New Challenge: Colour Correction

[cathodeRay]

Ken - like Hoogo, I sense there must be a bit more to it. While some so-called plugins actually behave more like external programs. PL hands over the image to the plugin, the plugin does its stuff, and then hands the image back to PL, and in so doing it closes, losing all its current settings. But others, notably internal filters, do retain their settings when used as adjustment layers. I suppose this is perhaps about interfaces: can PL and the external plugin 'talk' to each other? If they can't, then there is no way PL can know what settings were used in the plugin, unless the plugin somehow really does run inside PL, rather than as an external program.

Now - back to the image - your latest attempt is certainly what I would call 'good enough', the point at which the trade off between more time spent and marginal extra improvement changes in favour of time to go to bed/get out more often. You are right about the midday sun, which of course the English, along with mad dogs, are notorious for ignoring. Indeed, it was how to get back the presumed present in the original scene but absent in the faded photo high contrast/brightness/intense but at the same time subtle, almost suffused colours that posed much of the challenge. The ensign could do with brightening up a bit, and on my (calibrated) monitor the sea is a little too blue, and I might want the rocks a little sandier in colour, but only because that is my recollection of the Brittany coast, but overall it is there, especially on the tree/skyline which has lost it's harshness and now looks more natural. Although you haven't this time posted an image of the layer stack, I guess from what you have written the key to the successful adjustment is careful masking (many many masks) with adjustments on a per-mask basis capped off with the global colour/gamma adjustments. Of course, I fully appreciate this was done on a forum posted and so small 8bit jpeg image, and so some subtlety is going to be lost.

The summary it seems to me is that it is worth trying Viveza to see if it works, because sometimes it does, but if it doesn't do miracles in a short period of time, then it's better to cut back to manual masks and local adjustments.

cathodeRay

[Eurgail]

Small addition: ...and Viveza is better in pimping fast an already modest picture (for finishing or a mood change or so), than to do rescue missions.

[photoken]

cathodeRay,

Not as many masks as you might think. In fact, I re-used the masks from my earlier attempt and only added two new ones: the Spinnaker Top and the Stripes & Numbers:

colour restoration 02 layers.jpg

The bottom layer is the original image, and the "First Attempt" layer is the result using Viveza2 that I posted. For the "First Attempt", I created the masks you see stored at the top, and those were the masks I re-used for the "Second Attempt".

Any of the colours can certainly be adjusted to one's taste. My defense of the water colour is that I wanted to get some distinctly turquoise colours in it to represent the reflection of the turquoise areas that I created in the sky.

Modifying the tree/sky edge was achieved by simply painting on the appropriate layer masks with a soft-edged brush to correct the very roughly done mask (that mask was initially a very quick affair to get to using the Viveza2 plugin, which was my primary interest at the time).

This was a very fascinating exercise -- I'm glad you asked the question, and I definitely learned some useful stuff.

[photoken]

Small addition: ...and Viveza is better in pimping fast an already modest picture (for finishing or a mood change or so), than to do rescue missions.

I couldn't agree...more!

[Eurgail]

I doubt: You had to make masks in PhotoLine, before you could start the color editing in Viveza. U-Points alone didn't do it, but where helpful later. That was my thought...

[photoken]

I doubt: You had to make masks in PhotoLine, before you could start the color editing in Viveza. U-Points alone didn't do it, but where helpful later. That was my thought...

Then I agree...again!

[cathodeRay]

Ken - you don't need to defend your sea blue! The sea like fire/flames is one of those things infinite variety and is extremely hard to paint (I sometimes wonder it that is partly because both are always on the move, yet an image is a static moment), and let us not forget that in essence this was an exercise in (digitally) painting back the colours into a faded photo. Glad you learnt useful stuff - I did too.

Meanwhile, in other news: the Viveza honeymoon is already over... Some gripes:

(a) no easy zoom in/out eg 100% > fit to screen > 100%: one has to step through all the inbuilt zooms to get there. Zzzzz..... especially for large images.

(b) colours sometimes go awry, even at initial load. 'Fix'? Zoom in/out. Zzzzzzzzz..........

(c) no option to save settings (this has been mentioned before). One has to have pencil and paper at the ready (or do laborious screengrabs). Zzzz.....

(d) a comedy user guide/manual/help (mostly some rather smug google stuff online, no actual manual/help file as such). Grrrr.....

(e) It is almost certainly abandonware. Credit where credit is due to google for releasing the Nik collection but on the other hand there are those who might add that dumping a load of powerful plugins on the market may also have deleterious results on the wider world of plugin development, not to mention an over-abundance of VIVed/CEPed images appearing everywhere as Short Cut Charlies everywhere let rip. Grrrr.... and Zzzzz....

Other gripes will probably appear as the honeymoon fades into a distant memory. Have just done some work on another image, where Viveza failed miserably, but a grey dodge and burn layer plus a masked hue editor adjustment layer worked just fine. This again confirms for me that Viveza is worth a try with OK-ish images in need of minor to moderate improvements, but if it doesn't work magic within a few minutes, then its back to good old adjustment layers and masks.

cathodeRay

PS oh, I almost forgot:

(f) no reliable undo: the expected Ctrl+z (on a PC) usually does nothing....

[photoken]

...Viveza is worth a try with OK-ish images in need of minor to moderate improvements, but if it doesn't work magic within a few minutes, then its back to good old adjustment layers and masks.

Agreed. It's always best, as soon as the first technique begins to become futile, to cut one's losses....

There is one more scenario where those Nik Collection filters (except for DeNoise, which I think is genuinely valuable) can be appropriate: Creating a wild, extreme image effect. If one is doing posters or brochure covers, for example, one often is looking to have a "grabber" image.

[Lundberg02]

I am saving this thread as an exemplar. The reworkings seemed to get better and better until the last one, so I'll have to read the thread carefully.
I have some family images I can probably do something with, if I take this as a tutorial. Kudos to all.