New guy here!

This board is for the December 2009 Curvemeister 101 class.
mikemeister_admin
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Joined: Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:29 pm

Postby mikemeister_admin » Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:10 am

Hello all!  New guy here.  I am getting started in the class a bit late, but so what else is new.  A little about me- I am an IT pro by day and I have been an avid amateur photographer for about 10 years, and I like photographing nature and wildlife.  I live in Massachusetts, and the weather outside is a bit cold (8 deg F this morning) and the light is short.  My photography is mostly confined to the weekend now since its dark when I get up and dark when I get home.  So I am now concentrating in the digital darkroom, and have come across this wonderful program Curvemeister.  I am caught up to week 2's class material and am now starting on week 3's assignments.  I have always been fascinated by Curves adjustments but have never had much success.  I have already learned a ton!  I decided to post this image I tweaked with Curvemeister that I found on the challenge site and would like to get your feedback.

Basically did the following:

- Basic highlight/shadow set points ( in LAB)
- Adjusted neutrals by selecting the waves
- Brought midtones up in the middle of the curve
- Various tweaks to the curve to adjust contrast in various areas (sand, waves, etc.)
- Found quite a bit of noise in the color channels and some weird colors (magenta, etc) so I blurred the color channels in LAB to smooth things out.  It seemed to work in this image since the color was the same in so much of the image.
- Had trouble pulling out detail in the mountains, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Here is my result, please tell me what you think:

circlesinsand1.jpg

ggroess
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Postby ggroess » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:07 am

Welcome to class....
I like your take on the challenge image.

Could you re-post by making the image an attachment rather than in the body of the text.  I can then down load it and bring it into PS without getting a web version.

I'll have more to say after that.  The details in the distance can be tweaked using a contrast pin in the L channel.  For more information on contrast pins...

http://www.curvemeister.com/wiki/index.php?title=Contrast_Pinning

Greg

mikemeister_admin
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Joined: Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:29 pm

Postby mikemeister_admin » Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:14 am

Ooops sorry bout that.  I read the post on how to post images yesterday too  ::)  Here ya go Greg!
Attachments
circlesinsand-jpg
circlesinsand-jpg (282.45 KiB) Viewed 6825 times

ggroess
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Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 2:15 am
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Postby ggroess » Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:51 pm

I'm not sure how much more detail you want to bring out there the fog is patr of the problem...When I go after more detail in the mountains I use a mask in CM.  We will be getting to that stuff in the next few weeks but the basic procedure is to open the image in CM:

Click on the mask Icon and select a channel to mask from...In this case the best I found was the L channel.  shot1

You can adjust the Mask channel in CM to Isolate the mountains and make a contrast move on the regular L channel. Select the Mask-L tab. shot2

The problem will be the ring and anything else in the mask that is white will also get some of the adjustment.  Shot3

The lower resolution of the image does hurt this a bit but you get the idea.... Shot4
Attachments
shot1-jpg-96
shot1-jpg-96 (32.48 KiB) Viewed 6825 times
shot2-jpg-32
shot2-jpg-32 (65.32 KiB) Viewed 6825 times
shot3-jpg-11
shot3-jpg-11 (72.81 KiB) Viewed 6825 times
shot4-jpg-5
shot4-jpg-5 (67.92 KiB) Viewed 6825 times


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