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1. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
Curt Y Jul 8, 2013 6:46 AM (in response to robirdman1)Any time you use auto this or auto that you are relying on a mathamatical model to make the adjustments. You can tweek what adjustments the auto looks at, but it is more of a one time adjustment rather that for each picture. If Auto works to your satisfaction great. If it does not then you need to resort to manual methods.
Image/adjustment/Curves is used my most professionals, but there is a learning curve to it. You can also use Levels. Or you can get into the more easy to use methods like brightness/contrast, Hue/Saturation, and Color Balance.
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2. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
robirdman1 Jul 8, 2013 9:00 AM (in response to Curt Y)I had used levels before and used curves mainly for increasing blue in the sky as recommended in a previous question.
It just seemed that in many cases those auto processes really improved things from what I had done myself - until I noticed small areas with burned highlights on some. Sometimes the auto color or auto levels make things worse and then I undo them.
But after reading the reply I decided to read up more on the curves. I was checking out the clipping and it seems strange that the areas that appear white burnout do not show up as clipped.
And then the tutorial showed an area to click to make the curves window bigger, but I see no such area in my CS6 curve window.
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3. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
Curt Y Jul 8, 2013 9:11 AM (in response to robirdman1)One way of learing curves is to use the auto on Curves and then click on red, green, blue channels. See how auto changed them, then reset picture and try your hand at similar shapes for the channels and see if you can improve it.
Hope this helps.
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4. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
robirdman1 Jul 16, 2013 12:49 AM (in response to Curt Y)When I use the auto curves and then look at those channels, they all show an unchanged straight diagnal line.

