DoaC...these are stinking awesome threads...NICE!
I must abstain from voting on this one...
Curves AND levels can be used to such an awesome level of
power...I couldn't LIVE without either.
BUT_ IF we're talking about just for use on chops and not photography..then..
CURVES! Hands down!

I think CURVES is more instinctive tool its why may be (as a painter) i use it more.

Micose..I made a real poor quality tut once, but it is on the sites tut page.
The tut is poor quality but just try it once. Levels
can be really awesome.


*EDIT*...sometime later that evening....
HA! I am a FOOL! Shoulda waited till AFTER jerry spoke...
then I coulda nodded my head..agreed with several ,
*uhuh,yup, yups* and looked really smart.
Truly, for anyone who does not know, Jerry717 is
"THE GURU of Image Correction".
Now I am forced to admit to Jerry the truth.
I have followed all your instruction about curves and L*a*B
and got m'self all confused and was too embarrassed to bug ya about it.

Levels is strictly an amateur tool. Most who wield it believe that a histogram is a useful bit of info (which of-course it isn't). God colored the world with curves and then he created the L*a*b color space to allow us mortals to rein supreme.

I am a Curvy kinda gurl....

levels..GONE! but only if I MUST make a choice..I use both.

All tied up.

Hope you don't mind me doing this Scion...


Usisng Scions image from his tutorial I used curves to correct his image...although not in the same mannor as his tut. I applied three different curve corrections, two of which I did in the L*a*b color space. My only objective was to make the image a bit brighter and more colorful without damaging the highlights and also to bring out shadow detail. I would go a bit farther with more pixels to work with, but this shows what can be achieved with only one tool.

Here is the original:


Here is the corrected version:



Try duplicating this with Levels.

HA! That's fantastic!
None of the "harshness* of the level corrected one.
If you had a site where i could submit important images..
you color correct them,send them back, and charge a decent fee--
I'd use it.
Didn't think that image had enough info in it to ever
look that good. *I BOW*

Website comin' up.

With the original high(er) res I could do much more...there just isn't enough information in that low res image to do it justice. But at least it shows the power of curves.

levels and curves are two things i've not really checked out yet, though i used levels on one of most recent entries and it did actually help a lot. i think. i need to research it a bit more

I use them both, but I probably use Curves more. Got used to Curves while learning how to prep pictures for newspaper print.

Levels is not nearly as flexible though much more intuitive than Curves.

Hey! Jerry sez I'm SUPREME!!!

I've died and gone to heaven!!

ON TOPIC: I KNOW that the curves is a much more functional tool, but I'm crappy at it. Since these threads are based on what I'd get rid of NOW in my life, I'll have to toss the CURVES - though I know I'll regret it and (even more soul-shattering) is the fact that Jerry must now take me off his SUPREME list!

I used to be a curve addict when things were more CMYK but now that most work is done using RGB I believe levels give you more to work with. Never thought I'd say that but.....I think I just did....yep....just read above....dat was me. =)javascript:emoticon('')

Spoken like a true amateur...

There really isn't any comparison to levels and Curves. They are two very different animals. For instance, with the Curves palette open, click and drag any where on a RGB image and see what happens in the Curves palette. You will see a sliding point appear on the Curve line that shows exactly what part of the tonal range is being targeted. This can also be done on the individual channels or on the individual channels only of a CMYK image. Try doing that with Levels. That is just one of the many differences in their interfaces.

There really isn't any advantage to using Levels to Curves regarding color-space as well. RGB is CMY and CMY is RGB. Again... For instance, with an RGB image open, go to the Image menu and select Mode and then select Multichannal and watch what happens to the channels names in the channels palette.

A great man once said: All color-spaces are one. - Dan Margulis

The bottom line is that Levels can't possibly achieve anywhere near the amount of control that can be achieved using the Curves palette due to the restricted limitations built into the Levels palette by design.

To understand either tool is a good thing since they can produce similar results. For most people familiarity is the key factor in determining which tool to use. So keep in mind...a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square.

Jerry

PS: Oh...and Reiner...you still Rein Supreme