Maximizing Colour during Post-Scan Editing

Version 1.1, Page 4, ©2002 by Dale Cotton, all rights reserved.

Fig 7. Half way.

To this point we've been making major adjustments just to get into the right ballpark. We've now got an image that contains usable colour in every region.

The rest of the process will be to iteratively apply fine tuning adjustments until every aspect of the colour symphony suits. There are two approaches you can take. One is to have a vision of what you want the final image to look like then keep making the adjustments needed to achieve that goal. The other is to look at the things that bother you about how the image looks at present then make adjustments to remove the irritation. Mostly my approach is some mixture of the two.

Now that I can actually see something of what the image looks like, my goals for it begin to come into focus:

• I want to maximize the lush beauty of the Jacob's ladders, the glowing mist on the water, and the reflections of both in the water.
• I want to increase the drama of the interplay between the light and dark regions of this image.
• Mother Nature was not having a bad colour day when this shot was snapped. As is most often the case my concerns with colour will be in the realm of tweaking rather than revamping.

The first two points have at least one thing in common: the first thing they both make me think of is increased contrast....

Fig 8. 4 point S curve and result.

• 9. From the Layer menu choose Adjustment Layer, Curves to create Curve layer. Create an S curve to increase contrast.

The trick to complex curves is to keep them smooth - no sudden swerves. To create this curve I first added two control points to divide the contrast line roughly in three equal parts, then dragged them in opposite directions to increase contrast. I then added two more points to control the light and dark extremes. There's no real wizardry involved - just fool around while looking for the most Wow!-inducing adjustment.

Fig 9. Hue/Sat adjustments.

• 10. Hue/Sat layer: moderate +saturation to Master channel. +Sat. to Yellows. Shift hue of Greens toward yellow. De-saturate Cyans.

Again trial-and-error in search of controlled intensity.

Fig 10. Merge layers is checked.

• 11. Image->Duplicate image with merged checked.

Because this image is now a blending of two exposures in order to make the following adjustments we have to merge at least the two exposure layers. I've chosen to squash everything together and work with a duplicate copy.

• 12. Use the marquee tool to create a rectangular selection enclosing the tree trunk at the far right. (Unfortunately I couldn't get Alt+Printscreen to retain the marching ants, so no graphic here.)

Fig 11. Magic wand selection homes in on tree trunk.

• 13. Change to the magic wand, set tolerance of 6, click on the selected trunk.

This should confine the marching ants to just the brown and black of the tree trunk.

• 14. Create a Curves adjustment layer. Reduce the green channel. Raise RGB brightness. Click OK, then de-select the tree trunk.

I wanted the trunk shadows to be true black while retaining a hint of texture to the rest of the bark.