St Vitus Cathedral, Prague. Removing a Shadow Cast

[mikemeister_admin]

Here is my try at it.  Here is what I did.

- In LAB, set shadow/highlight/Neutral
- Set points for Hue Clocks for shadow cast, highlight areas
- Calculated how the shadow cast needed to be adjusted to remove the cast (a simple ratio)
  Example: Good Point  R77 G83 B90
                Bad Shadow R64 G77 B92
        Calculated Shadow R64 G68 B75

Then in RGB mode, dropped points on the curves for the above points, and nudged the curves until the Bad Shadow= Calculated shadow
Then adjusted the rest of the curve until it was flat as to not affect the rest of the image.

- in LAB, boosted the color a tad (too much based on the skin tones)
- Made various minor tweaks to contrast in LAB

[ggroess]

Jim,
Try out the .ACV curve I posted on your posted image.  The highlight half of the L curve needs some help. 

As for the color look at shot1.  the person in the lower right is "ok" as far as skin tones go...not great but better than the person in the top of the frame.  Using the hue clock see if you can adjust the skin tone of the top person to be in the 12:00 to 1:30 area.  the length of the hand on the hue clock represents saturation.  The longer the length of the hand the more saturated the color.

[mikemeister_admin]

Greg - I like your tone curve!  Much better.  I also took a crack at fixing the skin of the  person on top.  Took a bit of red out of the upper portion of the curve.  Here is the result with the new tone curve and the skin fix.

[ggroess]

While the skin tones are better the blue has returned to the shadows...
See if you can find a neutral point somewhere that keeps the blue out of the shadows and does not mess up the skin tones...

It really is in there somewhere..there is not a single magic spot for this one...you just have to go fishing for it...If you have not seen the Honest Abe video you might want to watch it and see what I mean about fishing around for the neutral.

Greg