Lucky Duck

[mikemeister_admin]

Greg,I used your tip from the Merry-G-R to open the picture up.Mike,I've always had trouble with that metal band as a neutral.there's a spot on the rock just in front of the band that gives an A channel of"1"and a B of"-1"Is that close enough for a neutral?Last step was to add R and G in RBG to remove a blue tinge to the belly feathers.GregM

[ggroess]

You know that can be a tough call. 

The metal is generally pretty neutral but I do see your point.  Many times the neutral is more about our perception of neutral than it is about absolute neutral.  I frequently use as neutrals if the image can handle it.  I think overall it is within the calibration error for most monitors and printing set ups to carry this much or even more "error" for lack of a better term.

For instance the leg band is quite blue in your image on my monitor.  The duck appears cold to me but I do find your neutral in the rock...I would say the duck is what the picture is about, and make sure he or parts of him are what I percieve as neutral.

The rocks can also hide color shifts due to the flash fall off.
That is also what might make the duck look cold..the flash is going to be a much colder light source.

Greg

[-default]

I would say that the aluminum is an absolute neutral that can be trusted as an absolute gray.

That's not to say that you can find a more pleasant appearance by placing the neutral somewhere else.  Most people, myself included, like to have the image a little warmer than an absolute neutral would indicate.  As long as you recognize that this is a subjective judgment on your part, and not the "by the numbers" recipe that this example is intended to convey.

Imagine that your monitor is not perfectly calibrated, or that you are color blind, and cannot fully trust what your subjective judgement tells you about the image.  In that case you would stick with your knowledge that an aluminum leg band is a good neutral gray, while a rock may have a color cast in any direction.

[mikemeister_admin]

Here's my lucky duck, just using the wizard.  I didn't take the sliders as far as Mike did, because on my calibrated monitor the brightness started to blow out detail in the duck's chest area, and the foliage started to go a little neon when I pushed the color slider further.  I guess I tend to avoid overdoing things in my work.

I also challenge the reliability of the leg band as a neutral.  If it was really neutral, the colors wouldn't shift around so much when you drag the neutral point around.  I just picked a spot that looked good to me.



  -- Russ 

[mikemeister_admin]

Here is the duck redone in RGB using just the wizard.  I am surprised that I like the result better.  Even though you can't get the same color intensity, I find that there is less of a color cast.  It seems that I may have not picked the right neutral point in my Lab version, and therefore when I pumped up the color slider it created a greenish cast.  I didn't realize it until I did this RGB version and then compared them side-by-side.



  -- Russ 

[mikemeister_admin]

I revisited the duck image in Lab again, still limiting myself to the wizarrd for this exercise.  This time I dragged the neutral around in the leg band until I got a warmer result.  I found that now I could move the sliders further, especially the color slider, without getting results I felt were unbelievable.

I think this is the best of my attempts.



  -- Russ 

[ggroess]

Hey Russ,

First of all great job exploring the neutrals...

One of the the things in the Honest Abe video is the process you put yourself through.  The "neutral shopping" that you did was a great response to the problem. 

One of the things to remember about CM and the "set" commands is that you are not sampling a finite point.  You can set the area you sample using the tools in CM.  If you set the radius of the sample to be 3 you are actually seeing 9 pixels or 3X3 pixels...

This is what makes the band sort of odd sometimes for the neutral.  You can use the Hue clock and the neutral pin to "look" for a good neutral by the numbers or you can do what you have done and find a neutral that feels right.  Some would argue that you do not have a true neutral since you accepted the best you could find rather than setting one by the numbers. 

I feel that the real goal for the class and for my images is the best looking image not the perfect by the numbers result.

If you have not watched the Honest Abe video you might want to ...

Greg

[-default]

No problem with adjusting the image to look the way you want.  The point I want to get across, though, is that you can use a known neutral to get rid of a color cast, and the resulting change will be one that almost everyone would regard as an improvement to the image.  Most people like warmer tones better than cooler ones, but this has some disadvantages, and as with any color cast, will tend to veil subtle changes in color.

The hue clock, BTW, is very sensitive to even a few points of color value, so the hand will wander around as you move over an object.  This is particularly true for dark areas, and for neutrals, where the differences in the numbers are relatively small.  For example, RGB(125,125,127) will point toward blue on the hue clock, even though it is, for all intents and purposes, very close to perfectly gray.

[mikemeister_admin]

Russ,the RGB version is by far the best,even the red legged duck in the backgroung looks like it's standing on a grey rock.GregM

[ggroess]

I would agree with GregM.  The RGB duck is very nice.  Keep exploring the neutrals question...many people just accept neutral as a tough spot and don't really get into the heart of the problem.

Very nice work..

Greg