Ferrari red

[rutt]

I've proccessed 10s of images from the MFA exhibit Speed, Style, and Beauty and a lot of those cars were Ferraris. In the process, I've learned something about making highly saturated surfaces have detail, contrast, and depth. I'm going to use an Alfa, not a Ferrari, but it's the same color, Italian racing red.

The first step happens in raw conversion and it's very simple. Adjust both exposure and shadows so there is no clipping. Then convert to 16 bit representation. This insures that no information is lost during raw conversion.

Here is my image after ACR:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21177818-L.jpg

Nice enough, but a lot of the car body is in the highlight range. I'd like to spread this more though the midtones and use the highlights for the gleaming points and metal trim. I used shadow/highlight with 0 amount for shadows and 10/50/30 for highlights:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21178085-L.jpg

Now I want to emphasize the depth of the red surfaces. I use a color theory trick here. More saturated colors seem to come forward and less saturated colors recede. I suppose our brains process colors this way becausse saturation really does decrease for objects that are very far away.

Here I found that after I moved the image into CMYK, the black channel shows good contrast on the red surface between areas that are closer and those that are further away. So I steepened the black curve through the highlights (red surfaces) and deep shadows (inside the cab, tires):

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21177925-L.jpg

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21178106-S.jpg

Now the the image has detail in the very saturated areas. In fact it can carry even more saturation. So I used A+B LAB steepening to make the red even redder. I just symetrically moved the endpoints of the A+B curves inward by 5.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21177750-L.jpg

Finally, I sharpened using separate lighten and darken layers. I used quite a large radius, 3, and keep the opacity of the dark layer at 80%. The lighten layer had to be reduced to 25%.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21177991-L.jpg

[wxwax]

I can't see any difference.

[cletus]

I can't see any difference.
Which images are you talking about sid????

Rutt,

I like the look of #2 & #3. #1 seems too washed out, while #4 & #5 seem too saturated.

[wxwax]

Which images are you talking about sid????



Nah, just being dopey. :D Personally, I really like the work. On my lousy work monitor, everything before the final image looks like it needs a boost in contrast. I actually like the last one.

[rutt]

Well, this is a journey of discovery. I got some suggestions from Dan Margulis' color theory people. One of them really looks good to me. What do you all think about this?

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/21311592-L.jpg

Here is the basic trick. Copy the blue channel into a new layer and use an "Overlay blend". Look at how this has improved contrast!

I fit this step into the recipe in place of steepening the K curve. So:


ACR with no clipping
S/H with 10/20/30 15/30/30
Copy blue channel to new layer and overlay blend. Use blend-if and opacity to keep the blend from losing the shadow detail.
LAB curves to fine tune contrast and increase saturation and make it really red.
USM with separate lighten/darken layers

[cletus]

Looks good :thumb

[spockling]

The last one really shows up the texture in the seats. Almost like you can feel them. Excellent.

[rutt]

The last one really shows up the texture in the seats. Almost like you can feel them. Excellent.

Yes. Good eye. That was one of the things I was dissatisfied with in the previous edits. The original has problems, but there is find detail in the seat upholstery. This technique retained and even enhanced it.