Mike Russell….a question

T
Posted By
Talker
Jul 29, 2008
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1664
Replies
24
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Closed
Hey there Mike! No matter how much I try, I can’t understand Curves. I’ve played with them over the years, and I’ve tried your Curvemeister plugin, and they still make no sense to me….maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand them.
Whenever I read anything that tries to explain curves, I always stop at the point where you need to find the point on the curve. How do you find a point on the curve? Even if I could find the point, what do I do with it?
Using the wizard in your Curvemeister plugin is nice, but using it doesn’t explain what is happening. Using the sample pic in example 7 of Week 1 in Curvemeister 101, you have a white 1 on a gray background, and a gray 2 on a black background.. You give a hint that says the result will look like a backward "S". How in the world do you obtain an "S"? I assume you need to make some type of anchor points, but how do you know where to make them? Once you make them, how do you know how far to drag whatever it is that you drag? I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

Talker

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Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

MR
Mike Russell
Jul 29, 2008
On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:59:58 -0500, Talker wrote:

Hey there Mike! No matter how much I try, I can’t understand Curves. I’ve played with them over the years, and I’ve tried your Curvemeister plugin, and they still make no sense to me….maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand them.
Whenever I read anything that tries to explain curves, I always stop at the point where you need to find the point on the curve. How do you find a point on the curve? Even if I could find the point, what do I do with it?
Using the wizard in your Curvemeister plugin is nice, but using it doesn’t explain what is happening. Using the sample pic in example 7 of Week 1 in Curvemeister 101, you have a white 1 on a gray background, and a gray 2 on a black background.. You give a hint that says the result will look like a backward "S". How in the world do you obtain an "S"? I assume you need to make some type of anchor points, but how do you know where to make them? Once you make them, how do you know how far to drag whatever it is that you drag? I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

Talker

Hi Talker,

These are all good questions that deserve a good answer. Once you see it done life is a lot easier. I think some of the videos would be a big help. Right now these are only available via the class, so I’ll see about adding one of them front and center to the main web page, because I think a lot of people have the same questions you do.

Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com
T
Tacit
Jul 29, 2008
In article ,
Talker wrote:

I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

The Curves command is the single most precise tool for pinpoint precision in color correction, so I’m a bit baffled here. Curves can make incredibly fine changes in an image.


Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
T
Talker
Jul 30, 2008
On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:06:25 -0700, Mike Russell
wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:59:58 -0500, Talker wrote:

Hey there Mike! No matter how much I try, I can’t understand Curves. I’ve played with them over the years, and I’ve tried your Curvemeister plugin, and they still make no sense to me….maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand them.
Whenever I read anything that tries to explain curves, I always stop at the point where you need to find the point on the curve. How do you find a point on the curve? Even if I could find the point, what do I do with it?
Using the wizard in your Curvemeister plugin is nice, but using it doesn’t explain what is happening. Using the sample pic in example 7 of Week 1 in Curvemeister 101, you have a white 1 on a gray background, and a gray 2 on a black background.. You give a hint that says the result will look like a backward "S". How in the world do you obtain an "S"? I assume you need to make some type of anchor points, but how do you know where to make them? Once you make them, how do you know how far to drag whatever it is that you drag? I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

Talker

Hi Talker,

These are all good questions that deserve a good answer. Once you see it done life is a lot easier. I think some of the videos would be a big help. Right now these are only available via the class, so I’ll see about adding one of them front and center to the main web page, because I think a lot of people have the same questions you do.

Thanks Mike, that would be most appreciated.

Talker
T
Talker
Jul 30, 2008
On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:17:56 -0400, tacit wrote:

In article ,
Talker wrote:

I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

The Curves command is the single most precise tool for pinpoint precision in color correction, so I’m a bit baffled here. Curves can make incredibly fine changes in an image.

Hey there tacit! I guess it’s because I don’t understand curves. If you click on the straight line in the curves window, if you attempt to drag it one way or the other, you aren’t making precise changes, the whole line moves every which way and the image changes radically. I don’t see how you can move the line in fine increments to make precise changes in the image.
Again, it’s probably because I don’t understand what’s happening when you move the line….or where to click on the line….or which way to pull the line and by how much…..and this is just with the black and white image, never mind the color images.

Talker
J
jaSPAMc
Jul 30, 2008
Talker found these unused words:

Whenever I read anything that tries to explain curves, I always stop at the point where you need to find the point on the curve. How do you find a point on the curve? Even if I could find the point, what do I do with it?
Drag the dialogue box away from your area of interest and then move the cursor ove the point of the image where you need to ‘find the point’.

Click.

A marker will appear on the curve where this tonality lies. Make note of where it is and then ‘grab’ [click the cursor where the marker appeared] that area of the curve and make your adjustment by draggin the dot that will now lay on the curve.

Note: Curves work within seleceted areas, so you could select a face and then adjust highlights, skin and shadow.

I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

In the dialogue box there are two numbers in changeable text boxes. You can pinpoint adjust by entering new values.

You can also save a curve if you’re working with a number of similar photographs or even areas within an image.
N
nomail
Jul 30, 2008
Talker wrote:

Hey there tacit! I guess it’s because I don’t understand curves. If you click on the straight line in the curves window, if you attempt to drag it one way or the other, you aren’t making precise changes, the whole line moves every which way and the image changes radically. I don’t see how you can move the line in fine increments to make precise changes in the image.

Try this: Click on five or six different places on the curve. You’ll see points appear where you clicked. Now drag one of those points upwards or downwards. You’ll see that most of the curve remains unchanged, because the other points lock the curve in that position. That is how you can make subtle changes.

Again, it’s probably because I don’t understand what’s happening when you move the line….or where to click on the line….or which way to pull the line and by how much…..and this is just with the black and white image, never mind the color images.

The X-axis is the original image, from black (left) to white (right). The Y-axis is the resulting image. By dragging (part of) the curve upwards, you move pixels to higher values, so the image becomes brighter. And vice versa.


Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com
K
KatWoman
Jul 30, 2008
"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message
Talker wrote:

Hey there tacit! I guess it’s because I don’t understand curves. If you click on the straight line in the curves window, if you attempt to drag it one way or the other, you aren’t making precise changes, the whole line moves every which way and the image changes radically. I don’t see how you can move the line in fine increments to make precise changes in the image.

Try this: Click on five or six different places on the curve. You’ll see points appear where you clicked. Now drag one of those points upwards or downwards. You’ll see that most of the curve remains unchanged, because the other points lock the curve in that position. That is how you can make subtle changes.

Again, it’s probably because I don’t understand what’s happening when you move the line….or where to click on the line….or which way to pull the line and by how much…..and this is just with the black and white image, never mind the color images.

The X-axis is the original image, from black (left) to white (right). The Y-axis is the resulting image. By dragging (part of) the curve upwards, you move pixels to higher values, so the image becomes brighter. And vice versa.

one end of the line will affect the highlight of your images (drag from area near top of line to an uneven curve)
the other will affect the shadow areas

pulling form center will affect the midtones most (in RGB mode)

used in LAB mode you can affect gamma in A and B without messing colors overall

often I find I use a very shallow s-shape, this bumps the highlights a little and enriches the blacks
sometimes I get a start by using the droppers (good if image has true white and blacks)
using gray dropper can make nice or ugly color shifts, it will make overall warmer or cooler
you can make several points on the line and then just pull that part of the line

yes curves were very unwieldly to me at first and I liked using levels for a long while
after mastering curves though it is a far superior tool and gives more subtle changes
I do agree it is hard to get that drag to behave, once you get it though I think you will like it

and agree it’s weird to describe in writing
a vid is a great idea
J
Joel
Jul 30, 2008
Talker wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:17:56 -0400, tacit wrote:

In article ,
Talker wrote:

I always feel that curves is a very rough way to make adjustments and that pinpoint precision isn’t possible so I never use them. What am I missing?

The Curves command is the single most precise tool for pinpoint precision in color correction, so I’m a bit baffled here. Curves can make incredibly fine changes in an image.

Hey there tacit! I guess it’s because I don’t understand curves. If you click on the straight line in the curves window, if you attempt to drag it one way or the other, you aren’t making precise changes, the whole line moves every which way and the image changes radically. I don’t see how you can move the line in fine increments to make precise changes in the image.
Again, it’s probably because I don’t understand what’s happening when you move the line….or where to click on the line….or which way to pull the line and by how much…..and this is just with the black and white image, never mind the color images.

Talker

I read you mention in the original message that you have been trying for years, I would suggest to spend few minutes or at least few hours on some good VIDEO tutorial which you may be able to GOOGLE for it.

If you won’t mind to pay for some knowledge then I would say something like Total Training or Lynda video tutorial would be a good choice. But I would go for something free first.
T
Tacit
Jul 30, 2008
In article ,
Talker wrote:

how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them? No matter where you click on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

The line you see going through the Curves dialog represents the density of tones in the image. If you click in the middle of the line, you are changing the midtones in the image. If you click on the left part of the line, you are changing the shadows. If you click on the right part of the line, you are changing hilights.

If you drag up, you make that part of the image lighter. If you drag down, you make that part of the image darker.

Anything which makes the line steeper increases contrast. Anything which makes the line less steep decreases contrast.

Therefore, using the Curves command, you can change the lightness or darkness, the contrast, and the color balance of the image. You can change all parts of the image, or just the shadows, or just the midtones, or just the hilights, or any combination.


Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
T
Talker
Jul 30, 2008
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:12:26 +0200, (Johan W.
Elzenga) wrote:

Talker wrote:

Hey there tacit! I guess it’s because I don’t understand curves. If you click on the straight line in the curves window, if you attempt to drag it one way or the other, you aren’t making precise changes, the whole line moves every which way and the image changes radically. I don’t see how you can move the line in fine increments to make precise changes in the image.

Try this: Click on five or six different places on the curve. You’ll see points appear where you clicked. Now drag one of those points upwards or downwards. You’ll see that most of the curve remains unchanged, because the other points lock the curve in that position. That is how you can make subtle changes.

Again, it’s probably because I don’t understand what’s happening when you move the line….or where to click on the line….or which way to pull the line and by how much…..and this is just with the black and white image, never mind the color images.

The X-axis is the original image, from black (left) to white (right). The Y-axis is the resulting image. By dragging (part of) the curve upwards, you move pixels to higher values, so the image becomes brighter. And vice versa.

I appreciate everyone trying to help me with this, but after reading all of the posts, I still don’t understand. Here’s where I’m stuck at…..if you go to this page
http://curvemeister.com/downloads/Class/c1s1/index.htm and scroll almost all the way down till you get to example 7, using this image, how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them? No matter where you click on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

Talker
K
KB
Jul 30, 2008
On Jul 30, 5:41 pm, Talker wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:12:26 +0200, (Johan W.

Elzenga) wrote:
Talker wrote:

Hey there tacit!  I guess it’s because I don’t understand curves. If you click on the straight line in the curves window, if you attempt to drag it one way or the other, you aren’t making precise changes, the whole line moves every which way and the image changes radically. I don’t see how you can move the line in fine increments to make precise changes in the image.

Try this: Click on five or six different places on the curve. You’ll see points appear where you clicked. Now drag one of those points upwards or downwards. You’ll see that most of the curve remains unchanged, because the other points lock the curve in that position. That is how you can make subtle changes.

     Again, it’s probably because I don’t understand what’s happening when you move the line….or where to click on the line….or which way to pull the line and by how much…..and this is just with the black and white image, never mind the color images.

The X-axis is the original image, from black (left) to white (right). The Y-axis is the resulting image. By dragging (part of) the curve upwards, you move pixels to higher values, so the image becomes brighter. And vice versa.

     I appreciate everyone trying to help me with this, but after reading all of the posts, I still don’t understand.  Here’s where I’m stuck at…..if you go to this
J
jaSPAMc
Jul 31, 2008
Talker found these unused words:

how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them?

Ummm ever try just doing something and seeing what happens? In Ps you can always RESET or CANCEL what adjustments you’ve played with !!!

No matter where you click
on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

Correct … but the information given was …

"Drag the dialogue box away from your area of interest and then move the cursor ove the point of the image where you need to ‘find the point’. "

"Click."

"A MARKER will appear on the curve where this tonality lies. "

I didn’t say a POINT would be placed on the curve!

"-=Make note of where it is=- and then ‘grab’
[click the cursor -=where the marker appeared=- ]
that area of the curve and make your adjustment by dragging the dot that will now lay on the curve."
T
Talker
Jul 31, 2008
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:50:52 -0700 (PDT), KB wrote:

Talker
Is there a specific goal you are trying to achieve using curves or trying to get your head around best practices? such as lighten/darken images, increase/decrease contrast, improve 1/4 and or 3/4 detail / enhance color casts or improve gray balance?
Curves can do all of this but the approach may be slightly different for each case and the end result might best be achieved through the use of several tool at you disposal when used in combination with curves.

KB

Hi KB! I’m trying to get my head around curves to help me add to my ability to work on pictures….restoring, repairing, whatever. I usually use levels, contrast, color balance, etc., but I constantly read in this group about using curves. The people here are a lot more experienced and knowledgeable about PhotoShop than I am and so I figured that if they use curves, there must be a good reason so I’d like to learn about curves to add to my arsenal of tools. Over the years, I’d play with curves, but I never understood how to use them, so I left them alone. I’d see some comments about using curves, so I’d re-explore them again only to get frustrated and leave them alone again.
Using the Curvemeister plugin for Photoshop and following the wizard, I can see some really big improvements to pictures that I’ve gotten to look as good as I can without using curves. This is the first time I’ve seen what curves can do and I’m impressed with them. It’s just that I’d like to understand how to use curves without using the wizard so that I have more control over what’s going on. The wizard is great, but there are a lot more tools in the Curvemeister plugin that I’d like to know how to use, but I need to understand how to use the basic curve first.

Talker
T
Talker
Jul 31, 2008
On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:12:06 -0700, Sir F. A. Rien
wrote:

Talker found these unused words:

how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them?

Ummm ever try just doing something and seeing what happens? In Ps you can always RESET or CANCEL what adjustments you’ve played with !!!
No matter where you click
on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

Correct … but the information given was …

"Drag the dialogue box away from your area of interest and then move the cursor ove the point of the image where you need to ‘find the point’. "
"Click."

"A MARKER will appear on the curve where this tonality lies. "
I didn’t say a POINT would be placed on the curve!

"-=Make note of where it is=- and then ‘grab’
[click the cursor -=where the marker appeared=- ]
that area of the curve and make your adjustment by dragging the dot that will now lay on the curve."

Hi there Sir Rien! For some reason, I can’t access that website anymore, but I still have the images to work on. I see when I click in the white 1 or the gray 2, there is a line that moves along the curve. I guess where the line ends is where you need to click on, which I did.
I appreciate every’s patience with me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to curves. Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way or reading more into it than there is.. I don’t know what it is. I guess if I had someone here with me that I could ask questions to as I went along, I might get it faster.
I was hesitant to purchase Curvemeister without understanding it, since I’m now on a fixed income, but just seeing what you could do using the wizard impressed me enough to go for it.(I don’t need to buy food next week anyway….. Just kidding, I’m not that bad off.<g>) I figure that I can play with it and learn it as I go
along….like I did years ago when I got my first version (version
3.0) of PhotoShop.
I’m going back to the Curvemeister website to search out more tutorials. I think there are still a few pages that I can access. I just got stuck on that one example and I wanted to understand it before I went further.
Thanks for taking the time to help, I do appreciate it.

Talker
K
KB
Jul 31, 2008
On Jul 31, 3:31 pm, Talker wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:50:52 -0700 (PDT), KB wrote:
Talker
Is there a specific goal you are trying to achieve using curves or trying to get your head around best practices? such as lighten/darken images, increase/decrease contrast, improve 1/4 and or 3/4 detail / enhance color casts or improve gray balance?
Curves can do all of this but the approach may be slightly different for each case and the end result might best be achieved through the use of several tool at you disposal when used in combination with curves.

KB

     Hi KB!  I’m trying to get my head around curves to help me add to my ability to work on pictures….restoring, repairing, whatever.  I usually use levels, contrast, color balance, etc., but I constantly read in this group about using curves.  The people here are a lot more experienced and knowledgeable about PhotoShop than I am and so I figured that if they use curves, there must be a good reason so I’d like to learn about curves to add to my arsenal of tools.      Over the years, I’d play with curves, but I never understood how to use them, so I left them alone.  I’d see some comments about using curves, so I’d re-explore them again only to get frustrated and leave them alone again.
     Using the Curvemeister plugin for Photoshop and following the wizard, I can see some really big improvements to pictures that I’ve gotten to look as good as I can without using curves.  This is the first time I’ve seen what curves can do and I’m impressed with them. It’s just that I’d like to understand how to use curves without using the wizard so that I have more control over what’s going on.  The wizard is great, but there are a lot more tools in the Curvemeister plugin that I’d like to know how to use, but I need to understand how to use the basic curve first.  

Talker

Talker,

For me curves are not my "go to" tool for "color correction", it is as you said part of the arsenal, and for me it’s usually the second or third of many stages of the color correction process. Let me explain how we did things back when I was running the scanning dept. at Adobe Studios and Eyewire, before hi-end digital submissions became policy.

On the Drum Scanner we always set each photo up independently with customized highlight and shadow settings, we rarely if ever blew the highlights or plugged the shadows. no RGB 255’s or RGB 0’s more like 240’s and 10’s, we would neutralize these settings for photos that contain slight color casts and for the images that had color obvious casts we would accentuate them. Then we would give the image an overall midtone boost if we thought the shot was too light or a reduction if it was too dark and then before spinning the image, revisit the gray balance and adjust each channel if need be to maintain some synergy with the Highlights & Shadows.

We did all of this because we knew we could optimize the images downstream in photoshop and also because we were targeting the offset printing market of our client base which was and still is the creative professional and they print in CMYK So our content had to separate to CMYK properly using whatever ICC Profile / separation table they prefer. That meant we had to compensate as best we could for press gain.

Note the sequence of events,
1) set highlights 2) then shadows 3) decrease or increase color casts 4) darken or lighten the mid-tones 5) re-establish gray balance when required 6) Selective Color Correction 7) revisit 1,2 and 5 and save out the image.

In PS: the tools I use for the same sequence are:
1, 2 & 3: Levels
4 & 5: Curves / Color Balance
6: Hue Sat / Selective CC etc
7 : Levels & Curves

Curves, in my opinion should not be classified as a "color correction tool" it is more like a tonal range / gray balance tool, as you said it’s only a part of the arsenal, and you can push or pull the curve globally or for each channel independently to achieve the result required for that stage of color correction. Be sure to watch the numbers and don’t trust you monitor so much, the RGB & CMYK info is your only real feedback you’ve made the right move.

KB
D
Dave
Aug 1, 2008
On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:56:33 -0500, Talker wrote:

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:12:06 -0700, Sir F. A. Rien
wrote:

Talker found these unused words:

how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them?

Ummm ever try just doing something and seeing what happens? In Ps you can always RESET or CANCEL what adjustments you’ve played with !!!
No matter where you click
on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

Correct … but the information given was …

"Drag the dialogue box away from your area of interest and then move the cursor ove the point of the image where you need to ‘find the point’. "
"Click."

"A MARKER will appear on the curve where this tonality lies. "
I didn’t say a POINT would be placed on the curve!

"-=Make note of where it is=- and then ‘grab’
[click the cursor -=where the marker appeared=- ]
that area of the curve and make your adjustment by dragging the dot that will now lay on the curve."

Hi there Sir Rien! For some reason, I can’t access that website anymore, but I still have the images to work on. I see when I click in the white 1 or the gray 2, there is a line that moves along the curve. I guess where the line ends is where you need to click on, which I did.
I appreciate every’s patience with me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to curves. Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way or reading more into it than there is.. I don’t know what it is. I guess if I had someone here with me that I could ask questions to as I went along, I might get it faster.
I was hesitant to purchase Curvemeister without understanding it, since I’m now on a fixed income, but just seeing what you could do using the wizard impressed me enough to go for it.(I don’t need to buy food next week anyway….. Just kidding, I’m not that bad off.<g>) I figure that I can play with it and learn it as I go
along….like I did years ago when I got my first version (version
3.0) of PhotoShop.
I’m going back to the Curvemeister website to search out more tutorials. I think there are still a few pages that I can access. I just got stuck on that one example and I wanted to understand it before I went further.
Thanks for taking the time to help, I do appreciate it.

Talker

Maybe Talker, you should look at it this way.
What is the most important? To display a 100% accurate picture of the scene, or to have it pleasing to the eye?
If the last is the case, you are reading more into it than there is.
T
Talker
Aug 1, 2008
On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:33:02 -0700 (PDT), KB wrote:

Talker,

For me curves are not my "go to" tool for "color correction", it is as you said part of the arsenal, and for me it’s usually the second or third of many stages of the color correction process. Let me explain how we did things back when I was running the scanning dept. at Adobe Studios and Eyewire, before hi-end digital submissions became policy.
On the Drum Scanner we always set each photo up independently with customized highlight and shadow settings, we rarely if ever blew the highlights or plugged the shadows. no RGB 255’s or RGB 0’s more like 240’s and 10’s, we would neutralize these settings for photos that contain slight color casts and for the images that had color obvious casts we would accentuate them. Then we would give the image an overall midtone boost if we thought the shot was too light or a reduction if it was too dark and then before spinning the image, revisit the gray balance and adjust each channel if need be to maintain some synergy with the Highlights & Shadows.
We did all of this because we knew we could optimize the images downstream in photoshop and also because we were targeting the offset printing market of our client base which was and still is the creative professional and they print in CMYK So our content had to separate to CMYK properly using whatever ICC Profile / separation table they prefer. That meant we had to compensate as best we could for press gain.

Note the sequence of events,
1) set highlights 2) then shadows 3) decrease or increase color casts 4) darken or lighten the mid-tones 5) re-establish gray balance when required 6) Selective Color Correction 7) revisit 1,2 and 5 and save out the image.

In PS: the tools I use for the same sequence are:
1, 2 & 3: Levels
4 & 5: Curves / Color Balance
6: Hue Sat / Selective CC etc
7 : Levels & Curves

Curves, in my opinion should not be classified as a "color correction tool" it is more like a tonal range / gray balance tool, as you said it’s only a part of the arsenal, and you can push or pull the curve globally or for each channel independently to achieve the result required for that stage of color correction. Be sure to watch the numbers and don’t trust you monitor so much, the RGB & CMYK info is your only real feedback you’ve made the right move.

KB

Hi there KB! Well, my usual adjustment sequence was 1)
Levels….2) Contrast/brightness…..3) Color Balance….4) Hue/Saturation (if needed)……5) Unsharp Mask. The thing is, there are times when I still need to correct colors but those tools wouldn’t do what I needed. I also use the Color Mechanic Pro plugin and that really helps, but a new tool is always welcome.
I do restore and repair pictures as a hobby. I’ve worked on thousands of pictures over the years, all the time learning new methods and tools. It’s a never ending learning process and I enjoy that. I’m always looking to improve my techniques, and curves is one that I now know will help me. I may not need it for every picture I work on, but having one more tool at my disposal is always a good thing. It’s taken a long time of experimenting, but I’ve finally realized that the key to restoring or repairing a photo is knowing what you can’t do. That saves a lot of time.
When I first started doing this, I’d use a lot of tools or filters only to find that they made the picture worse. After doing this for a period of time, I began to learn what tools would or wouldn’t help in each situation, and once I learned that, I was able to streamline my methods. By experimenting with the Curvemeister plugin, I see where it would have benefitted me to use it in a lot of my earlier work. On the other hand, I experimented with some of the tutorials on the Curvemeister website and found that in some cases I could do a better job using other tools.
Like you indicated, there is no one way to correct and image and curves is only one of the many ways.

Talker
T
Talker
Aug 1, 2008
On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:14:39 +0200, Dave wrote:

Maybe Talker, you should look at it this way.
What is the most important? To display a 100% accurate picture of the scene, or to have it pleasing to the eye?
If the last is the case, you are reading more into it than there is.

I agree with that Dave. While in some cases it might be necessary to display a 100% accurate picture, most of the time it is what is pleasing to the eye. What also comes into play is that what I find pleasing may not be what others find pleasing so it’s objective. As long as the pictures I print out and give to people makes them happy, then I’m happy.
I have experimented more with Curvemeister and I am understanding it a bit more. Maybe I’ll enroll in the next class.

Talker
J
jaSPAMc
Aug 1, 2008
Talker found these unused words:

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:12:06 -0700, Sir F. A. Rien
wrote:

Talker found these unused words:

how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them?

Ummm ever try just doing something and seeing what happens? In Ps you can always RESET or CANCEL what adjustments you’ve played with !!!
No matter where you click
on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

Correct … but the information given was …

"Drag the dialogue box away from your area of interest and then move the cursor ove the point of the image where you need to ‘find the point’. "
"Click."

"A MARKER will appear on the curve where this tonality lies. "
I didn’t say a POINT would be placed on the curve!

"-=Make note of where it is=- and then ‘grab’
[click the cursor -=where the marker appeared=- ]
that area of the curve and make your adjustment by dragging the dot that will now lay on the curve."

Hi there Sir Rien! For some reason, I can’t access that website anymore, but I still have the images to work on. I see when I click in the white 1 or the gray 2, there is a line that moves along the curve. I guess where the line ends is where you need to click on, which I did.
I appreciate every’s patience with me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to curves. Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way or reading more into it than there is.. I don’t know what it is. I guess if I had someone here with me that I could ask questions to as I went along, I might get it faster.
I was hesitant to purchase Curvemeister without understanding it, since I’m now on a fixed income, but just seeing what you could do using the wizard impressed me enough to go for it.(I don’t need to buy food next week anyway….. Just kidding, I’m not that bad off.<g>) I figure that I can play with it and learn it as I go
along….like I did years ago when I got my first version (version
3.0) of PhotoShop.
I’m going back to the Curvemeister website to search out more tutorials. I think there are still a few pages that I can access. I just got stuck on that one example and I wanted to understand it before I went further.
Thanks for taking the time to help, I do appreciate it.

Talker

As with any PS tool, -=PLAY=- with it. Do crazy things, experiment. as long as you either work on a copy or don’t save the testing, your original isn’t afected.

Drag the curves dialogue out of the way, simply grab a point [click & hold on the curve] and move the mouse while watching the image.

For me, ‘learning’ is best done on a greyscale at first, then switch to colour.
K
KB
Aug 3, 2008
On Aug 1, 2:44 am, Talker wrote:
On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:33:02 -0700 (PDT), KB wrote:

Talker,

For me curves are not my "go to" tool for "color correction", it is as you said part of the arsenal, and for me it’s usually the second or third of many stages of the color correction process. Let me explain how we did things back when I was running the scanning dept. at Adobe Studios and Eyewire, before hi-end digital submissions became policy.

On the Drum Scanner we always set each photo up independently with customized highlight and shadow settings, we rarely if ever blew the highlights or plugged the shadows. no RGB 255’s or RGB 0’s more like 240’s and 10’s, we would neutralize these settings for photos that contain slight color casts and for the images that had color obvious casts we would accentuate them. Then we would give the image an overall midtone boost if we thought the shot was too light or a reduction if it was too dark and then before spinning the image, revisit the gray balance and adjust each channel if need be to maintain some synergy with the Highlights & Shadows.

We did all of this because we knew we could optimize the images downstream in photoshop and also because we were targeting the offset printing market of our client base which was and still is the creative professional and they print in CMYK So our content had to separate to CMYK properly using whatever ICC Profile / separation table they prefer. That meant we had to compensate as best we could for press gain.

Note the sequence of events,
1) set highlights  2) then shadows  3) decrease or increase color casts  4) darken or lighten the mid-tones  5) re-establish gray balance when required  6) Selective Color Correction  7) revisit 1,2 and 5 and save out the image.

In PS: the tools I use for the same sequence are:
1, 2 & 3:  Levels
4 & 5:  Curves / Color Balance
6:  Hue Sat / Selective CC etc
7 : Levels & Curves

Curves, in my opinion should not be classified as a "color correction tool" it is more like a tonal range / gray balance tool, as you said it’s only a part of the arsenal, and you can push or pull the curve globally or for each channel independently to achieve the result required for that stage of color correction. Be sure to watch the numbers and don’t trust you monitor so much, the RGB & CMYK info is your only real feedback you’ve made the right move.

KB

     Hi there KB!  Well, my usual adjustment sequence was 1) Levels….2) Contrast/brightness…..3) Color Balance….4) Hue/Saturation (if needed)……5) Unsharp Mask.  The thing is, there are times when I still need to correct colors but those tools wouldn’t do what I needed.  I also use the Color Mechanic Pro plugin and that really helps, but a new tool is always welcome.
     I do restore and repair pictures as a hobby.  I’ve worked on thousands of pictures over the years, all the time learning new methods and tools.  It’s a never ending learning process and I enjoy that.  I’m always looking to improve my techniques, and curves is one that I now know will help me.  I may not need it for every picture I work on, but having one more tool at my disposal is always a good thing.  It’s taken a long time of experimenting, but I’ve finally realized that the key to restoring or repairing a photo is knowing what you can’t do.  That saves a lot of time.
     When I first started doing this, I’d use a lot of tools or filters only to find that they made the picture worse.  After doing this for a period of time, I began to learn what tools would or wouldn’t help in each situation, and once I learned that, I was able to streamline my methods.  By experimenting with the Curvemeister plugin, I see where it would have benefitted me to use it in a lot of my earlier work.  On the other hand, I experimented with some of the tutorials on the Curvemeister website and found that in some cases I could do a better job using other tools.
     Like you indicated, there is no one way to correct and image and curves is only one of the many ways.

Talker

Talker,

I can’t help but think you moving into aras of adjustment that require so much movement you need to build a mask and isolate those areas so that you can do whatever it is you need to do, (could this be the case)

KB
T
Talker
Aug 4, 2008
On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:13:02 -0700 (PDT), KB wrote:

Talker,

I can’t help but think you moving into aras of adjustment that require so much movement you need to build a mask and isolate those areas so that you can do whatever it is you need to do, (could this be the case)

KB

No not really, although in some cases that might be true. I have worked on individual sections of a picture in order to achieve what I wanted, but that’s not the typical scenario.
Where I’ve had problems is when I’d try to color correct some aspect of the picture and found that I had to settle for a compromise between several aspects of the picture. With the Curvemeister I’ve seen that there are times when using it would have achieved what I was looking for. That’s why I’d like to understand curves better. Seeing what they can do will help me in the future when I need make certain color corrections that previously I had trouble making.
Again, it’s another tool in the arsenal of picture editing.<g>

Talker
F
Fred
Sep 25, 2008
"Talker" schreef in bericht
On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:12:06 -0700, Sir F. A. Rien
wrote:

Talker found these unused words:

how do you know where to place the points on the curve, and how do you know which direction to move them (up, down, sideways, at a 45 degree angle, etc.) and how much do you move them?

Ummm ever try just doing something and seeing what happens? In Ps you can always RESET or CANCEL what adjustments you’ve played with !!!
No matter where you click
on the image, you won’t get any points in the curve, so how do you know where to place them?

Correct … but the information given was …

"Drag the dialogue box away from your area of interest and then move the cursor ove the point of the image where you need to ‘find the point’. "
"Click."

"A MARKER will appear on the curve where this tonality lies. "
I didn’t say a POINT would be placed on the curve!

"-=Make note of where it is=- and then ‘grab’
[click the cursor -=where the marker appeared=- ]
that area of the curve and make your adjustment by dragging the dot that will now lay on the curve."

Hi there Sir Rien! For some reason, I can’t access that website anymore, but I still have the images to work on. I see when I click in the white 1 or the gray 2, there is a line that moves along the curve. I guess where the line ends is where you need to click on, which I did.
I appreciate every’s patience with me. I seem to have some kind of mental block when it comes to curves. Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way or reading more into it than there is.. I don’t know what it is. I guess if I had someone here with me that I could ask questions to as I went along, I might get it faster.
I was hesitant to purchase Curvemeister without understanding it, since I’m now on a fixed income, but just seeing what you could do using the wizard impressed me enough to go for it.(I don’t need to buy food next week anyway….. Just kidding, I’m not that bad off.<g>) I figure that I can play with it and learn it as I go
along….like I did years ago when I got my first version (version
3.0) of PhotoShop.
I’m going back to the Curvemeister website to search out more tutorials. I think there are still a few pages that I can access. I just got stuck on that one example and I wanted to understand it before I went further.
Thanks for taking the time to help, I do appreciate it.

Talker

If you click on your image, you will see a point on the curve, untill you release the mouse.
If you ctrl-click the points will stay.
If you shift-ctrl-click points will be added on each of the channels individually.

Often increasing contrast with curves will also saturate the colors. If you use an adjustment layer, you can set it’s blendmode to ‘luminosity’. That way the colors are not affected.
This also works with levels.

http://www.peachpit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=94d50a51-a8f c-4830-bde9-a3f85f1f6824

for a detailed explanation.

Curves are not magic, they just act that way sometimes 🙂
MR
Mike Russell
Sep 25, 2008
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:39:08 +0200, Fred wrote (in response to a July thread):
….
Curves are not magic, they just act that way sometimes 🙂

I hope you used the brain from the "good" jar when you re-animated this thread. Mwa ha ha ….

Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com
F
Fred
Sep 25, 2008
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:39:08 +0200, Fred wrote (in response to a July thread):

Curves are not magic, they just act that way sometimes 🙂

I hope you used the brain from the "good" jar when you re-animated this thread. Mwa ha ha ….

Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com

Well, nobody said anything about the ctrl-clicking, kind of important aspect of the curves dialogue imho.
Luckily my brain does all the thinking for me, if I had to do it myself… 😉

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