Wow - Roman I am stunned with what you can do. This is really nice...

You doing this really inspires me to keep trying at Photoshop.

I would certainly appreciate if you could send me the file... ddilli@qwest.net.

I would also appreciate any guidance on what you did to do this.

Thanks so much!
Dave

I dont ususally reccomend any books....practice and fooling around are where I got most of my technique. But these books have enough solid knowledge in them to hone what I have learned by fooling around. VERY worth the time.

Color Theory...

More than you probably ever wanted to know about LAB editing

I only edited it with Curves and color balance in all the color channels/spaces.

RGB - Curves Only Each channel RGB
CMYK - Curves (each channel CMY&K) and Color Balance (In that order)
LAB - Color Balance and Curves (in that order) Each CHannel LA&B

I then lassoed the water with a feather of about 50PX and coppied it to a diffrent layer and played with curves in RGB at the end to get a bit more reflection from it.

Flattened it and sharpened it.

Took about....15-20 min.

Roman

Ok - Thanks Roman,

It does really help that you showed the order of your workflow in addition to the processes.

I would like to ask a couple of quick questions. I assume that when you are editing in each color space, you are steeping that portion of the curve that has the most interesting portion of the photo. Is that correct?
I never know how much to steepen - so is that just something that comes from experience, or is there some additional insight you can provide?

Finally - in this case - what channel / color space did you use to sharpen? Does that vary based upon the shot?

Thanks again - your example is a fantastic learning tool.

Dave

With RGB...I grab the center of the curve and swing it back and fourth just a little to get the feel for what the picture needs....once I get it looking better...then I play with both sides of that center point to see where they need to go....and so on....each channel.

CMYK...I usually have to grab the lower left hand side and slid it in a bit to get to the edge of the color information....it will look ugly a bit at first...then do just like the RGB....grab a little bit more to the left....till it starts to straighten out...then flatten the rest of the line up to the upper right giving little bitty fine tunings till you get all the way up to the right....each color channel...if the channel fills the base...just treat it like an RGB stated above.

LAB....I adjust per the basics of Margulis's technique....I bring the layer down to about 15% then start sliding the edges in....in A&B mode. (after trating the L curve like a regular RGB curve.

Hope this helps.

Roman

Got it - this description helps.

Roman - I feel honored that you are willing to use my shot to help me and others on this site. I am still stunned at the changes you made.

Thanks again.

Dave

Hi Roman,

Thank you very much for the links. I am going to check them out later. I tried playing with them myself, and I got nothing like what you produced. You turned an excellent composition with drab colors into something quite remarkable. LOL, it shows just how much I still have to learn about color editing...and I generally think I do a solid job with PS work.

James

PS This might be a fun challenge to work on a file like this.

Someone volunteer a file!!!!

Always game for such things.

Roman

I have one I'd love people to take a crack at! Once everyone has a chance to work on JP's photo, I'll post mine.

-Darren

Hey Darren,

That's great. You are definitely up next. You are welcome to post the original file as well. If you want, I will be glad to pass it around, same as we have been doing with JP's shot.

James