Curvemeister Forum

Greg and Mike - thank you for holding the class.  As I mentioned to Lee, I have read some of Dan Margulis' books and was intrigued by his ideas, but working with curves has been a stumbling block for me.  It always did more harm than good.  Now I feel comfortable working them and can begin to develop a technique.  Last night I went back to some shots I'd taken on a safari a couple of years ago and tried to improve them.  The results were very rewarding but also intimidating.  If they can be improved that much how much more is possible.  The journey has begun.

Boyd,
post one to the class and let's see if we can push it further along...

No promises but lot's of effort...

Greg

Here is one picture that I worked on - before and after. I'm reasonably pleased with it but am interested in how it might be improved.  Anoter pair follows.

Here are two that I am not happy with.  The first is of Victoria Falls at Sunset under very low water conditioins - the worst in many years.  This image is my first attempt at a HDR shot.  I want the detail in the rock wall but it's just too muddy.  I can't seem to strike the correct compromise between the sunset and the foreground.

The second shot was taken with a flash.  There is a young lion in the tree and a hyena on the ground.  We came unpon the seen after the hyena had stolen what our rangers thought was this lion's first kill.  While we were there, the lion stole the kill back and took it up into the tree. 

I'm not 100% on the goals for this image...but here are two alternate versions..

Open your posted image and apply curve 1.

Then you can choose  2 or 2A one is a lab finish one is a CMYK finish...
I did not sharpen or any other process.
Greg

Same here...lots of JPG artifact but here we go...
I cropped it closer because I felt the image was about the animals and the rest of the image was confusing and distracting...

I used the color contrast technique from week 5-6 to spread out the greens and yellows. 
Greg

I'm again not sure what your goals are but here is what I did...

I selected the valley and adjusted the contrast and neutral separately.  my curve for the select is attached.
I feathered the selection to 10 pixels

I then inverted the selection and removed some of the pinkish cast. 

Greg

Before I touch this I want to know if the lion and hyena signed releases,can't be too carefull these days.GregM

test.I can't get an accurate transmission of the colors for this image.There was even a hint of red to the cat's gum.GregM
I sharpened for the whiskers,chest hair and the sand the cub is kicking up.

Hey Boyd ;)

I'd really love to take a swing at the HDR shot, but I'd like to merge the original shots if you still have them (I'm experimenting with various tone mapping strategies in CS5 and Photomatix).

No worries if you don't have the original captures any more - or if you'd rather I didn't, but if you're up for it then you could use www.mediafire.com or www.yousendit.com to get past the forum's file size limit. My email address is lharper@aucb.ac.uk
Both services will let you send large files for free - ignore their suggestions that you sign up for premium accounts...

Cheers,
Lee.