Curvemeister Forum

Ok...This one begs for help...

As Zog would probably say...I need an exposure lesson...

Greg

First try. Only use the curves for underexposion from the cm library several times with a inverted, blured and modified mask (I think it was L and blue channel). Try to bring all diffrent whites together. Noise reduction and sharpening in ps.

nice...
Try a little K channel in CMYK to bring some more depth to the blacks they seem a bit flat...

just a thought and something to try to make it "pop" a bit more...

Greg

One must always start with some sort of assessment of the image and what one would like to achieve - seems a touch under exposed, even for Greg, and so the shadows needs bringing out.  The photo is all about the Dream car and so I would like to see if I can add a touch of dream-like element to the photo.

One of the things I learnt from Greg, was to cheat!
So I assigned a false profile (gamma 1.0), converted back to normal and then added the original image over the top in colour mode to bring the colour sky back.
I then added the Red channel in Luminosity mode to enhance the clouds (Dan's Weak Sky action)
Finally I blurred the car in an attempt to add more colour to the bonnet, but it didn't have much of an effect.

So no curving at all, just about 8 button presses using PS actions and a bit of masking - so I'm sure it could be improved on
Zog

A conundrum: how white is a white car?

First in CM in RGB did Shadow highlight and neutral in PS Dans Bigger hammer and then Dans Shadow/Highlight. Back to CM in Lab Did neutral of clouds right, Shadow and Hightlight (one that is significant) thus white shirt of gentleman right. Have'nt done any noise reduction or sharpening. Total time, about 2 minutes

Greg,
didn't find out what you mean.
Picture is still underexposed. Am I blind? Where can I bring in more black?
Rather want to bring it out.

Art,
a false profile, too?
Think, I have to check the "bible" for that. Read a little bit yesterday, but was too tired.
I tried a LR Version, but gets more of artefacts. Your picture looks so totally clean.
No time for Jane Austin now  ;) I ceep her in mind for later. But good idea hearing Mozart! In music best against stress and for mind cleaning.

Greetings, Tanja

Hi Tanja,

No false profile. Just a lot of curving -- trial and error, and more errors, etc.
Also used Topaz InFocus and DeNoise, with masking.

Your image is excellent -- just try setting a neutral pin on the road in the lower left hand corner where it will appear most grey.

And of course Mozart afterwards.

Cheers,
Art

Hi Art,

your a real gentleman!
There's a lot of trouble in my picture, but yours is really great.

What are you doing for masking the denoised picture?
I'm trying around with "glowing edges" since a while, but not that happy.
Maybe don't find the right settings and blur to much.

There were a discout by topaz few month ago and I buy two filters, which I never used, but not that denoising tool.
Always wrong ;-)
And always too yellow! Thanks for the tip!

Greetings, Tanja

Hi Tanja,

With the neutral point set in the road and the brightness adjusted upwards your car is no longer yellow and I think has much better natural looking definition than mine. Much more of a 3 dimensional look which I like a lot.  If you could re-do whatever you did, with less saturation of the rest of the image I think it would look fantastic.

I use Topaz DeNoise, InFocus, and Detail quite a lot. In this image I sharpened it and then used a layer mask in PS Elements to remove the sharpening from everything but the car, although I did use InFocus on the entire image. I also tried to remove as much of the noise as possible from the shadow on the car on the front right.

If you have the time, I hope you'll post another one. Would very much like to see it.

Cheers,
Art