4 Replies Latest reply: Jul 16, 2013 12:49 AM by robirdman1 RSS

    use of auto color and auto levels

    robirdman1 Community Member

      I was using these tool on a lot of images, because they often seemed to vastly improve them, making the colors pop on otherwise somewhat dull ones, and getting rid of unwanted color casts..

      Later though I noticed that it is often at the cost of burning out hightlights in some areas beyond salvation.

      I also find shadow /highlight sometimes does this also.

      Then I tried to protect some small areas with a mask before proceeding, but it seems that I can't find information on just painting a mask, but only videos with much more complex adjustment such as the Russel Crow or Lynda ones with maintaing hair detail while superimposing images, which is way beyond what I need in these cases.

       

      If I try the wand to select and inverse I get unnatural looking divisions.  Is it a matter of feathering to the right extent?  I don't know how to proceed.

        • 1. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
          Curt Y Community Member

          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.

          • 2. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
            robirdman1 Community Member

            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.

            • 3. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
              Curt Y Community Member

              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.

              • 4. Re: use of auto color and auto levels
                robirdman1 Community Member

                When I use the auto curves and then look at those channels, they all show an unchanged straight diagnal line.