On 12/6/2012 4:38 PM, Tina Manley wrote:
> I run into the problem that if I pull back the highlights I get comments
> that the scan is muddy. Most of the comments on this one have been very
> positive. I hate to start manipulating more when the vast majority of the
> comments are positive. It's extremely frustrating.
A couple of thoughts:
First, I think you will have endless trouble if you try to please everyone. I
think it is more useful to use comments as
a way to see things I may have missed, or not fully understood, in the context
of the whole image. Then adjust if, and
only if, it changes how YOU see the image.
For example, many here, Chuck most recently, have commented on overly saturated
colors. I don't think that was the main
problem with your earlier KR scans, nor with The Ride. It's easy to look at an
image full of bright colors, sense/know
that something is off, and say it's oversaturated color. The colors of those
Guatemalan fabrics in equatorial sun ARE
really bright.
The earlier KRs had multiple problems of color balance, mixed up curves, excess
contrast, etc., but not oversaturation,
per se. As you start to get KR under control with VS, that becomes clearer.
The Ride has a problem, but it's not the bright, highly saturated colors, it's
that the brightest colors have been
clipped. In the reds of the embroidery, the pink of the serape* and the white
of the shirt, the red channel has clipped.
Doesn't much matter in the case of the shirt, but it has lost textural detail
in the serape and thrown off the color and
made the red flowers in the embroidery look cartoonish.
Second, I know you WUV LR, but this is a case where it is simply not the
solution. Pulling back highlights over the
whole image to correct a tiny area or areas will indeed mess it up. It's either
let it be or use a tool that allows
precise separate adjustments for areas. In PS, I have an Action that selects
only the clipped highlights. When LCE or
some other adjustment pushes small areas of white into clipping, I use the
action to select areas to leave as they were.
Takes a couple of seconds.
Speaking of which, look at the area around the chin of the background guy and
the edges of the hat. See that bright
halo? That's an artifact of too much use of LCE (Clarity slider?) or other
adjustments. Really simple to avoid with a
mask in PS, while still using as much of the effect as desired. I wouldn't
comment, except I can see it in other recent
posts, as well.
As to the blown highlights in New Eyeglasses and The Ride, you should check the
White point setting on the Color Tab
when doing second stage scanning, from RAW scan files. I don't know much about
Provia, they may be lost on the slide.
Easy enough to look at the slide with a loupe. If Portra BW is anything like
color Portra, it has lots of highlight
range, and should be recoverable.
Clipped Moose
* or rebozo, or whatever they call them in Guatemala.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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