple RGB?" Sure, I could have brightened the image up after assigning sRGB, but I wanted to kill two birds with one stone (so to speak), and Apple RGB allowed me to do that because the gamma of Apple RGB is lower than the gamma of sRGB (1.8 instead of 2.2). Color profile gamma values are used to interpret the brightness of images; lower values are brighter than higher values - therefore an image interpreted via a color profile with a 1.8 gamma value will appear brighter than via a color profile with a 2.2 gamma value.

The downside of intentionally applying the 'wrong' color profile to an untagged image is that the colors in the image can be thrown off; however, in the case of sRGB vs. Apple RGB the colors are interpreted in a very similar manner - so I knew that any color shifts would be small (and therefore easier to manage in CurveMeister). Knowing that there would be slight color shifts I watched the Edit > Assign Profile preview very carefully (just in case!)

---

As to your other question, your choice (between ProPhoto RGB and Adobe RGB) will be governed by how saturated you like the greenery in your photographs, and what type of printer you are using. There is a good webpage here http://www.cardinalphoto.com/content/choosing-colorspace-when-go-large that breaks down the choice nicely.

---

If you have any other questions - or would like me to clarify anything that I've written - don't hesitate to ask :)

All the best,
Lee.

[sjordan93436]

This is going off target.

---

Thanks, Lee.  I was looking under preferences, not color settings.  I did not know about the info pallet.  I am now cognizant of that.  Your link on colorspaces was very helpful and believable.

srgb is a smaller color space.  Argb is larger.  Prophoto the largest.  Does moving between colorspaces lose data?  When I saved the file under different profiles the size stayed the same.  ??  The link said that a larger profile causes PS to work harder.

I assume that going from 16 to 8 does lose data.  There are some (Dan Margulis) that say that there is no difference when it comes to real world editing between the two. 

I use lightroom to catalog the photos.  I then use the develop module to move the exposure, recovery, fill light so that nothing plugs or blows.  I then go to PS to use CM and other tools, or just casually do snapshots within lightroom.  But ...  LR saves the file as a tiff with the colorspace and bit depth of the preferences.  If I want to change colorspaces of the tiff on the outbound, I need to change the preferences.  I can go to explorer and open the file directly into PS and then ACR.  And if I made adjustments in LR, the tiff includes them. 

Is there a way to open the original raw file out of lightroom in PS?

Apple color profile?  Hmm...  I will try that.

The other item is out of gamut during printing.  I think that deserves another topic.

[leeharper_admin]

Does moving between colorspaces lose data?

That depends on whether the new colorspace can describe the colors that are in your image and whether you are assigning a different colorspace, or converting into a different colorspace.

If you are simply assigning a new profile no damage is done - the colors are just being visually interpreted differently.

If you are converting colorspaces, if you move into a larger colorspace you won't lose any colors; if you are moving into a smaller colorspace you can lose colors if the new colorspace cannot hold some of the colors in your image - usually the problem occurs in areas of your image that are quite saturated (the problems depend on how -and where - the two colorspaces overlap).

If for example you edit in ProPhoto, when you convert into sRGB for posting your images online your images will be too saturated, and therefore the translation between colorspaces will change some of the colors in your image. There are two methods for handling the transformation - Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric 'rendering intents'.

Rendering intents give the application information about how you would like it to deal with 'out-of-gamut' colors. As you say, such a discussion probably shouldn't be hidden in this part of the forum. I will write up an article to break this all down - I think that will be more helpful (I can use some diagrams to help describe some of what is going on)...

If there is anything else you would like me to cover, please let me know...

Cheers,
Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

I've just been looking at these older posts to see what everyone has been doing.  Sorry if these threads are outdated and are basically dead.  I just wanted to play around with some of these pictures, mainly for the fun of it. :)

Oh, again, the ROC filter at it's default settings.(I use the ROC filter first, and if I like what I see, I stop there.)