Working in LAB

Hi

I've spent the past week or so taking my first dip into the turbulent
waters of editing in the LAB colourspace. I've been reading Dan
Margulis's books and following his online tutorials. Anyway, these
pictures were taken at Portmeirion in Wales, UK, which is the village
where The Prisoner was made. It's a very colourful and pretty place,
and I thought the pictures would be ideal for my first attempt at LAB
editing. I'd be interested to hear what other people with more
experience than me in working in LAB think of them. Thanks!
http://www.pbase.com/midie/portmeirion

embee wrote:
Hi

I've spent the past week or so taking my first dip into the turbulent
waters of editing in the LAB colourspace. I've been reading Dan
Margulis's books and following his online tutorials. Anyway, these
pictures were taken at Portmeirion in Wales, UK, which is the village
where The Prisoner was made. It's a very colourful and pretty place,
and I thought the pictures would be ideal for my first attempt at LAB
editing. I'd be interested to hear what other people with more
experience than me in working in LAB think of them. Thanks!
http://www.pbase.com/midie/portmeirion

I'm afraid I don't meet your criteria, but that sort of thing has never
stopped me before... (O:

Those are interesting, nicely composed, sharp and colourful images. But
to me there are a few issues. First, the colours just look a bit too
Disney-esque, like Velvia on a bad day - however, without knowing the
actual scenes, that may be too harsh. Most importantly - do they look
right to you, as you remember the scenes? Have you viewed them on
different monitors, and is yours calibrated?

Secondly, and again this is perhaps unfair coming from someone living in
a land of sunshine.. the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm presuming they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (if it existed).

I've not done much LAB work (apart from sharpening and noise reduction
experimentation and a few monochrome conversions) but I'm interested in
what sort of manipulation you are doing in that mode, and what the
advantages are for you.

On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:59:49 +1000, Mark Thomas
wrote:

Hi Mark and thanks very much for you input.


I'm afraid I don't meet your criteria, but that sort of thing has never
stopped me before... (O:

LOL! No worries!

Those are interesting, nicely composed, sharp and colourful images. But
to me there are a few issues. First, the colours just look a bit too
Disney-esque, like Velvia on a bad day - however, without knowing the
actual scenes, that may be too harsh. Most importantly - do they look
right to you, as you remember the scenes? Have you viewed them on
different monitors, and is yours calibrated?
Thanks for the praise.
Portmeirion is famous for its bright and vivid colours so I can
understand what you mean about the colours. I chose these pictures for
LAB work precisely because LAB is so powerful for colour work and I
wanted to learn.
I do feel I maybe went a little too far in at least one of the
pictures (the bench) but overall I don't think the colours are a
mis-representation of what I saw with my eyes. If you search around
for pictures of Portmeirion, you will get a good idea of the sort of
colours you will find there.
My monitor is properly calibrated, I have looked at the pictures on
other monitors, and overall I'm quite happy with what I see, but I do
want to learn and improve so I take on board what you have said.
I was very conscious of not pushing the power of LAB too far - these
were already very vivid scenes. If I were to print these pictures, I
would obviously have to tone things down a LOT!


Secondly, and again this is perhaps unfair coming from someone living in
a land of sunshine.. the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm presuming they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (if it existed).
Ah - sunshine, I remember seeing that once! Living in the UK, we
really don't have to worry about the sky because it's always either
white or grey!
Seriously though, the pictures were, if anything, slightly
underexposed in camera. The day I was at Portmeirion was simply very
very overcast with high and white cloud. It was actually a very
photo-friendly day though, because the light was well diffused and I
didn't have to worry about the afternoon sun casting harsh shadows all
over the place.


I've not done much LAB work (apart from sharpening and noise reduction
experimentation and a few monochrome conversions) but I'm interested in
what sort of manipulation you are doing in that mode, and what the
advantages are for you.
To be honest the LAB moves on these pictures were pretty basic. I shot
in RAW and used a card to white balance, so the colours were pretty
close to spot-on out of camera.
I edited in Lightroom to get basic tone right, exported in ProPhoto
and did any obvious colour work in RGB before moving into LAB.
There, I followed Dan Margulis's techniques (as best I could) to
identify any slight casts and eliminate them before either targetting
specific colours for a slight saturation boost, or applying a very
light contrast hike in both the A and the B curves.
Finally, I worked a little on the L curve to optimise contrast,
sharpened the L and went back to RGB for final output editing.
Noise really wasn't much of an issue because I have a pretty decent
camera and I was shooting well within its ISO capability.
The advantage of LAB for me is its ability to break colours and
contrast apart, boost saturation, eliminate noise and fix the kind of
casts that would be all but impossible in other colourspaces.
These pictures didn't need that much work, and they possibly weren't
the best choice to experiment in LAB because they already contained
such vivid colours. However, I chose them because they were relatively
easy to work with.
Next up, I will try some portraits and some pictures with heavy casts.

I hope that helped, and thanks again for your input. I now know that I
need to treat LAB even more carefully!

All the best.
Mike

On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:59:49 +1000, Mark Thomas
wrote:

Secondly, and again this is perhaps unfair coming from someone living in
a land of sunshine.. the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm presuming they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (if it existed).

I don't understand this comment. I live in a place where sunshine is
abundant, but the sky often has that same flat, almost-white,
cloudless appearance. What would you have the photographer do? Add
clouds from another photo?

When photographing an outdoor scene, I can move around to get
background distractions out of the frame, I can position myself so
shadows don't cross my subject, and I can angle the camera to take in
more ground than sky. But I can't command clouds to appear.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:
On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:59:49 +1000, Mark Thomas
wrote:

Secondly, and again this is perhaps unfair coming from someone living in
a land of sunshine.. the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm presuming they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (if it existed).

I don't understand this comment. I live in a place where sunshine is
abundant, but the sky often has that same flat, almost-white,
cloudless appearance. What would you have the photographer do? Add
clouds from another photo?

When photographing an outdoor scene, I can move around to get
background distractions out of the frame, I can position myself so
shadows don't cross my subject, and I can angle the camera to take in
more ground than sky. But I can't command clouds to appear.

Having coincidentally spent close to a full day last week patiently
waiting for a nice sky to materialise for a panorama I am hoping to pull
off, I can understand that. But I'll try again next time I have a free
day..

But did you really read what I said? I'll capitalise to see if it helps
point out my 'provisos':

... the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm PRESUMING they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (IF IT EXISTED).

Before that, I also admitted I live in a country with very different
weather - here it is very rare to have flat grey skies other than in the
middle of a downpour - and I acknowledged that I might be being unfair
for that reason.

Further, he didn't give a hint as to whether he lived near there or not.
I have this habit of returning to scenes at a later time if the
weather or light is not to my liking. So I happily accept criticism of
an unaesthetic sky choice, as I would of shooting at the wrong time of
day or underexposing. Finding a good sky may be much more difficult in
the UK, but it doesn't mean one should just give in. Why, I'll have you
know I have actually seen golf played at St Andrews in *sunshine*. I
don't think it was photoshopped.. (O:

Casting aside for a moment the questions of whether they are truly
inevitable, or if one should cheat a little - do you like the white
skies, and do you have any other comments about the images or LAB?

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:03:19 +1000, Mark Thomas
wrote:

tony cooper wrote:
On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:59:49 +1000, Mark Thomas
wrote:

Secondly, and again this is perhaps unfair coming from someone living in
a land of sunshine.. the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm presuming they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (if it existed).

I don't understand this comment. I live in a place where sunshine is
abundant, but the sky often has that same flat, almost-white,
cloudless appearance. What would you have the photographer do? Add
clouds from another photo?

When photographing an outdoor scene, I can move around to get
background distractions out of the frame, I can position myself so
shadows don't cross my subject, and I can angle the camera to take in
more ground than sky. But I can't command clouds to appear.

Having coincidentally spent close to a full day last week patiently
waiting for a nice sky to materialise for a panorama I am hoping to pull
off, I can understand that. But I'll try again next time I have a free
day..

But did you really read what I said? I'll capitalise to see if it helps
point out my 'provisos':

... the flat almost-white skies are distracting to my
eye. I'm PRESUMING they were grey, and I think the images would benefit
if they were toned down a little - it would be nice to see some cloud
detail (IF IT EXISTED).

Yes, I did read your post, and I do read with fairly good reading
comprehension.

The post just struck me as a bit too nit-picking. Bringing all of the
elements together that would make the perfect picture is just not
possible outside of the studio. I think it's assumed that if clouds
are present that clouds will show in the photograph.

Before that, I also admitted I live in a country with very different
weather - here it is very rare to have flat grey skies other than in the
middle of a downpour - and I acknowledged that I might be being unfair
for that reason.

When I went out to get the newspaper this morning the sky was flat and
gray. That was over two hours ago, and now the sky is blue and full
of clouds. It may have rained somewhere to the east of me (I was
viewing east from my driveway), but nary a drop here.

An aside here...While my license is no longer current, I used to be a
licensed private pilot. One of the interesting things of flying at
about 2,000 or 3,000 feet (most of Florida is near-sea-level, so
that's 2,000 to 3,000 feet above both ground and sea level) is seeing
a cloud in the distance with rain falling down from that cloud, but
being in airspace that is completely free of rain. You can fly around
rain by dodging rain clouds like dodging traffic cones in a parking
lot. The people under that rain cloud see only rain all the way
around them.

You can get similar effect on the ground by seeing a sheet of rain on
the road ahead of you, but not being in rain. The difference is in
the air you see the rain falling from the entire cloud and no rain
around the cloud.

Casting aside for a moment the questions of whether they are truly
inevitable, or if one should cheat a little - do you like the white
skies, and do you have any other comments about the images or LAB?

I like the perfect photograph, and settle for the best I can get. I'm
not much on scenic shots, though. Central Florida doesn't offer much
in the way of scenic settings. We've got flat, and we've got almost
flat.

I haven't worked with LAB. I do have Photoshop (v 7.0), but haven't
given the time to studying up on the use of the LAB color mode. No
excuse, Sir.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Further, he didn't give a hint as to whether he lived near there or not.
I have this habit of returning to scenes at a later time if the
weather or light is not to my liking. So I happily accept criticism of
an unaesthetic sky choice, as I would of shooting at the wrong time of
day or underexposing. Finding a good sky may be much more difficult in
the UK, but it doesn't mean one should just give in. Why, I'll have you
know I have actually seen golf played at St Andrews in *sunshine*. I
don't think it was photoshopped.. (O:


Hope you don't mind my getting involved in this exchange - but to
clear this point up, I don't live anywhere near Portmeirion and the
journey there was so arduous for us that my wife has pointedly refused
to repeat the experience!
So, while I wholeheartedly agree that the skies are not the best
feature of these images, I really had to play the cards I was dealt on
that particular day as I'm unlikely to ever get the chance of going
there again. SHE has spoken.... :-)
Cheers

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember embee saying
something like:

Hi

I've spent the past week or so taking my first dip into the turbulent
waters of editing in the LAB colourspace. I've been reading Dan
Margulis's books and following his online tutorials. Anyway, these
pictures were taken at Portmeirion in Wales, UK, which is the village
where The Prisoner was made. It's a very colourful and pretty place,
and I thought the pictures would be ideal for my first attempt at LAB
editing. I'd be interested to hear what other people with more
experience than me in working in LAB think of them. Thanks!
http://www.pbase.com/midie/portmeirion

At first glance I thought they were a bit saturated, but then I recalled
that PM is a fairly colourful place and if you recall the colours being
that vivid, then fine.
Quite an eye-catching set anyway and makes me want to fiddle with Lab a
bit.

Nice work, but I feel that a few are over saturated. The red bridge for
one.

--
john mcwilliams

"embee" wrote in message
...
Hi

I've spent the past week or so taking my first dip into the turbulent
waters of editing in the LAB colourspace. I've been reading Dan
Margulis's books and following his online tutorials. Anyway, these
pictures were taken at Portmeirion in Wales, UK, which is the village
where The Prisoner was made. It's a very colourful and pretty place,
and I thought the pictures would be ideal for my first attempt at LAB
editing. I'd be interested to hear what other people with more
experience than me in working in LAB think of them. Thanks!
http://www.pbase.com/midie/portmeirion

Nice pictures. Been there a couple of times.

But for me you have too much colour. I can not remember the colours being
that bright.

Also, what has happened to the sky? A bit over exposed. Or was it taken out
in Photoshop.

John.