I know that LAB color in photoshop has been discussed here before

[ET Awful]

But, I thought it might be nice to show some examples of how it can vastly improve the color and tonal range of a photo.

I started with this photo:



I opened in Photoshop, did a minor "Shadows and Hilights" adjustment to restore some shadow detail, then converted to LAB Color (under Image, then Mode).

After that, I went to Image, Adjustments, Curves, changed the "Channel" setting to "a" and simply moved the adjustment points in about 10 percent in both the upper right and lower left corners, then did the same for Channel "b".

I converted back to RGB mode, saved the image and this is the result:



This took all of 30 seconds (much less complicated than it sounds). The conclusion? LAB Color can REALLY save a photo in some cases.

[NV Whino]

1. I hope you don't mind

I wanted to try some Capture settings on your photo. Still trying to get the hang of it.


Set the black point in the water, white point in the clouds and the color adjust point in the water and brightened and saturated.

[F.Gordon]

2. I can't use LAB but I understand it's all the rage

All I can do is push buttons and run a psp Warming Script recipe that I have. Always forget to watch the reds... which in this case got blown out partly because of the script and partly because your original photo was a little underexposed. But I did this in ...... 20 seconds.
:bounce:



VERY noticeable change with your LAB thing. I've seen that entire books have been dedicated to it and if I ever decide to go the Photoshop road some day I guess I'll have to learn it.

[JeffR]

3. Dumb question

Does the conversion back to RGB negate or impact any of the improvements made in LAB?

[regnaD kciN]

4. No, because...

...it isn't the fact that the photo is in LAB mode that changes it, it's the modifications you can make via tweaking the curves of the a and b channels. The image is changed through those modifications, and going back to RGB does nothing to change that.

There's an article on post-processing in this month's Outdoor Photography that mentions this technique as an alternative to playing with Hue/Saturation in RGB -- supposedly, it can do the same thing as increasing the saturation, but without the artifacts of that method. There's also an entire book, Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace, on the subject of color correction using LAB mode. I'm on the waiting list for it at my local library, and will report back once I get ahold of it.

[F.Gordon]

5. While you're waiting to get the book

Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace

You can read this. Explains some of the stuff in a way even I can understand.
:dunce:

I should probably break down and get photoshop one of these days, but I'm just comfortable pushing the buttons I use now.

[JeffR]

7. Thanks

That makes sense, even to me.:dunce:

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Does PaintShopPro X have a similar function?

I'm not at all familiar with all this stuff. I just play around with the buttons I know until I get something that looks like I want it to.

[F.Gordon]

8. Nope

You can do some faux lab stuff but it ain't the real thing. If you're like me and just like to push buttons :) .... a couple of things....

Virtual Photographer is a free plugin you can put in PSPX. Just download, unzip, and put in the plugin folder of PSPX

http://www.optikvervelabs.com/

There are a bunch of PSPX scripts and script "recipes" on the web. For $8.00 you can download this bunch of scripts. You just need to unzip the files to the scripts restricted folder in PSPX.

http://www.sheilsoft.com/psp.htm

PSPX scripts are kinda' like Photoshop actions. They run a series of steps that make it easy to do things without having to figure out what they hell you have to do .... to come up with a final thingee. It's Button Pushing made easy. :P While the script is running you do have the ability to change things from the script presets.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. Thanks. I'll have to think about this.

I'm not real big on presets - I hardly ever even use macros in my word processing. Too old school, I guess. But I might try this just for grins.

[hvn_nbr_2]

10. Dumb question here.

What does "LAB color" mean?

Is that an acronym (since it's all caps) or an abbreviation for "laboratory," perhaps suggesting something analogous to what you can do with chemicals and gear in an old-time lab, or something else?

[ET Awful]

11. It actually IS an acronym

See here for a MUCh better description than I could give: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space