popping the colors

goldilocksandmy3bears · May 31, 2010

Can someone show me some pp techniques in CS4 for making the colors in photographs really pop.
Thanks!
Court

Richard · May 31, 2010

The fastest, easiest way is to use the Vibrance slider in ACR or Lightroom. It increases saturation while protecting skin-tones some. If you want to see some more advanced techniques, you could look at some of the Dgrin threads on the Dan Margulis Photoshop books or better still, get copies of them.

goldilocksandmy3bears · May 31, 2010

Richard wrote: »

The fastest, easiest way is to use the Vibrance slider in ACR or Lightroom. It increases saturation while protecting skin-tones some. If you want to see some more advanced techniques, you could look at some of the Dgrin threads on the Dan Margulis Photoshop books or better still, get copies of them.

thanks!
Court

pathfinder · June 1, 2010

Start here with the fundamentals - http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/2292454/1

Setting a black and white point are the basis for everything that follows.

zoomer · June 1, 2010

Levels adjustment. Getting the black point right will make your colors pop and a bit of a saturation and contrast boost.
Getting the whites white and the blacks black is the main thing.

topazdan · June 4, 2010

Making colors pop in PS with the Texas 2 Step
I can't find the tutorial but here is what I do. Very quick and simple.
I do this alot.
Maybe 10 seconds.
Let's call it the Texas 2 step.

1. In photo in PS or PSE.
2. Open Levels. Image>Adjustments>Levels (CTRL L)
3. Notice the 3 sliders under the Histogram.

Step 1. Move the slider on the RIGHT side to the LEFT. Now your photo is getting lighter. Typically you will put the slider under the far right side of the histogram. Mabye even tuck it under a little. (6 seconds)

Step 2. Move the MIDDLE slider to the RIGHT just slightly. Now your photo is getting darker. Adjust to taste. (4 seconds)

Close levels. Done. Popped.

RalphAdam · June 8, 2010

goldilocksandmy3bears wrote: »

Can someone show me some pp techniques in CS4 for making the colors in photographs really pop.
Thanks!
Court

Try Dan Margulis's neat and easy moves. Convert to LAB. Go to curves--on the A ch. pivot one square, top and bottom, counter clockwise -- being careful that the center point does not move from the center of the grid. Do the same with the B ch. Then go to L ch and put in a nice contrast-boosting curve. If too much pop, reduce opacity of the adjustment layer. merge to one layer and reconvert to RGB

arodney · June 8, 2010

RalphAdam wrote: »

Try Dan Margulis's neat and easy moves. Convert to LAB.

Just beware if you do this on 8-bit per color (24 bit) images.

chuckinsocal · June 8, 2010

Definitely learn about LAB Curves. There are some tutorials here on DGrin or you can Google LAB Curves and find some tutorials there. The tutorials make it look far more complex than it really is so don't be intimidated by them.

I love LAB curves and I have the steps reduced to an action that works well most of the time. I do them on a duplicate layer so if the result is too harsh I can just reduce the opacity to taste.

It's the best way I know of to make your colors pop.

CatOne · June 9, 2010

RalphAdam wrote: »

Try Dan Margulis's neat and easy moves. Convert to LAB. Go to curves--on the A ch. pivot one square, top and bottom, counter clockwise -- being careful that the center point does not move from the center of the grid. Do the same with the B ch. Then go to L ch and put in a nice contrast-boosting curve. If too much pop, reduce opacity of the adjustment layer. merge to one layer and reconvert to RGB

This is what I love about Photoshop. Everyone has their own hopelessly arcane recipe for doing something simple, that once they've gone through the effort to learn it, they feel locked into Photoshop because the sweat equity.

Or… you could use Aperture or Lightroom or something else that doesn't require such ridiculous hoops to get a decent result.

Richard · June 9, 2010

CatOne wrote: »

This is what I love about Photoshop. Everyone has their own hopelessly arcane recipe for doing something simple, that once they've gone through the effort to learn it, they feel locked into Photoshop because the sweat equity.

Or… you could use Aperture or Lightroom or something else that doesn't require such ridiculous hoops to get a decent result.

You can use simple controls to do simple things very quickly. Once you master curve adjustments in Photoshop you can also do simple things very quickly. What you can't do are hard things using simple controls.

arodney · June 9, 2010

CatOne wrote: »

Or… you could use Aperture or Lightroom or something else that doesn't require such ridiculous hoops to get a decent result.

Less hoops, better data, totally non destructive, virtual copies mean you can make unlimited iterations with no storage overhead. Yup, do the work when rendering the raw data.

CatOne · June 9, 2010

Richard wrote: »

You can use simple controls to do simple things very quickly. Once you master curve adjustments in Photoshop you can also do simple things very quickly. What you can't do are hard things using simple controls.

There are very good curves controls in Aperture 3. In some ways, superior to Photoshop's curves.

I'm not arguing that Aperture or Lightroom can do everything that Photoshop can; they can't. What they can do, as of version 3 of each program, is about 98% of what is important to photography, with an interface which is much more intuitive and appropriate for the task at hand. With a number of other benefits, as Andrew alluded to. The ability to create virtual copies or snapshots of various versions of a photo, with each of those taking up 4K-16K of space, as opposed to 100+ MB per image with Photoshop, is truly huge.

Richard · June 10, 2010

I'm not disputing the power of LR or Aperture. I do as much of my processing in ACR as I can, but it doesn't come anywhere near covering 98% of my needs.

pathfinder · June 10, 2010

Mine either, Richard. I suspect at least half my images get at least one pass through another image editing [program other than Lightroom.

I go out to Photoshop whenever I need selections, curves and masks. Yes, I know there is a global curve in Lightroom, but I just like curves on an adjustment layer with Blend If control so much better than that curve offered in Lightroom.

I suspect that how much one uses Photoshop - in addition to the editing available in LR - depends somewhat on the type of subjects one is shooting - specifically landscapes versus portraits.

I bet most portrait shooters have more control over their lighting ratios, than landscape shooters, and I suspect the higher lighting ratios do contribute to more Photoshop use.

Most portrait shots are not hdr shots, but frequently my landscapes ( at least ) require more than one exposure to capture the entire dynamic range of the image.

CatOne · June 10, 2010

pathfinder wrote: »

Mine either, Richard. I suspect at least half my images get at least one pass through another image editing [program other than Lightroom.

I go out to Photoshop whenever I need selections, curves and masks. Yes, I know there is a global curve in Lightroom, but I just like curves on an adjustment layer with Blend If control so much better than that curve offered in Lightroom.

Does Lightroom 3 not offer this yet? I know you can do regional edits in Lightroom but I don't know if ou can specifically do a curves adjustment. Aperture 3 allows you to do curves with selections (pretty much any adjustment you can make you can brush in selectively). There's no need to really define a mask; you just make the curves adjustment as you want it and then brush it into particular areas of the photo, and have it auto-detect edges which is the same as the mask.

Photoshop is extremely powerful, but the learning curve for it in this day and age is ridiculous. It's a swiss army knife first and then a photo editor 3rd or 4th.

pathfinder · June 10, 2010

Cat, I have not purchased LR3 or CS5 yet - they are still on my list though.

I am aware of the adjustment brush in LR2, but have never felt that it gave as good a result as I can get in CS4. LR is more intuitive for beginners, but less precise in my hands.

I agree that PS is much more challenging to learn to use, I have been attempting to master PS for over 7 years, and am still barely past the novice stage. But I can do selections and masks, usually, to my satisfaction. But most of my shots are landscapes or city scenes not lighting controlled portraits.

Do you agree with my thesis that the need for more editing is somewhat contributed to by subject of the image?

CatOne · June 10, 2010

pathfinder wrote: »

Do you agree with my thesis that the need for more editing is somewhat contributed to by subject of the image?

Well I don't really know what that means

What is "more" editing? Certainly there are examples of Photoshop documents that have literally hundreds of selections and layers. I've seen them, with very complicated recipes for exactly what/where to select and dodge/enhance/sharpen, etc. In many cases (say, advertising or product photos), this functionality is critical as large sections of photos may be enhanced, removed, or replaced.

For landscape work: I give it a big "maybe." It depends on what the end goal is. You can do more things in Photoshop (and it's very complicated), but the real issue is whether you can achieve what you want. Which tool can give you the best result? Keep in mind that if the tool is too complicated, you may not be able to leverage its power. And I've seen some of the most arcane workflows ever in Photoshop that worked for people (one example: a guy I know has a workflow to bring out enhanced shadow detail that involves duplicating the base layer, and converting it to black and white, setting transparency to about 50% and then doubling the saturation on the other layer. It works pretty well… but what… the… hell?). There are hundreds of ways to get the same result in Photoshop. There are fewer ways to do the same thing in Lightroom or Aperture, but just because there are fewer paths through the jungle, doesn't mean the end result is worse because the path is clearer and more accessible. Also, obviously, because Photoshop is a pixel editor you pretty much *can* do anything, whereas Aperture and Lightroom are parametric editors so there are some things you can't do. Again, what matters is whether there's something you specifically _need_ that they can't do (examples could be photo stitching, HDR (well, there are plug-ins), and perspective correction (well, until Lightroom 3 ;-).

So any way, the answer is a guarded maybe to your question. It really depends on the subject matter, and it really depends on your mastery of the tools. I firmly believe that for someone starting out today without a ton of Photoshop knowledge, that they will get better results by starting with Aperture or Lightroom. Only if they are doing paid advertising work (in which case, they'll get training), or have a specific need they can't do, will they need something like Photoshop.

For someone who wants to "pop the colors," there are a litany of ways with selections and vibrance and saturation to do a great job in Aperture or Lightroom. Learning L*a*b for this purpose is IMO ass-backwards.

Grainbelt · June 15, 2010

I'm not used to quite this much vitriol on Dgrin, but I find it amusing. I read thru the entire tutorial that was linked, and it can be summarized in about two sentences: be sure to set a white and black point, and adjust the curves for contrast in critical areas.

I can't imagine the dismay on your faces if you saw me setting white and black points with the levels sliders in PSE8 and then futzing with the curves. That said, it can be extremely effective. As a hobbyist, I'm not after perfection, just a pleasant result. I'm sure for some of you this is a far more critical activity, which explains some of the emotion.

pathfinder · June 15, 2010

This did not strike me as vitriolic at all, GB, just a gentlemanly discussion between CatOne and myself, and others.

BinaryFx · June 17, 2010

pathfinder wrote: »

This did not strike me as vitriolic at all, GB, just a gentlemanly discussion between CatOne and myself, and others.<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/ne_nau.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Pathfinder, perhaps Grainbelt went searching for threads containing techniques from Dan Margulis and he found a great big mess of dog doodoo all over the topic threads that mentioned Dan.

I agree that this thread is clean.

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

popping the colors

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