HOW TO GET RID OF THE UNDER 5% HALFTONES?

[ZooCity]

Chris,

Do you need to compensate for gain through the rest of the tonal area? 

Or are you JUST looking to open up your shadow areas?

Little Column A, little Column B.  I do use curves and/or levels for gain comp across the image but I find that most of the art needs some more specific adjustment than a nice "S" curve:

• Values below a certain % cut, as in under 5%, etc.
• 100% values left alone.
• high 80%s to 99% pulled back harder than values from 5%-80%

What I've been doing is a series of curves adjustments where I put stops to keep ranges I don't want to adjust out of the curves adjustment.  Works OK. 

[screenxpress]

• high 80%s to 99% pulled back harder than values from 5%-80%

Can you provide a bit more on how this is accomplished?

[ZooCity]

Sure thing.  The screen shots aren't showing my eye dropper for some reason but 3 pics attached.

5% knockout shows what Sbrem was talking about in case anyone was wondering.  It's pretty dang cool except you know how you get that "ragged edge" on screens where they stop holding the dots below a certain percent?  Well it turns out that's inherent to a lot of art.  When you cut out 5% and down it has the same effect.  At least you know what you are getting into before press.

99% point shows how I set a point at 99%.  I marquee a quick box on the channel I'm working in, fill it at 99%, select the black point dropper in the curves dialog and click the 99% box.  I find it annoying to try and click the 99% spot in the curve panel. 

80-99 curve shows a curve that allows you to pull back that range without effecting the other areas.  You simply add points along the way to control what the curve is impacting.  It has some limitations and is obviously a little bit laborious.  I feel like each section of an image's range has it's own special needs regarding inkjet output and on press behavior. 

Hope that's helpful.

[screenxpress]

Thanks

[Sbrem]

Excellent Zoo! By the way, in the Curves dialog, double click the Black Eyedropper, it opens up the picker, set K to 99%...

Steve

On second thought, that's not quite right. If you click on the 100% point, you can move it with the arrow keys, and I'll use the info pallet for a guide...

[ScreenFoo]

Actually, you need two points--one at the 5% in, 0% out point, and one at the 5% in, 5% out point--otherwise, you're just starting 5% @ 0%, which will still result in 1-5% tones...

Should have mentioned the silly caveats to this... since no one tried it. 

For instance, you can put 4in at 0 out, and then 5 in at 5 out, but then need 7 in 7 out and 9 in 9 out to 'straighten' the curve again.
When I tried to go from 6 in 0 out to 7 in 7 out it moved the point out.  Weird.

Seems unusual there's no way of entering accurate single percentage values instead of having to 'draw' them  in such a powerful/expensive program, but I suppose, it's actually a piece of crap compared to the real sepping software...

[ZooCity]

Excellent Zoo! By the way, in the Curves dialog, double click the Black Eyedropper, it opens up the picker, set K to 99%...

Steve

On second thought, that's not quite right. If you click on the 100% point, you can move it with the arrow keys, and I'll use the info pallet for a guide...

Oh man, thank you for the tip on the arrow keys.  Way less time involved that way.   Anyone know where to get to the view options for curves in CC?  They refer to it in the help documentation but no idea where that actually is.

[starchild]

Excellent Zoo! By the way, in the Curves dialog, double click the Black Eyedropper, it opens up the picker, set K to 99%...

Steve

On second thought, that's not quite right. If you click on the 100% point, you can move it with the arrow keys, and I'll use the info pallet for a guide...

Oh man, thank you for the tip on the arrow keys.  Way less time involved that way.   Anyone know where to get to the view options for curves in CC?  They refer to it in the help documentation but no idea where that actually is.

All panels in photoshop have a fly out options menu in the top right corner so that will be the best place too look when you're in the curves panel.

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