Comments

Sep 9, 2006 | Lieke Dircks
Like the shot, good compsition and color balance.

Nov 28, 2006 | Hazel Erikson
Love this shot! Would you care to share your process of using LAB to coax the red out of the fox?? Hazel Erikson

Nov 29, 2006 | John K. Scariano
Thanks for your kind comments Hazel, I also enjoy your portfolio and congratulations on being featured in the NAPP site. To answer your question, the trick is exactly the same trick that is featured in Dan Margulis's "Photoshop LAB Color" book which I fanatically recommend that you can order for around $30 from a number of sources such as Amazon. He has an exercise featuring a buffalo (or bison?) that goes through the steps which aren't that hard to duplicate. Briefly he creates a curves adjustment layer after converting to the LAB profile, makes the colors absolutely radioactive by steepening the a and b curves tremendously but blends the layer in at a very low opacity (5-10%). This is after some garden variety levels/lightness, shadow/highlight adjustments etc. that you would typically do before enhancing the colors. Got to be careful with LAB since it can create such dramatic tone expanding effects, not advised to use it on naturally highly saturated images with good original color quality. It's especially helpful with dull and flat digital landscape shots - and animals. If you have one that needs spicing up, send it to me and I'll see what I can do as an example. Good luck and let me know what new images you have posted. I am learning that when it comes to color, it's not necessarily what's accurate, but what is pleasing that brings home the butter. Happy Photoshopping, John

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