Turn up the color...burning tree

shatch · January 26, 2006

Comments from WP...

rutt wrote:

Mostly I just meant to use steeper curves. But two other approaches come to mind. Please start a thread in the PP forum and we can nerd out without setting off any alarms in the headquarters of the WP thought police.

Thanks Rutt for recommending this thread. Here is the file.

rutt · January 26, 2006

shatch wrote:

Comments from WP...

Thanks Rutt for recommending this thread. Here is the file.

Great. What's been done to it up to this point? I'd like to start with the closest thing to original as possible. I'd like to know the exact steps you took from there to get here.

shatch · January 26, 2006

Process so far...
This is actually fairly close to the original file. I did some sharpening and increased saturation, maybe a little global curves but nothing too much (as I remember). I did this all last summer/fall so don't recall full details. I checked in photoshop to see what the exif data was and it has been erased (?).

rutt · January 26, 2006

Thanks. Let's start with this version, then.

By now we have quite a lot of tools in our bag from the Dan Margulis LAB Book Reading Group. I'll walk you through a few different techniques starting with the most basic. The originals of all these version are available. Let me know if you don't know how to get them.

LAB Curves Basic Recipe See: my tutorial. I used 15% steepening on each end of both A and B curves to get this:

15% is at the upper range of what I like to use, so if this seems like too much, perhaps it is. Try lower values. I'm going to exegerate thoughout here in order to show just how powerful these techniques are. You can always ease up a bit.

Impossible Retouch This is from Chapter 8 of Dan's book. Maybe we'd like to get some color into the few totally blown spots that show through the tree. No problem. I started with the steepened image above and got this in under a minute:

Man From Mars Here is another way to turn up the color. It's from Chapter 12 of the LAB book. The idea is to make a curves adjustment layer with wildly saturated colors and then blend into the original with low opacity. As opposed to the basic recipe, this technique tends to get some color into every part of the image which isn't neutral to start with. It also tends to find some really interesting tones. I got this version:

I used these A+B curves:

and blended the curves layer at 20% opacity. (No impossible retouch this time, left as an exercise.) The difference between in this case between MFM and the basic recipe is subtle, but see the added color in the darkest parts of the sky.

Maybe too much color in the shadows? We can use blending options (once you do your Impossible Retouch homework, you'll understand) to control just which blacks get juiced up. See the difference:

Here are the blending options I used for the MFM layer:

Still with me? How as that?

shatch · January 26, 2006

You are the Master!
Fantastic!...I haven't replicated what you did yet (Mac's at home), but I follow your steps. Very well documented and easy to follow. You are a master PPist and teacher.

Is exagerating the rays next?

Would you recommend running this through Noise Ninja to get rid of the extra noise in the sky?

rutt · January 26, 2006

Oh, rays. I did promise you rays, didn't I?

OK, this is really a twist on the MFM technique. It's based on something from chapter 11 which Pathfinder is supposed to post on soon.

So I made a curve adjustment layer which is targeted at those rays. I made each channel widlly steep through the area of it greatest variations in the rays:

HINT: It's important to keep the midpoints of the A and B curves a at 50,50.

Fill the layer mask for the curves adjustment layer with black (Edit->Fill, with the layer mask selected.) Now paint on the layer mask in white with a big soft low opacity brush to bring out the rays. Paint radially in this case.

Once you are done you may want to lower opacity and use one the other techniques to enhance color more globally.

shatch · January 26, 2006

OK...here is my attempt
I tried to work with the blown out areas using your technique but gave up too soon. I'll spend some more time with it to get proficient with it.

Thanks for the great tutorial and all your work here on DGRIN.

Before

After

Thanks again Rutt!

rutt · January 26, 2006

Wow, you're a fast learner! Looks great! Fix those blown spots, which really isn't hard at all and you'll have it. The only trick for fixing the blown spots is finding the right yellow to paint with. You want the very brightest colors closest to the sun no clouds. Then make sure to get the blend-if slider right. Then you can play with the opacity slider to make it a little more subtle.

Now here is a shot we can have some feelings about! It's about to talk to Moses.

rutt · January 26, 2006

PS: It really makes me happy when I can help get someone going like this. I live for it.

shatch · January 27, 2006

Noise Reduction
What process or application do you use for noise reduction?

DavidTO · January 27, 2006

Great job, Shatch.

For chroma noise you can blur the A and B channels. You won't notice it, and can blur it quite a bit without impacting your image. You'd be surprised.

For luminance noise, you could run a surface blur carefully and just on the L channel.

I never do more than that, others could give you other ideas...

shatch · January 27, 2006

rutt wrote:

PS: It really makes me happy when I can help get someone going like this. I live for it.

It makes me stay up longer than I should but thanks for teaching!

shatch · January 27, 2006

Almost feel like a magician
Thanks Rutt and DavidTO
Just played with noise reduction and it made me smile. When you use this do you duplicate layers and then use blending options to protect certain areas?

DavidTO · January 27, 2006

shatch wrote:

Thanks Rutt and DavidTO
Just played with noise reduction and it made me smile. When you use this do you duplicate layers and then use blending options to protect certain areas?

Well, you should certainly do it on a layer so that you can toggle to check for damage you may have done. And then you can just do an opacity reduction to bring some of the noise/detail back, or you could get fancier. I usually don't, though others may.

rutt · January 27, 2006

shatch wrote:

Thanks Rutt and DavidTO
Just played with noise reduction and it made me smile. When you use this do you duplicate layers and then use blending options to protect certain areas?

Yes, always. I've become very conservative with noise reduction. Ofthen I'll make a mask to target it very carefully. Noise reduction, even the best is really the enemy of sharpness. On the other hand, noise is the enemy of sharpening. So there you are. Kind of like the Mideast.

rutt · January 28, 2006

So, I've been waiting with baited breath to see a final version. And, please, Shach, can you tell us what your level of expertise was before this venture? I'm very interested in just how accessible these techniques are. Personally I think a lot of people are unnecessarily intimidated by them.