Open Week Begins with a vacation Photo

[ggroess]

Let's get started with the open week.
Attached is a pretty standard vacation type photo that was shot by a family member.

Make it look as nice as possible and tell us what you did to the image to improve it.

Greg

[imported_Tanja]

A quick one for being the fist ;-)

Aplying the red channel to the whole rgb in mode "multiply". Modifying a mask from the blue channel in cm for protect the dark areas.
I totally forget the next step. Then black and white point in cm with the same mask, because of getting to dark in the shadows. Little bit of sharpening.
Now I'm not sure, what doing next. Shadows in the background rocks are much to blue now and the whole picture is maybe to dark.

Sorry all for my bad english. Hope you understand a little bit.

Greetings, Tanja

[imported_artmar]

Used L curve in CM Lab space to adjust exposure. Set neutral point. Trial and error with a and b curves. Multiply blend mode at around 25%.  Sharpen. D and B and healing tools. Smudge tool to reduce banding in the sky.  Added small clouds in upper left hand corner to emphasize height of cliff face below and to add interest to the sky.
What I don't like about this version: too much contrast, particularly in the foreground;  lost shadow detail in lower right hand corner, which is too dark; distant mountain in the background (right of middle) is too blue; image possibly over-sharpened; not sure I got the colour of the iron ore right -- copper or red? -- couldn't tell from original image.

Best to all,

Art

[ggroess]

A quick one for being the fist ;-)

Aplying the red channel to the whole rgb in mode "multiply". Modifying a mask from the blue channel in cm for protect the dark areas.
I totally forget the next step. Then black and white point in cm with the same mask, because of getting to dark in the shadows. Little bit of sharpening.
Now I'm not sure, what doing next. Shadows in the background rocks are much to blue now and the whole picture is maybe to dark.

Sorry all for my bad english. Hope you understand a little bit.

Greetings, Tanja

Tanja,
The English is great so far...far better than my german... ;D  If I need help there I'll turn to my son who is studying German in High School.  As to the blue shadows...
you can try an inverted L channel mask blurred a bit.  Then in RGB adjust only the shadow end of the B channel curve. If that does not make sense do not worry.  You have identified the problems and we'll help with the solutions...

Greg

[ggroess]

Used L curve in CM Lab space to adjust exposure. Set neutral point. Trial and error with a and b curves. Multiply blend mode at around 25%.  Sharpen. D and B and healing tools. Smudge tool to reduce banding in the sky.  Added small clouds in upper left hand corner to emphasize height of cliff face below and to add interest to the sky.
What I don't like about this version: too much contrast, particularly in the foreground;  lost shadow detail in lower right hand corner, which is too dark; distant mountain in the background (right of middle) is too blue; image possibly over-sharpened; not sure I got the colour of the iron ore right -- copper or red? -- couldn't tell from original image.

Best to all,

Art

Great job so far really...
The banding is really troublesome with images so compressed to fit onto the forum...the fact that you tackled it is wonderful...the dark foreground can be tackled by masking the image from the L channel in LAB and inverting the mask.  You can then use some tools in CM that Mike has provided for screen and multiply.  This video is from later in the class but the question is very relevant and deserves an answer.

http://class.curvemeister.com/c1s5/video/Library/Library.html
(edit - the video cuts off at the end...I'll get it fixed before we get to that material in class you should get what you need from the existing video)
Explore the underexposed folder.  the curves there are equal to from 1-6 screen layers applied to your image.
Greg

[imported_artmar]

Thanks for your response Greg.  Will follow-up on your suggestions.

Art

[imported_Tanja]

Hi Greg,

great, we make a deal with your son. I write in german and he translate  :D.

Inverted L-Curve and correction only in blue-channel works good.
Oups, not only the deap shadows were to blue. Thanks for help.
I tried some other versions, but still trying...

Shame on me. I forget my password and can't see the video.
Is there any way to send it to me?

Greetings, Tanja

[imported_artmar]

Second version with adjustments to contrast, brightness, and sharpness.  (Less garish, thankfully.)

Greg, I have the same question as Tanja's: do we require a special password to access the video link? If not, I am mis-remembering mine.

Thanks,
Art

[ggroess]

can you screen shot the dialog box?
It should not be asking for a password.

I'll copy it to another location if it is...
Greg

[imported_Tanja]

Just this box, when I click the link to the video: