Can someone help me with color curves

[LensBaby]

Can anyone help me with color curves on photos like this. I have a ton of them, and I need to adjust the color, and I have no clue how to do color curves. Jerry any advice? (You must tell me in easy terms though, because I am newer to photoshop) Here is what I am talking about...photos like this.

[jerryph]

I'd not mind trying... what are your goals, to keep the look real or HDR'ed or saturation/contrast? Also what applications are you using to adjust your picture with?

As a couple of examples:
A little click on Autolighting and a 50% increase in smart sharpening gave me this:
http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/gallery/files/1/0/0/0/lensbaby2__auto_color_adj_and_50pct_sharpness__bri ghter.jpg

Futzing around with various PS tools... Adobe Viveza, sharpening, tone curves in random order... lol:
http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/gallery/files/1/0/0/0/lensbaby4.jpg

That same pic put through Photomatix gave me this:
http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/gallery/files/1/0/0/0/lensbaby3___tonemapped.jpg
The HDR effect looks interesting but a little wierd. Likely becuase all I did was make 2 pictures out of yours (the 2nd one was saved a little brighter).

If you are playing with curves in PS, I found a couple of youtube tutorials that will explain better via video than I can here in text alone:

Tone colour correction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oGHgYXCSeo

Colour correction. Here is one guy that made about 5-6 small video tutorials on this, and if you are using PS, it will help you out a lot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxVTRdytLUo&feature=related

I hope this helps. :)

[LensBaby]

Thanks. I think the second one looks cool. The color is drab on these photos because of the dead trees and the dirt with dead grass. (I didn't have a choice to shoot anywhere else) The color is driving me crazy on them. I will watch the tutorials. I use photoshop cs2, and was just trying to adjust the color curves. I like what you did with the second one, but I don't have that other program.(plug in)

[jerryph]

Well, there is not much that can be done with a field of fall/winter drab colours, we just need to focus on the subject that is doing something pretty amazing by flying in the air in a device not made to fly... lol

[dkippen]

Sue -

Here's a link that might help as well. Along with the tutorial, there is a lot of techy stuff. Cambridge has quite a few tutorials.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/photoshop-curves.htm

If you use actions, this site has quite a few that are fun to play around with.

http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm

Good luck.

[jerryph]

Holy moly, Debbie, there are a ton of really good actions in there! I've just started with them and they do help cut down processing time a lot. I wish I could find some that generate some nice frames.

[LensBaby]

Thanks Jerry and Debbie

[dkippen]

Sue - If I remember right, at the bottom, there are some actions for frames. I haven't used them yet, so I don't know how well they work. I've used some of the others - contrast, sharpening, B&W conversion. Have fun with them - I know I have.