articles/Nature/scoreandperformance-page4

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

Published 01/08/2010

I do not think it always pays to return to an existing curves selection to 'give it a little more' later in the proceedings. This is because you will find that further refining will not need to be applied to the same overall selection area.

This was the case with the sunlit mountain flanks. I felt they needed a little further 'lift' the emulate what I saw when I was there with my camera, that evening. Once again I made a new, smaller selection of the lower, sunlit flanks with the lasso tool and, with a curve, I pulled the highlights out a little further as well as 'pegging' the shadows back to retain their depth and impact. A small adjustment, but at this stage subtleties are very important and this is where many can ruin the image or lose track of what they are doing.

Stage 8

Continuing with slight refinements I now turned my attention to the foreground reeds at the very foot of the image. It was these reeds that still needed some life returning to them and more importantly separating their bright values from the dark water. Once again using a large feather I selected the reed I felt needed attention and applied a curve which pulled out the wonderful highlights and then I pegged back the darker water values behind making the reeds glisten once more.

Stage 9

The last adjustment was one to help maintain the viewer's eye within the bounds of the image. In the top left corner of the image was an area of grey that I felt was ever so slightly too pale and offered an escape for the roaming eye. This was easily fixed with a quick lasso selection and a curve in which I pushed up the white end of the curve line on its axis, gradually removing white pixels and muting the area to a matching darker grey.

And there it is. My simple method of what I practiced for over twenty years in my darkroom and emulated in front of the monitor in the office. My last advice is to take you time and keep the selections simple and the adjustments gradual. Always look at the overall image during each adjustment and please try not to do it in big, bold steps. After all this entire image was created using one selection tool, one adjustment tool and seven layers. That's it! Not much to learn but what we have seen is raw information being the 'score' and the finished image becoming the 'performance'.

See also the discussion on soft proofing for perfect black and white on your monitor in the next section.

• 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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