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Curves Tutorial Followup Question #1
Robert DeLaurentis's picture
by Robert DeLaurentis
August 14, 2012 - 4:26am

I just finished watching the hour-long Curves tutorial. Thank you Joseph i think I finally understand Gamma!

I'm curious about what is possible with curves. Are all, well most, of the Adjustment sliders in Aperture essentially moving “invisible” curves? Is it correct to visualze that when making an adjustment (other than things like masks and cropping) the slider is in effect creating a fresh but unseen set of the RGB and Luminance curves?

In other words, in theory, if the curves controls were precise enough any effect of any slider (or for that matter a plugin like ColorFXPro) could be repeated with one or more curve adjustments?

I'm just trying to dig a little deeper conceptually in my understanding. I realize this is probably not practical any more than it is to write computer software in assembly language any longer. I guess what I'm really trying to understand is, are curves the assembly language of image luminance and color?

Thanks,
Bob

PhotoJoseph's picture
by PhotoJoseph
August 14, 2012 - 6:24am

Robert,

Curves can’t replicate everything. You’r essentially looking at control of the black point, the white point, and the gamma curve in-between. So for example while Curves may affect the saturation of an image, there’s no way to adjust saturation alone using Curves alone.

Some adjustments do essentially control a specific part of the histogram and could in theory be replicated by curves, but often (usually) there are different algorithms that affect different ranges of the image to different response curves.

-Joseph

@PhotoJoseph
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