best pic of the day for me

[Cryofix]

1280 res jpg photo shopped

[Hyde]

hope you don't take offense - because offending you and your efforts isn't intended.

i straightened the pic (a good way to tell if your pic is crooked is the clouds. now - the building's roofline isn't straight but when it is, everything else is crooked. notice now the telephone poles and such are straight. the building is actually at the correct perspective this way). i did some color enhancement in LAB, brightened the shadows, smart sharpened 30%, raised the levels, brightened the sky, etc.

even though the lighting was problematic (too fast a shutter speed/too cloudy) you can still make the picture come alive.

anyways - was just bored and spent 5 mins playing with it. again - hope it doesn't offend you.

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[zflarez]

Wow what a difference. You ever use the GIMP. I absolutely love it.

[Tonystott]

I think the tricky part is that the building itself is staggered; each residence is set back a bit from the next one. It certainly makes a big difference when it seems more natural to the eye...

[Cryofix]

no offense taken I am very interested in constructive critisism, btw what is LAB?

[Hyde]

LAB Color Space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space)

"The intention of the LAB color spaces is to produce a color space that is more perceptually linear than other color spaces. Perceptually linear means that a change of the same amount in a color value should produce a change of about the same visual importance. When storing colors in limited precision values, this can improve the reproduction of tones. It is also an absolute color space, so it defines colors exactly, unlike (for example) RGB or CMYK which do not exactly define color, only a mixing recipe for light or ink (respectively)."

"LAB is the most complete color model used conventionally to describe all the colors visible to the human eye. The non-linear relations for L*, a*, and b* are intended to mimic the logarithmic response of the eye. The three parameters in the LAB colorspace represent the lightness of the color (L*, L*=0 yields black and L*=100 indicates white), its position between magenta and green (a*, negative values indicate green while positive values indicate magenta) and its position between yellow and blue (b*, negative values indicate blue and positive values indicate yellow)."

"The Adobe RGB color space encompasses roughly 50% of the visible colors specified by the LAB color space."

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blah blah blah. read up on it. read "Photoshop LAB Color" by Dan Margulis - very good book.

anyway - its the best color space to work with your pictures in. when you import your pics (hopefully RAW) into PS as a 16bit TIF, convert the color space to LAB, and then go to your 'Curves'. this is where you make your adjustments. do all that you can here before converting to 8bit RGB. make absolute final adjustments here.

a REALLY good thread (complete with chapters) is located here:

Digital Grin Forums (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=18203)

start reading through the chapters beginning at the first one and you will be well on your way to understanding the LAB color space and how it can work for your AP.

- Hyde

[The Sandman]

lab is a great 'device independant' colorspace but when you print from an RGB or even a CMYK colorspace, many manufacturers printer drivers (or RIPS) will use LUT (Look Up Tables) to help with conversion from LAB to whatever.....

.....but I would argue that sRGB is best as Photoshop works well with it and besides, if your digital camera captures color in RGB (which many do) and you convert to LAB then it seems a moot point.

If you convert to a larger colorspace than you capture in, then your just going to add noise.

I suggest that you keep the images in RGB or sRGB and try not to do any colorspace conversions unless necessary.

Even if your camera captured in lab, when you output, printers will color convert (condense) the colorspace anyway. Rips and many graphic apps do not have lab icc input profiles and you will loose all that work anyway.

Ultimatly, if you set the white point and the black point in photoshop you should generaly get a balanced color correction without having to run the image through any converfsions and preserving the original data.

SIDE NOTE: Did you know that Digital Cameras are the only RGB input devices that can capture FLOURECENT COLORS? cool huh?

The Sandman

[Cryofix]

cool thanks for the info

[Hyde]

actually everyone i know that works with photoshop professionally changes the colorspace to LAB, does all their enhancements (which RGB cannot do), and then converts BACK to RGB (with all of the new coloration intact).

like i said before - read up on it and you will see.

[MLaBoyteaux]

Nice link Hyde. Makes me want to go out and get a copy of the book. Grasshopper has a lot to learn....