Project 1 - Karel Rasovsky

1 - Levels & Curves

I started my project with two family pictures, both with very different problems:

(1) – “two cousins” was taken in a wine-garden at night. Issue: overexposed foreground set against a dark, underexposed background.

(2)– “inflight entertainment” was taken aboard an airliner. Issue: underexposed, grayish, flat picture.

Both Levels and Curves are extremely powerful tools, each with unique strengths. I edited both pictures through Levels and Curves and confirmed what the books already say. Levels achieved superior results with (2), which was largely in need of increasing contrast and brightness. Curves did a better job with (1), which required decreasing the levels of stark highlights and shadows. Conclusion: Levels is better at increasing contrast, Curves is better at decreasing the contrast.

Levels

For now, I prefer the Levels command. As a user, I feel Levels is initially easier to grasp. I also liked the sense of precise control when setting the values of highlights, shadows and midtones. Worth honorable mention are the “presets” inside Levels – e.g. “midtones brighter”, ”midtones darker”. Easy to step through, and when you find a fitting choice, they were producing consistently good results on my photos. Good enough for everyday type of corrections. For the sake of our project, I experimented with custom settings for optimal results. See more below.

Curves

The Curves command is very powerful but also more difficult to tame. It has taken me a while to grasp the concept behind the luminance curve, and what I am actually doing with it (beyond seeing a changing image in front of me). Adjusting the two high/low points on the luminance curve definitely takes some practice. After some trial and error, I managed to accomplish a pretty good high/low balance. This opened up more brilliant and vivid colors in the photo. Bringing up the Histogram palette was very helpful in identifying the offending color “spike”, and then editing that particular color channel for best results.

Overall, Curves did wonders of pulling out details from the shadows I didn’t know existed in my “two cousins” photo. The colors were still a bit off, which was easily fixed mainly through a subsequent Hue/Saturation round. In my particular case, the picture also required further softening of highlights/shadow transitions through the Shadow/Highlights command. More about these experiments below.

2 - Variations

Since Variations is really best suited for remedy of “color cast”, I chose an old, low-quality photo with a reddish/orange cast. Can this actually be improved? It turned out, Variations was up to the task. Here is my sequence of steps:

· Edited through Variations: problem color was Red à added more Cyan (complementary to Red) across Shadows, Midtones, Highlights. Pretty decent improvement.

· Some fine-tuning of Saturation helped even more

· Then mainly Hue/Saturation to optimize overall coloring effect

The Variations tool is a good first “quick fix” to improve hopeless cast color images. It did a good job reducing the red cast in my image and re-balancing the color mix. But no amount of tools could remedy the overall low-quality of the original photo.

3 – Fine-tuning Images

Color channels

My formerly “flat” picture of “two cousins” benefitted most from lightening up the R, B channels. Important: always go back to the RGB level and re-adjust gamma across all channels for improved results. After experimenting, I set my RGB midtone Input Levels to a whopping 1.30 across channels with great impact. The image lightened up without suffering a washed-out look. Still, some color was lost in the process – on to Saturation/Hue!

Saturation & Hue

After editing with Levels or Curves, this was an important next step improving the color intensity of my pictures. Experimenting with custom setting, I was able to achieve visually dramatic improvement, bringing out more color in both photos.

Vibrance

I usually experimented with Vibrance after editing with Hue/Saturation. Changing the vibrance settings did not produce discernable improvements for my photos used in this project.

Brightness & Contrast

Straightforward, easy, effective. Adjustments brought more light into my photo without distorting the natural light conditions of the scene.

Shadow/highlights

This is a very flexible and effective tool for improving shadow/highlight problems. It requires some practice to strike the best balance of amount/tone/radius in the shadows & highlight dialog box. But it was time well spent. Always go back and re-adjust “amount in shadow”, after you run through both shadow & highlights settings. It made a huge difference in my picture. A high Radius setting smoothed and softened highlights/shadows/midtones beyond expectations. When it was all said and done, I got remarkable results – a picture with details in the shadows, and with the original color balance unchanged.

Gradient Map

Well, my original was a color image, so how about creating a gray scale image out of it? The selection of preset gradients was overwhelming, but I chose the traditional “sepia” tone, transforming my color image into a soft black/white scene. Played with the color stops, adjusted opacity. Wouldn’t you know it, the default setting turned out the best. This was fun!

Other tools/combinations

The “automatic image correction” tools produced great results for me, in at least one instance. In this case, I used them in a bit unconventional way. First, I edited my “inflight entertainment” image with Layers, with subsequent refinements via Hues/Saturation etc. Finally, processed with “auto contrast”, “auto color” and “auto tone”. The “auto tone” had the magical effect, in that it significantly improved tone balance of the picture.

4 - SWS Upload (web-optimized files)

Three originals:

inflight_entertainment_original.jpg

two_cousins_original.jpg

tree_original.jpg

Intermediate edits:

inflight_entertainment_brightnesscontrast.psd

inflight_entertainment_colorchannels.psd

inflight_entertainment_gradientmap.psd

inflight_entertainment_huesaturation.psd

Final images:

final_inflight_entertainment.psd

final_two_cousins.psd

final_tree.psd

5 – Bottom Line

My first two pics – “inflight entertainment” and “two cousins” – had high-pixel count (Nikon D80). Although both had quite severe problems, Photoshop was able to transform them into great images. I see the potential of the Shadow/Highlights tool for many of my photos, where the commercial flash came up short. This class is my first encounter with Photoshop, hope to develop it into a practical skill from here.

Enjoy the journey!

Karel

1. Levels and Curves

I found that for my image "steeple bird" I preferred then levels tool over the curves tool. I felt as though the levels tools provided more precise control over the color balances, and allowed me to alter the lightness and darkness of the image more carefully. I do think that using both tools was helpful and because they alter the hues in slightly different manners I think that using both of them was necessary. I was happy with the final image that these tools produced.

2. Variations

I chose to use this tool on my image "fruit" because this image had something of a yellow cast that made it look pale and washed out. I added red with the variation tool, which made the image look richer and more vibrant.

3. Two final images

My first image, "wires," was very dark, and it was difficult to distinguish the different hues. I first employed the levels tool to lighten the image. I then altered some of the colors with the hue/saturation tool. Finally, I tweaked the contrast slightly with the brightness/contrast tool.

My second image, "boys on beach," was very light. The hues were very pale and lot of detail was lost, to such an extent, in fact, that you could hardly make out the water. I employed the levels tool, then brightness/contrast, then hue/saturation, and finally vibrance. I was very happy with the result.

4. My experience

I learned a lot from this experience regarding the use different tools to manipulate the hues, luminosity, and lightness and darkness of images. Having done the exercises in Lesson 3, I will admit that I am more partial to photo editing in Camera Raw, because it is easy to use and reversible, and all your editing can be done in one place. It is good, however, to be familiar with these tools in Photoshop, to be used in conjunction with the other features that this program offers. I am very pleased to now know how to used the Variations and Levels tools, since many of my photos are too light or too dark, or have unwanted color casts.

Project 1 - Vincent Phan

1. The levels tool felt a little more easier to use while the curves tool was a little complicated, but probably better for controlling the contrast.
2. This image didn't have much lighting in it, so I used this image and raised the brightness a bit.
3. 
   
4. Learning how to use levels and curves is still mind-boggling, but it was nice to learn what it is and how it works. Variations was fun to use, because it allows you to adjust the color as well as the brightness and darkness.
   

Project 1- Darryl Zenger

1. This is my first experience working with Photoshop. I feel a little overwhelmed with all the different tools and understanding all the adjustments. I like the curves tool more than the levels because I think that picture looks the best. The picture I used seemed dull and dark and I just tried to brighten it up and bring out more color. Files: project_1original.jpg, project_1levels.psd, project_1curves.psd.

2. I picked a photo for variations that I wanted to lighten and brighten up. I found variations very difficult to use. It seemed that I could take a photo from not so good to terrible in about four to six clicks. I can see this tool is going to take some practice to learn. Files: project_1a_original.jpg, project_1a_variations.jpg.

3. I had a photo from the downtown farmers market that seemed dark and dull. I used some different combinations of tools. I could not figure out the gradient tool but I came up with two final versions. My pick for best was file: cheforiginal_brightness_vibrance.psd. Then I also liked the one used the tools hue/saturation and color channel this file is: cheforiginal_hue_colorchannel.psd. I plan on putting this photo up on the web for a Portland site.

4. I found this project fun having never done any type of changes to photos before except sizing for the web. I can see that Photoshop will take lots of practice to master. I think my favorite tools are curves, vibrance, brightness, levels, and then hue/saturation. Variations and gradient tool I need to do more research on them.

Project 1- Melissa Flores

Q1.) Which tool do you prefer? Why? Do you need both

A1.) The tool that i prefer the most was the level tool because i had a better way of controlinig it and felt comftorable using it. I personally did use both, which created a better image.

Q2.) What image did you choose?

A2.) For the variation tool, I chose a cake picture which had a dark image that didnt make the cake pop so i added auto tone.Doing this fist project was bit challenging because it was the fist time that i really used the tools to produce a better picture in photoshop. I hope doing the other projects will go smoothly this time.

Project 1 - Tina Leung

1. Levels and Curves tool: Which tool do you prefer? Why? Do you need both?
I prefer the levels tool over the curves tool because I'm able to use it to set a good basis for the direction that I want to take the image. I probably prefer it also because I am more comfortable with it at the moment. I can already tell that the curves tool is highly beneficial but I just need to get more comfortable using it. Both tools are definitely necessary to optimize an image to its full potential.

2. Variations: Which image did you choose? Why?
I chose a picture of my dog, Bridge, laying on the carpet because the saturation and tone of the picture was bland. He has more color in person =)

project 1

Here is my new blog correction.
Project 1
cas208 10-6-09

Queston 1
(mvc00034.jpg) original has dark shadows corrected it with levels but left the sky a light blue
(1_levels.psd). Then corrected it with curves and was able to keep the blue the right color
(1_curves.psd). I prefer the curves tool. Both tools treat the picture differently that help correct it.

Question 2
I experimented with the variations tool but had a hard time with it. I choose picture (P311449.jpg)
because it was dark.I could not find a picture where the color was out but variations seemed to
make the picture worse (2_variations).

Question 3
(P311449.jpg) was the original I choose to use the levels and saturation and came up with
(3_levelsat.psd). I also tried levels and vibrance and came up with (3_levelvibrance.psd).

Question 4
I prefer to use the vibrance tool it give it a more life like picture along with the levels tool.

Ken