Just as I was getting used to playing with curves on Photoshop CS2 and finding the right blend to make the midtones stand out, Scott Kelby goes and shows me a simpler way to do it. No math involved, no shaping the right S-curve, and there’s even no necessary constant monitoring of the image to make sure every adjustment is right.

Great. Now I can’t even feel smart about it.

But seriously. It is so ridiculously simple that even though I still haven’t found my CS3 Power Tour workbook, I didn’t need it for this post. I mean, if even my short-term-memory-challenged mind that keeps failing to keep track of chores and grocery lists and maintenance schedules can remember this without a cheat sheet, then it must really be that simple.

What I learned at the CS3 Power Tour:

5. If you want an almost no-brainer method to punch up your midtones, do it in Lab color.

Here’s a photo I took in Grand Cayman a few months ago. It was a bit overcast that day, which made for the flat colors in this photo. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Hey, it’s my memory, okay?

After adjusting the exposure ever so slightly, I converted it to Lab color. Then I launched curves and switched to the “a” channel. I shifted both endpoints of the curve (or line, if you insist I say that because it’s straight and you don’t want me to confuse anyone) in toward the center by equal amounts.

The adjusted curve looks like this:

(By the way, yours will look a bit different because that’s a CS2 screen shot. I didn’t feel like powering up the other machine just to get that capture. Bear with me, I haven’t had breakfast yet.)

Don’t be alarmed by the intermediate effects on your image. You’ll see it in green or blue or some other strange otherworldly hue, but that’s okay. Be patient and wait for the final result. Which won’t be a long wait, because the only thing left to do is to make the same adjustment for the “b” channel, and presto! Instant midtone punch.

If you plan to do more processing or save it as a jpeg file, don’t forget to convert it back to RGB color.

And if anyone asks, tell them, “Oh, I converted the image to lab color mode and then manually adjusted the curves for individual channels to get that result.” They’ll think you’re a genius and that you can calculate the slope of a curve in your head without a calculator and recite the value of pi to twenty-nine decimal places.

Then you can come back here and thank me. I will gladly accept words of praise and bars of chocolate. And chewy home baked cookies.

I blame the recent too-early-cause-it-ain’t-officially-winter-yet flurry action for the delay in posting this next segment. It made for great pictures, but not so great motivation to sit down and write. Also, I had too much hot chocolate yesterday.

But last night, I re-arranged my computer room to put my two machines closer to each other. And this morning, I hooked up my external drive to my CS3 machine (because that’s all I’m using it for) so I could work on a few of my older images. Particularly this one:

That’s a picture of the river that flows through our town. I was so disappointed with the photo because the colors seemed flat and lifeless. Not at all anything like the vibrant yellows and golds and reds and oranges that I remembered. I mean, I wouldn’t have made my son stop on the side of a winding road so I could walk out in the cold drizzling rain while crazy-fast drivers more than twice almost made me roadkill if the view hadn’t been that spectacular.

Whew. That was a long sentence.

Fortunately for me, I felt like I learned enough to give this a whack at Photoshop.

What I learned at the CS3 Power Tour:

4. While older versions of Photoshop are definitely robust enough to fix your JPG mistakes, doing it in Camera Raw is so much easier and faster.

It took literally minutes and only a few clicks. I loaded up the photo and fixed the exposure first. Then I bumped up the midtones, increased blacks, and added a bit of fill light. Then I threw it back to Photoshop for final sharpening. With a little cropping to finish it off, here’s the before and after:

It may seem oversaturated to you, but I’m telling you, that right there matches exactly what I remember seeing that afternoon. And now I can finally feel like I didn’t waste my time standing on that bridge with cold hands that afternoon. Because you know that the afternoon means high school kids are on the road with their new licenses, and the stuff they were shouting at me while I was walking around scouting for better vantage points could fill another post.

Man, what is it with me a long sentences today?

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Addendum: Just for kicks, and because it looks pretty, here’s a version done by Sherweld using the Orton Effect.

Dreamy, yes? Makes me think of sitting by a fireplace, curled up with a good book or just looking out the window admiring nature. Aaaah. I think I need to go get some hot chocolate now to complete the image. Excuse me while I overload myself with yet more sugar and cocoa.