Thai

[mikemeister_admin]

I like challenges so I had to try thai picture. As I had some difficulties in seeing the picture I started in PSE and adjusted shadows slightly with shadow/highlight tool in PSE. Then I went to CM Lab mode and set highlight, shadows and neutral. Did not find an optimal grey point but one which I thought acceptable.

After that I worked quite a bit with the brightness curve in shadow parts (yes I like shadows:) ) and increased saturation. Got a red cast which I tried to adjust for. Back to PSE and made a selection of the shadow parts to the left which looked disturbed. Adjusted this part quickly with levels. Selected heaven and increased colours and contrast of heaven in CM.

Cloned some bad pixels in PSE. Tried to apply slight noise reduction with Neatimage. Noticed a purple fringing. Adjusted it with Hue/saturation by choosing the specific colour and desaturated it. Made a copy of layer which I used unsharp mask on. Used a mask filled with black. Took a white brush to get the parts of the  picture sharpened where I wanted.

Had to be quite careful with all adjustments as not so many pixels available and picture to me seems a bit damaged.

No idea if my result is good or bad but at least it is a first try.

Thomas

[ggroess]

A most impressive effort....

If you are looking for a neutral you can use the coins in the headpiece.  They should be silver gray or you can choose something that you think should be pure white or pure black. 
The skin tones are much darker for the ethnic group than you have placed.

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

oops. I am not dark enough! But have to admit I was unsure on the correct skin tone. Would be nice to see another, better, picture of this ethnic group.
Thomas

[ggroess]

For additional Pins related to Skin Tones see the following post:

http://www.curvemeister.com/forum/index.php?topic=1667.0

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Thanks. New try. Used the midtone Caucasian skin pin.
Thomas

[ggroess]

interesting...This is a tough one....

Try for something along these lines and ask for a hint if you want one...I don't want to give this away yet....This is not my image but it looks like a slide scan from here....

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

New try. This time I worked more in RGB mode but adjusted photo many times CM also with masks. Skin pin used in RGB mode which I think worked better. Opinions?
Thomas

[ggroess]

Wonderful...

I am really impressed...
I do not think anyone besides Mike has really taken this image this far. 
Awesome effort.

BTW the fastest way to get close to the correction is to start with the Tungsten to Daylight conversion ACV file in the library files of CM.  Then RGB as you have shown

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Thanks for hints. The tricky thing was the skin colour. Made my own skin pin from the sample you provided. Best result if adjusting the neutral and skin late in the process. Heaven was masked and adjusted separately in CM.
No idea about that shortcut. How do you know from start that that would be a good way to go?
Thomas

[ggroess]

I saw the blue cast as tungsten file exposed outdoors.

It gets you closer...not perfect but it takes out a ton of the heavy work...

Greg