Week 3: Exercise 2 - Fruit Vendor

[leeharper_admin]

Having set a neutral that made the hands on the hue clocks I'd placed around the metal frame as short as possible, and set a shadow and highlight point, I thought that I'd see whether I could do a better job with the fruit than I managed last week. I've compared this image with last week's submission, and the metal frame was more neutral last time, but the fruit is better this time around I believe.

Because my neutral point had made the frame more neutral, I thought that CMYK with GCR set to maximum black would give me room to work on the colour of the fruit, whilst offering the frame some protection from the CMY moves I wanted to make.

As I mentioned last week, if I add a hue clock (when I'm in CMYK), it doesn't work. I can get around this by using the standalone hue clock, but I forgot to do this during this correction. Therefore, having finalised my CMYK curves, I returned to CM (in RGB) to check that the skin tone was ok. It was a bit out, so I added some RGB curves for the skin tone, and for the light fixtures. I've added a comparison image to show the effect that the RGB curves had. I think that they are an improvement - but no doubt if I was able to write better CMYK curves they would have been unnecessary.

All in all, I think that this is somewhat better than last week's version, but I hope it crops up again when I've got a better handle on things  ;)
Lee.

[ggroess]

I like RGB and CMYK for the color but CMYK alone for the tone and the highlight save on the yellow fruit.  When we use CM as a smart filter this will become a much easier save.  You will be able to re access the CM interface as a smart filter and resume your adjustments.

Greg

[leeharper_admin]

You're right - some of the fruit is getting a bit blown out...

Is it possible to get the colour that I managed to get with two passes in one set of CMYK curves, or is it necessary to move into another color mode? I can't shake the feeling that if I was more competent I would have been able to do the entire adjustment in CMYK.

Lee.

[ggroess]

Sometimes you run out of real estate on the curve...

You can apply the changes you have and go right back into the same space with a new set of curves to mess up...I do that all the time...generally; we do that to change color spaces and make some "grand save" move....

But if your adjustment to one part of the curve messes with another part you want to protect.  Apply the adjustment and then re-open the image in CM.  If you are working layers you might want a new layer for the next step.

Greg