articles/Nature/scoreandperformance-page3

The Score and the Performance - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5 6

Published 01/08/2010

Stage 3

With my curve dialogue box open I then selected part of the curve line closest the highlight values of the sunlit flanks and pulled the curve downwards until the sunlit areas were much improved. I then chose the shadow end of the curve line and pushed it upwards, back to where it had been pulled from and in doing so retained those all important deep shadows. The sun was beginning to come out!

Stage 4

Now I gave my attention to the loch in the foreground of the image. When I was there, the water looked black and deep with the reeds at my feet, glistening in the low sun. I made a selection once again with the lasso tool of the bottom half of the image. Having brought up my curves dialogue box I knew straight away that I would anchor a point on the curves line towards the darker values and push upwards seeing the water darken in the image as I adjusted.

Whilst doing this is was clear that the lighter values of the curve line were also being pushed darker which would lessen the sunlit effect on the foreground reeds. I then anchored a point on the curves line for the lighter greys and 'pegged' this back to the original position so reintroducing the glisten in the reeds.

Stage 5

Whilst working on an image do not be taken over by the small sections but try to maintain an overall impression of what you are 'creating' as a whole. I advise that, when pushing and pulling curve lines, have your entire image in view on your monitor as the tonal adjustment you are making has a direct relationship to its neighbouring tone in the image and also the overall 'balance' of the image. When working on this image there was a selection of the top left sky that was bright which slightly upset the balance of this composition. Because I was intending to make a selection that would inevitably go right across the centre of the sky I set a large feather and made a rough selection of the area that needed calming. I then tapped 'Quick Mask' (the letter Q) to double check my feather was soft enough.

Stage 6

Using this selection I wanted to slightly mute the paler sky and introduce some more of the subtle mid-greys. With a curves adjustment layer I anchored a point on the curves line just above the mid-greys and pushed the line up slightly, quickly achieving the desired result and balancing the sky in the image.

• The Score and the Performance page 1
  
• The Score and the Performance page 2
  
• The Score and the Performance page 3
  
• The Score and the Performance page 4
  
• The Score and the Performance page 5
  
• The Score and the Performance page 6
  

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