Wat Phra Kaew, fix the sky and golden chedi

[iamyuanwu]

It's the temple within the Grand Palace grounds in Bangkok.
The chedi(pagoda) is supposed to be golden in colour. The sky being greyish probably due to the overcast weather... or maybe it's my polariser[?].

Anyway, go ahead and make the sky blue and the chedi golden.
No PP yet besides resizing. Do list down the adjustments made. Me still no good in PP.

1765

[blur]

I editted this from my home PC so I'm not very confident myself if I got the colours right :redface: Here's my try :

1768

Basically I just adjusted the levels and curves. Then applied jayhan's method of getting velvia colours through channel mixer (except that I used the values R+120%; G-10%; B-10% for the Red Channel)

[iamyuanwu]

blur,
I tried using your method to get a similar effect.
But it soon became apparent that I have no idea how to PP using levels and curves (eventhough I know where to find the buttons in GIMP). :? :(

Care to add more explanation? :redface:

[qqmeng]

my try

1773

red: Red +150 Blue -25 Green -25
Green: Red -25 Green +150 Blue -25
BLue: Blue +150 Green -25 red -25

and layer hide building :)

[HenryLow]

My try:

01. Boost the contrast.
02. Adjust the saturation to +40.

[ShaolinTiger]

Here's mine, curves adjustment (s-shape), boost saturation and boost contrast a little.

1877

[kiankheong]

My try:
(1)1879 (2)1880

Steps done:

1) Velvialised using action downloaded from atncentral, at full strength.
2) Copy new layer, gradient using dark blue, adjust layer opacity and fill to suit taste. (1) or (2)
3) Adjust level, and slight contrast bump.
:)

[wwc]

here is mine
-level
-hue/saturation
-brightness/contrast

[noordin]

I like qq's version. :D

[bcteh]

My version : )

http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/1226/resizeddsc5780xm2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[blur]

blur,
I tried using your method to get a similar effect.
But it soon became apparent that I have no idea how to PP using levels and curves (eventhough I know where to find the buttons in GIMP). :? :(

Care to add more explanation? :redface:
Hi, yuanwu! Sorry for the late reply. I had to stay off computers for the past few days :(

I re-did the levels and curves (prior to the velvia effect) again, and captured the screens for you. Not entirely identical as to the one I did before, but more or less the same.

For the levels, I moved the right slider to the left to brighten up the bright tones. Then, I moved the center slider to the right just a little to adjust the mid tones. This is usually the first adjustment I do for most of my images, 'tho the amount to move the slider will depend on your image and what you want to achieve.

2016

As for the curves, I usually go for an S-curve to get more contrast. For this, I moved Point-1 up to increase the bright tones again. Then I pulled down Point-2 to darken the shadows, and basically to increase contrast. As for your image, I pulled down the Point-3 to decrease the highlights because the highlight on the dome was getting overblown as I pulled up Point-1 just now.

2017

After which, I applied the channel mixer to get the velvia effect. The values I used here are basically just what I used for this image. You should play around with it for different images and for different effects you want to achieve. Hope my explanation helps!

p/s: I used GIMP for this too :D

[iamyuanwu]

Eh thanks a lot, Blur, for showing me.

ST, blur,
Your PP looked the best to me.

My try:
curves (some complicated curve in blue channel), boosted saturation of blue colour.

I noticed there were some artifacts (blotches) when i examine the sky at 100% after adjusting curves. Anyway to reduce this?

2071