Project 1 — Becca.

The images I used for this project were taken by my friend Tom at Lone Fir Cemetery in the Hollywood District — an odd fenced crypt by the side of the road.

The photos came out beautifully, but the color balance and contrast could use some improvement. I chose this one to experiment with in Levels and Curves.


The deep black shadows in this image were too dark and distracting. There was also a very faint green cast that I wanted to remove, but at the same time I didn't want to obscure any of the details on the side of the crypt. Levels was frustrating for this task; I didn't have enough fine control to really get the effect I wanted. Curves worked perfectly, though. The resulting correction is very subtle, but it brought out more contrast in the shadows. I think that for most projects I would first try a combination of both tools, and then remove the Levels layer if it detracted from the overall effect I wanted.


I chose this next picture to use with Variations because it has a yellow cast from the afternoon sunlight. It's not glaring, but you can see it on the ground and on the leaves in the upper right-hand corner.


I wanted to remove the cast and also make the fine details stand out more. As you can see, the result looks much more natural. I had to set the scale to "Fine" in Variations and do a little bit more work, since the cast is not nearly as noticeable as the examples in the textbook, but it was quick and easy.


For the final image, I chose a closer shot of the crypt's vaulted roof, because while the composition intrigued me, the angle up into the sun caused a blurring effect at the top of the crypt. I wanted to see if I could salvage more of the image, or at the least make it more interesting to look at.


Lowering the Brightness and Contrast by itself does show more of the crypt's roof, but it throws the colors all out of proportion. Raising Vibrance helps to compensate somewhat for that, although I actually got a more realistic result by decreasing Saturation. The Channel Mixer actually achieved the best effect for this photo, while I ended up discarding the Hue and Saturation level altogether. It's not perfect, but the blown highlights are recovered enough to make it workable.


For fun, I also tried creating a "vintage"-style version of this photo by adding one of the textbook's Gradient Map presets to the mix. In sepia tone, the color distinctions are not quite as striking, so I had to fiddle with the Contrast and Saturation a bit more to get it to look dynamic again.


(You can click on the small thumbnails to see the pictures at a larger size. My original images, along with these web-optimized ones, should be uploaded to my SWS directory now.)