Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Capture One Q&A => Topic started by: myotis on February 04, 2017, 07:00:06 am

Title: Tone and colour correction workflow in C1?
Post by: myotis on February 04, 2017, 07:00:06 am
Do you have a structured workflow with C1?

I have been following a PS tutorial where correct for tone and colour using an adjustment curve, and manually adjusting each RGB curve, so they have a max highlight value of 242 and shadow value of 15. Values which I assume will change depending on purpose.

I assume this is a fairly standard approach, but I have found this numerical approach to be more consistent in getting a good colour balance than my efforts in C1.  (but the files going into PS were generated by C1)

I know that many people like the free form approach of adjusting things until they look right, but I prefer something a bit more structured, and I wondered if anyone would like to share their approach.  Can the approach above be emulated in C1?

My evolving workflow in C1 is currently , linear profile, course white balance correction (e.g. for cloudy conditions), adjust exposure, auto levels (individual RGB option), but not always, then a curve adjustment. Sometimes some HDR tweaks and colour grading if needed.  Then noise, sharpening, clarity and structure adjustments when needed.

Thanks,

Graham

Title: Re: Tone and colour correction workflow in C1?
Post by: myotis on February 06, 2017, 07:48:39 am
Well, to reply to myself.

While not exactly emulating the capability in PS (and described in the Lynda,com tutorial), I am finding this works reasonably well on images where I am struggling to get the colour balance to look right.

I am using the highlight and shadow warning to help find areas in the image that are neutral and with a  green value of around 5 in the shadows and 245 in the highlights and then dropping a coloor readout in these spots.

I'm then looking for a neutral area with a green value of around 128 and again dropping a colour readout at this point.

Using levels, the individual colour levels are adjusted so that the red and blue values in each colour readout match the green value.

Then the RGB levels control is used to bring the highlights and shadows down to avoid clipping and the mid tone control used to match the mid tone luminance value to the mid tone green value.

This gives me a baseline to work from, so I can then work "creatively" with the curves, but reset the curves and easily get back to what looks like a "technically" correct starting point, as the levels aren't touched after these initial corrections.

Any way that is where I have got to, and although I don't suppose I am going to do this with every photograph, it was an interesting exercise, and it certainly helped with some images I just couldn't get looking right.

Cheers,

Graham
Title: Re: Tone and colour correction workflow in C1?
Post by: myotis on February 06, 2017, 05:03:35 pm
While I realise I am talking to myself, for the sake of completeness...

I have found that, within my limited skill set, most of the time, auto levels is giving a better starting point than my more complicated approach. I'm not actually convinced its more neutral, but it is more pleasing.

However, the approach described earlier does seem to help me with the tricky pictures, that seem difficult to colour balance.

Cheers,

Graham