Okay, Curves. Probably the single most useful thing in Photoshop, and the most confusing at first. Let's see if I can even articulate what it does.
Okay, you've got your line, which by default will run from the upper right to the lower left. As with Levels, you can think of right being your whites and left being your darks. Basically, you'll create points and drag those to turn your line into a series of *drumroll* curves. I would be hard pressed to explain the magic, but basically, moving your line towards the upper left will brighten and towards the lower right will darken. Curves is a GREAT way to fix some of the weird color casts in screencaps.
For example, I find that most screencaps tend to be overly yellow. I found this to be especially true while trying to make my *Shags the CAG* icon. Those caps will lighten (begrudgingly) but they come out VERY yellow. Now, if you look at them closely, you'll notice that it's not uniformly yellow. You could change the Hue/Saturation sliders and make everything more blue, but then you'll just have an opposing problem. This is where the magic of Curves wins. If you pull up Curves and select Blue instead of All, you can pull the line up and left (very slightly) from the middle, the will make your midtones more blue/less yellow, and leave your darks and lights alone.
Does that kind of make sense? The only way to even begin to understand this is to just play around with it, but it helps to have a direction to head in! Let me know if you have any other questions, if I can't answer them, I'll certainly know someone who will!!!
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Date: 2005-10-20 01:47 am (UTC)Okay, you've got your line, which by default will run from the upper right to the lower left. As with Levels, you can think of right being your whites and left being your darks. Basically, you'll create points and drag those to turn your line into a series of *drumroll* curves. I would be hard pressed to explain the magic, but basically, moving your line towards the upper left will brighten and towards the lower right will darken. Curves is a GREAT way to fix some of the weird color casts in screencaps.
For example, I find that most screencaps tend to be overly yellow. I found this to be especially true while trying to make my *Shags the CAG* icon. Those caps will lighten (begrudgingly) but they come out VERY yellow. Now, if you look at them closely, you'll notice that it's not uniformly yellow. You could change the Hue/Saturation sliders and make everything more blue, but then you'll just have an opposing problem. This is where the magic of Curves wins. If you pull up Curves and select Blue instead of All, you can pull the line up and left (very slightly) from the middle, the will make your midtones more blue/less yellow, and leave your darks and lights alone.
Does that kind of make sense? The only way to even begin to understand this is to just play around with it, but it helps to have a direction to head in! Let me know if you have any other questions, if I can't answer them, I'll certainly know someone who will!!!