Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:45 pm
I've got a bit hooked on playing with different Mars effects and I've never tried it on colourful images before and I've been able to bring so many colours out in the dragon (which one? - I'm still on the roof!), but...
I have a number of points I would like to raise for general discussion as I am having difficulty equating what we are doing with what Dan originally suggested. I've numbered them so that it is easier to reply to the different points I am raising.
1 Dan's Man from Mars technique is not about colour saturation, but colour separation or explosion - finding colours to add to the image at pretty low opacity. It is not a formula that will produce consistent results, but a visual tweaking.
2 The white K mask is the same (exactly?) as changing the Opacity of a layer - and unless one gets the 'correct' result the first time, it is (at the moment, because the Mask is not saved) difficult to re-do the adjustment.
3 Dan's Mars uses asymmetric curves and although he does not explain why, I assume it is to explode the warm colours more than the cold ones. These Mars curves are on top of 'normal' curve adjustment.
4 Unless you are an good Curver (I'm not), it is difficult to do two steps, basic colour saturation and explosion, at the same time.
5 I have a gut feeling that one will get different results Curving twice, rather than once - because of integer arithmetic and also with two curving one has more control over exploding colours and also one can go over 75-100% (which is the limit of a single curving) and therefore start to use the lab impossible colour effect.
6 Dan's Mars does not, necessarily, use the same point in both colour channels, or the Lightness channel. The Lightness channel is also curved in a particular way.
7 Both methods are a recipe about how to go around adding coloured texture to an image and one needs to adjust it to suit the image - just having an Opacity slider does not give enough control - I frequently use the easy BlendIF sliders to effective give me 4 colour masks (in order to modify the result).
8 Lastly I find it hard to adjust the K mask horizontal line - sometimes it picks up and sometimes not, but there does not seem to be any visual clue when it will/not work.
I would therefore suggest that this useful CurveMeister technique is called the "Man from Saturn" to differentiate it from Mars and also to imply that CM can run circles around Photoshop!
I have a number of points I would like to raise for general discussion as I am having difficulty equating what we are doing with what Dan originally suggested. I've numbered them so that it is easier to reply to the different points I am raising.
1 Dan's Man from Mars technique is not about colour saturation, but colour separation or explosion - finding colours to add to the image at pretty low opacity. It is not a formula that will produce consistent results, but a visual tweaking.
2 The white K mask is the same (exactly?) as changing the Opacity of a layer - and unless one gets the 'correct' result the first time, it is (at the moment, because the Mask is not saved) difficult to re-do the adjustment.
3 Dan's Mars uses asymmetric curves and although he does not explain why, I assume it is to explode the warm colours more than the cold ones. These Mars curves are on top of 'normal' curve adjustment.
4 Unless you are an good Curver (I'm not), it is difficult to do two steps, basic colour saturation and explosion, at the same time.
5 I have a gut feeling that one will get different results Curving twice, rather than once - because of integer arithmetic and also with two curving one has more control over exploding colours and also one can go over 75-100% (which is the limit of a single curving) and therefore start to use the lab impossible colour effect.
6 Dan's Mars does not, necessarily, use the same point in both colour channels, or the Lightness channel. The Lightness channel is also curved in a particular way.
7 Both methods are a recipe about how to go around adding coloured texture to an image and one needs to adjust it to suit the image - just having an Opacity slider does not give enough control - I frequently use the easy BlendIF sliders to effective give me 4 colour masks (in order to modify the result).
8 Lastly I find it hard to adjust the K mask horizontal line - sometimes it picks up and sometimes not, but there does not seem to be any visual clue when it will/not work.
I would therefore suggest that this useful CurveMeister technique is called the "Man from Saturn" to differentiate it from Mars and also to imply that CM can run circles around Photoshop!