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I <3 Levels & Curves :D

Started by Atlantis, February 03, 2009, 08:13:30 AM

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Atlantis

I'd like to share this wip to show how much I love Levels & Curves as a first step to any photographic editing :



Plus a bonus question : It seems the scarflike thing is only on one shoulder (her left) and lots of hair from her tail on the other side. Is that correct or do I need to clean my glasses?
The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.

Hannie

Atlantis, thanks for for posting your WIP.  It is great to see how much info is still there after you did those levels and curves? 
After you did the levels in R, G and B what did you do in curves, the white and black point?

For the bonus question, I think the scarflike thing is one of those wide collar like frills made of broderie anglaise and is also there on the other shoulder (see red dots) but obscured some by her long pigtail.   I have made little girl's dresses in the past with similar decorations.

Hannie

Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

Atlantis

After Margie's warning about the dpi change when running jpg's in RAW, I decided to start all over again even though I had already finished about half of the photo. There were some additional troubles when suddenly my monitor was switched for a new one and even more frustration when it got switched back a few days later. I think my old monitor is almost working as it used to by now, maybe still a tad to darkish though.

But good enough to continue working on this restore. I wondered where all the blues and greens would have come from. They popped up all over after the colorcorrections but I could not find the source. I decided to clean up as much as I could and choose a brownish background. There might be some minor green spots or hazes I missed in the repeated tweaking. My eyes don't see any more at this point.

The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.

Mhayes

Hi Atlantis,

I think this looks great and I like the background. This is a minor pic, but the girl's collar on your right in the shadows does not look as good as the way you had it before. Even though this may be truer to how the dress is, I like it before with the checkered pattern showing.

You did a terrific job and until you download this photo, you don't how much work it is to get it looking this good. The photo first went out to a beginning student who did a pretty good job of repairing damage, but was totally fooled by the color. Not being familiar with color correcting, she went with a light version of the original with a lean towards sepia. This was one of those times you want to run out and say: Go back, go back, you don't want this photo!  ;D

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Atlantis

Using a white soft brush on a layer set to soft light I reduced the gray haze in that area which revealed the scarf - the other half of it is less visible on our left, partly covered by hair and very blown out highlights. There is no checkered fabric visible in that area.
I could tone down the whites so it's more into the shadows.
The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.

lurch

#5
Superb job, Atlantis! To my eye, however, flesh tones are on the pink side and image is a tad flat. You might try adding the green channel as a layer in luminosity mode to add a little modeling, and a curves adjustment to add some yellow to the skin. When I tried that out it messed with the background some . . . you might or might not like the result.

PS: I know it was that way in the original, but in retrospect I find the girl's right eye to be distractingly dark.

PPS: Don't you just love how you do wonders on an impossible image and then the forum hits you with a bunch of minor OCD-type nit-picks? ::)

<C>

Atlantis

I had used a copied green chanel in the early stage of this one for the same reason. 
On my monitor your final tweaks have the same result as what I tried with adding a warm photofilter. It sometimes works and sometimes looks overdone. In this case it looks to orange on my monitor.

As I don't trust my current monitorsettings 100% yet I did just a little more tweaking of colour and contrast and sent them home. I trust QC to do the final tweaks if needed.
The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.