Friday, October 30, 2009

Cross Processing: Part 1 of... um, maybe a lot?

I'm a big fan of Aperture's plug-in architecture. The one I use most often is probably Color Efex Pro 3.0 by Nik Software. But the downside of using plug-ins, is that once the image goes through the plug-in, you lose the non-destructive nature of editing photos in Aperture. So over the next few weeks, I'm going to attempt to recreate as many of the cross processing methods in Color Efex by just using the Levels palette within Aperture. I'm going to just go down the list starting with B01.

The adjustments that have to be applied aren't terribly complicated, but there are a lot. So once the settings are approximately what you desired, it's probably a good idea to save the levels adjustment as a preset.
Here's the picture that I'll be attempting to recreate:
First thing to do is to enable quarter-tone controls in the Levels palette. It's the icon right below the gears. It looks like a rectangle with two lines down it. Once it's on, you don't have to turn it on again.
  1. Select the Red Channel
  2. Apply these values:
    • B: 0.21
    • 1/4: 0.42
    • G: 0.61
    • 3/4: 0.71
    • W: 0.92
  3. Select the Green Channel
  4. Apply these values:
    • B: 0.00
    • 1/4: 0.25
    • G: 0.42
    • 3/4: 0.63
    • W: 1.00
  5. Select the Blue Channel
  6. Apply these values:
    • B: 0.00
    • 1/4: 0.15
    • G: 0.33
    • 3/4: 0.77
    • W: 0.94
With those settings, I get the picture below.

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