Since I’m getting back into sports photography, I’ve been playing with photoshop again, this time referencing Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace. Best photos to edit in LAB mode are those that are washed out. For example, I edited a photo I entitled “missed — drowned rat” from my time out on Hutchinson Island in Florida spring 09. Unusually, there were massive amounts of kelp in the water; most of the time the water is teal blue, but the waves were mostly green.
The original:
Original as photographed
The final after editing curves in LAB mode:
Final as edited in LAB mode
Since I enabled the History Log in Photoshop (CS2), I’m adding that as reference here. For a quick recap, after converting to LAB mode, I cancelled out of Image>Adjustments>Threshold to not make any changes, but to determine that darkest and lightest points on the photo. Then I increased the slope of the curves in the Lightness channel around my face so as to make it pop out of the shadow, and adjusted both the a and b channels to bring out both the turbulent green waves and the calmer blue troughs. After an Unsharp Mask on the Lightness Channel and a conversion back to RGB, I completed a brightness/contrast adjustment, saved and voila.
2009-12-06 20:53:08 File IMG_2043.jpg opened
Convert Mode
To: Lab color mode
Curves
Curves
Adjustment: curves adjustment list
curves adjustment
Channel: lightness channel
Curve: point list
point: 0, 0
point: 22, 37
point: 39, 70
point: 88, 115
point: 255, 255
curves adjustment
Channel: a channel
Curve: point list
point: 13, 0
point: 238, 255
curves adjustment
Channel: b channel
Curve: point list
point: 14, 0
point: 239, 255
Select lightness channel
Show a channel, b channel
Unsharp Mask
Unsharp Mask
Amount: 206%
Radius: 1.2 pixels
Threshold: 76
RGB Color
Convert Mode
To: RGB color mode
Brightness/Contrast
Brightness/Contrast
Brightness: 10
Contrast: 7
Save
As: JPEG
Quality: 12
Matte: none
Since all my sports photos will be manual and b/w, I’m not sure how extensively I’ll use LAB mode, but it is fun to play with.
