The world is moving to high definition, and if you’re not there yet, you will be eventually. Once you get there, you may find the need to incorporate older standard-definition footage into your current high-definition projects or you may want to upscale a previously produced SD video to HD. Thanks to Red Giant Software’s Instant HD, you can now do exactly that—easily and without breaking the bank.

Instant HD is an Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro plug-in designed to upscale SD footage to HD quality without a lot of fuss. The only catch is that your footage has to be progressive, so if you’re shooting interlaced, you’ll have to convert your footage first. Hopefully in a future version, Red Giant Software will incorporate this conversion step into the plug-in making it truly a one-step process.

Instant HD couldn’t be simpler to use. Once you’ve added the footage you want to upscale to the timeline, just apply Instant HD from the Effects menu. In the Effects Control tab you’ll find five options: Output Size, Filter Type, Sharpness, Quality settings, and Antialiasing. You can use these controls to make selections manually or you can use the included presets. The results delivered by Instant HD were incredibly good, but be prepared for large HD file sizes. The clip used for this review started out as a diminutive 65-MB DV file, but after the conversion it finished at a whopping 2.5 GBs.

Red Giant Software continues to deliver on its tradition of producing reasonably priced, high-end, high-quality products with Instant HD. At only $99 you can’t afford not to add it to you digital video toolbox.—David Singer

PRICE $99 (download); $129 (box)
FROM Red Giant Software
PHONE 260-625-5343
WEB www.redgiantsoftware.com
FOR Mac and Windows

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Inexpensive; quality HD up-converting
NOT Footage needs to be converted to progressive first
RATING 4.5

BEFORE

Client: BlueRibbon Coalition www.sharetrails.org

“We’re not wedded to the traditional. Basically what we’re looking for are vastly different options, so that we can choose a direction.”

BlueRibbon Magazine is a 35-page monthly published by the BlueRibbon Coalition in Pocatella, Idaho. This national nonprofit works to educate the public about responsible recreation on public lands and acts as an advocacy group to keep outdoor recreation available to the public.

The four-color monthly goes out to the Coalition’s 11,700 members, who include snowmobilers, dirt bikers, ATVers, four-wheel drive owners, equestrians, mountain bikers, rock hounds, and prospectors. Many businesses and organizations also receive the publication, and the group sends complimentary issues to people in the forest service and the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management. According to membership manager Mary Jo Foster, the organization is evolving from a mostly male-dominated group to one with a more equal gender distribution. She says that readers range in age from late teens to retirees.

Once a tabloid, the publication morphed into a magazine about four years ago, designed in-house. But the coalition now wants to enhance the appeal of the magazine by streamlining and modernizing it. “We’re not wedded to the traditional,” explains Foster. “Basically what we’re looking for are vastly different options, so that we can choose a direction.”

For budgetary reasons, BlueRibbon relies on amateur photography, usually submitted by a member, because it doesn’t have a photography budget. But month after month of nature shots lends a sameness to the covers that makes them indistinguishable. The opening editorial page has its own challenges: It’s crammed with a table of contents, a list of staff members, a list of Board members, and a letter from the BlueRibbon Coalition’s Executive Director. This page sometimes runs in color and sometimes in black and white, so the design has to work both ways.

We asked three designers to take a fresh look at BlueRibbon Magazine and update it inside and out.

AFTER

DESIGNER: Craig Maher www.modulationdesign.com

“I thought a clean, bold, and playful look would appeal to the magazine’s readers, and I wanted to create a new, less-condensed logo that would have more impact.”

My goal was to give the magazine a fresh, contemporary, open feel and to create a memorable, iconic insignia. I thought a clean, bold, and playful look would appeal to the magazine’s readers, and I wanted to create a new, less-condensed logo that would have more impact. At the same time, I also wanted to retain some of the old identity, by keeping the blue color and stylized fonts, so that readers would still recognize the magazine.

For the logo, I chose Avenir, a clean, legible sans serif font with a nonabrasive feel. For the word “ribbon,” I selected Berthold-Script because it suggested a ribbon. I used Rockwell, a sporty, bold font, for the coverlines because it blends well with Avenir.

Because readers often report that they can’t tell one issue from the next, I used a photograph for the cover that I shot at Bear Mountain National Forest in New York State. I thought it would help to vary the covers and represent a region other than the west.

For the opening page, I went with a black-and-white layout. Overall, I reorganized and cleaned up the page to make it easier to navigate visually. I set up a three-column grid and carried over some of the type families from the cover to give a sense of editorial continuity. I also tried to inject some fun into the layout by adding ornaments, such as trees, the sun, and mountains, which help break the grid and lend an organic aspect to the page. Plus, I decided on large, bold numbers for the Contents to help readers find the cover stories.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER: MODULATION DESIGN

Craig Maher, a freelance designer who works out of New York City, studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. He currently combines freelance work for various advertising agencies and design firms with solo projects he handles through his own design studio, Modulation Design. His most recent project, Stand Ye Steady, is a DVD/CD packaged set for the West Point Military Glee Club. Maher received two Graphis New Talent Design awards in 2005. Maher also composes music, recently completing the music score for Brooklyn Lobster, a newly released film starring Danny Aiello and Jane Curtin. He draws his graphic design inspiration from the works of Hipgnosis, Bauhaus, and Stefan Sagmeister.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Photoshop CS, and Adobe InDesign CS

AFTER

DESIGNER: Jeannette Gutierrez

“I brought the relationship between the parent organization and the magazine into the masthead, linking the Coalition’s logo to the magazine’s and strengthening the brand identity of both.”

Because the client is a nonprofit with a small budget, it’s important that they be able to reproduce their new design without having to rely on an outside designer. A design that depends on Photoshop wizardry and custom spread layouts isn’t going to maintain its integrity in a low-budget environment. So I tried to keep things simple and consider how the client might set up an in-house production environment to produce a professional-looking publication.

I propose that they invest in a copy of Adobe InDesign because the program has special features that allow a nondesigner to give things a designer’s touch. For example, I drew the colored squares with the program’s simple Rectangle tool. The only special technique I relied on was the built-in InDesign drop shadow, which I used on the cover to make the blurbs more readable. To make in-house production easier, the cover art remains a full-bleed photograph. BlueRibbon’s challenge is to vary the cover shots enough to enable readers to distinguish between issues. They can achieve this by sometimes using nature close-ups and sometimes using shots of equestrians, off-roaders, and the like enjoying the outdoors.

I freshened the magazine’s logo with clean, readable Chocolate Script, but combined it with a sans serif to give it presence. I brought the relationship between the parent organization and the magazine into the masthead, linking the Coalition’s logo to the magazine’s and strengthening the brand identity of both.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER: JEANNETTE GUTIERREZ

Jeanette Gutierrez graduated from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit with a degree in Industrial Design. A Detroit native, she has worked in corporate communications and as a marketing art director for Consumers Energy, Automotive News, and Waldenbooks. She is currently Creative Director/Art Director at Group 55 Marketing in Detroit. Group 55 (www.group55.com) is a full-service advertising and marketing agency specializing in branding and identity for a national clientele.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe InDesign CS2 and Adobe Photoshop CS2

AFTER

DESIGNER: Andrew Bass www.adbassdesigns.com

“I decided to concentrate on giving the publication a look resembling a consumer-style recreation magazine, making it more stylized, upbeat, and fun.”

To get a better understanding of BlueRibbon and its organization, I studied their website and looked at other outdoor recreation titles in the market. I decided to concentrate on giving the publication a look resembling a consumer-style recreation magazine, making it more stylized, upbeat, and fun.

My overall design had to be easily replicated by the staff, so it couldn’t be overly complicated. I chose to give the magazine a clean but rugged look, beginning with a more readable logo using the Acropolis typeface. BlueRibbon has a limited photo budget so creating more upbeat and varied covers requires some ingenuity. I suggest using free photo sources, such as the National Park Service. For this cover, I used a portrait of George W. Bush, playing up the coverline for a little levity. With many of the cover images donated by members, alternating nature shots with members’ action shots on snowmobiles, horseback, ATVs, and so on would create more variety. Cheltenham, the typeface I chose for smaller coverlines and body text, gives the text a clean feel without competing with Acropolis. Images on the inside pages can be punched up more by using silhouettes, to give the pages more energy.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER: ADBASS:DESIGNS LLC

Principal and creative director of adbass:designs LLC, Andrew Bass has more than 16 years’ experience developing effective visual communications. Bass, who prides himself on his ability to assemble photographers, illustrators, and designers to give a unique identity to visual media, has applied his creative methodology at corporations, such as VNU Business Media USA and Essence Communications, and at smaller companies and nonprofits such as TaylorMade Media and The Blues Babe Foundation.

Bass holds a BFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute and has won several design awards: American Graphic Design, American Society of Business Publication Editors, The Ozzies, and American Business Media (Neal Awards). He’s also an adjunct instructor of typographic design at the New York City College of Technology.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, and Adobe InDesign CS2

Before we get to the who, why, what, and how, let’s start out with what Lightroom is and what it isn’t. Lightroom is not a Photoshop competitor. I’m a Photoshop junkie, though, so you’ll see Photoshop references throughout this article but Lightroom is not competing against Photoshop—it’s extending it. Adobe knows that more people use Photoshop than just digital photographers. While many Photoshop features are geared toward photographers, there comes a point when you need to go beyond Photoshop because it just can’t do everything for everybody. It seems Lightroom is a new product that is aimed to do just that. That said, Lightroom is most probably a replacement for Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw.

The Who
Let’s start with the “who.” Well, it’s pretty simple. Adobe created Lightroom. There, that’s it. Done. Okay, maybe there’s more. Adobe created Lightroom but they’re not the only ones with this type of product. You’ve probably heard of Apple’s Aperture as well. Is Lightroom a competitor to Apple’s Aperture? You bet.

The Why
If you’re reading this and wondering if Lightroom is geared toward anyone but digital photographers, then stop wondering. Make no mistake about it: Lightroom is solely aimed at photographers. Adobe touts it as a new, efficient way for professional photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of images. The whole purpose behind Lightroom and why it was developed is so photographers can spend less time sorting and refining photographs and more time shooting them. This is a big concern right now and it’s growing. Remember, in the scheme of things, digital photography is in its infancy. There are literally thousands of professional photographers who are switching from film to digital and they need a reliable way to get their photos from the camera into their clients’ hands. Lightroom is Adobe’s answer for this process and an excellent one at that.

The What
What exactly is Lightroom? As I mentioned earlier, it’s a program designed to help photographers import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images. Lightroom is essentially broken up into four modules—Library, Develop, Slideshow, and Print. Each of these modules is a stand-alone area within Lightroom, but it’s important to know that they all reside within the same window. You’re never opening multiple windows with Lightroom or moving palettes around. Everything you need is right in front of you. You can switch to and from any module seamlessly in the same window.

First up is the Library module. Here is where you can do the standard issue features such as browse, sort, rate, and generally organize your images. It is, in essence, your library of photos. One of the stars of Lightroom is the fact that when you first import your photos you’re not forced to store them in some locked database. As you can see here, there are several options for moving your photos into the Library and one option is to leave them where they are on your hard drive.

Once the photos are in Lightroom you can browse them in Grid, Loupe, or (my personal favorite) Compare mode. Here you can quickly zone in on the photos you like the best and discard the ones you don’t by pressing the Delete key.

CREDIT: IMAGES ©ISTOCKPHOTO/EVA SERRABASSA

Once you’ve organized your photos and you’re left with the best ones, you can move to the Develop module. Now, depending on your background experience with software such as Photoshop (see, I couldn’t resist mentioning Photoshop), you may or may not feel instantly at home in the Develop module. I will say that being a Photoshop addict, the thing I love most about the Develop module is that it has the lion’s share of Adobe Camera Raw features so I was able to instantly get to work. While many of the traditional Camera Raw settings you’d expect are there, such as white balance settings, exposure adjustments, lens corrections, and camera calibration, there are three new killer features that make me never want to go back to Photoshop’s Camera Raw again: the Tone Curve, Grayscale Mixer, and most of all, Split Toning. Here is where Lightroom really steps it up and hooks me in.

The Tone Curve is essentially “Curves done right.” It’s intuitive and it removes the technical aspects of adjusting a curve and takes care of smoothing the curve while making visual adjustments.

The Grayscale Mixer is the one-stop-shop for creating high-contrast, pro-quality black-and-white conversions.

And finally, Split Toning is one of those things that photographers have been wanting for years and Lightroom has it. Now you can selectively apply warm and cool hues to the shadow and highlight areas within a grayscale image.

After adjusting your photos it’s time to move to the Slideshow module. Truth be told, I’m not crazy about the name “Slideshow” because it doesn’t convey everything that this module really does. For example, if you wanted a Web gallery, where would you go? If you didn’t say, “The Slideshow module,” then you’re wrong. Slideshow is kind of your one-stop shop for showing off your photos (except for printing, which we’ll cover next).

The key here is to go to the Slideshow module and mess around with all of the settings; but don’t forget to experiment with all the options that you get after clicking the Export button at the bottom right of the screen, as that is where you can actually output your slideshows.

Your last stop in your travels through Lightroom is going to be the Print module. This one is pretty self-explanatory, as you can (you guessed it!) print from this mode. Here’s the thing though: You can control all of your printing functions from this one module. Printing multiple photos, layout, size, margins, and Identity Plate set up can all be controlled here. The other nice feature is that you have access to all of the Print Job Settings right there at the bottom of the right-side panel. No more fighting with confusing dialogs just to set your color management profile for a specific shot.

Finally, the Template Browser on the left side of the work area lets you save specifically formatted contact sheets and other types of output. So when you’ve got some favorite settings, go ahead and press the Add Template button to save them.

The How
This seems like a good place to finish up. There are actually a few questions that can be answered by this “how” question. First, how do I get Lightroom? Well, it’s beta software (see “What is Beta Software?”) and can be downloaded for free at http://labs.macromedia.com/technologies/lightroom. Currently, it’s Mac only but Adobe has promised the PC version sometime soon (read: I have no idea when).

That’s the first how. But there’s more. Next is how well does Lightroom work? In my experience, Lightroom works great on my 1.25-GHz PowerBook with 1.5-GBs of RAM. I haven’t noticed any speed issues and, for beta software, it behaves extremely well. I’ve also seen it on a quad processor G5 and needless to say, it’s pretty darn fast. However, Lightroom was created for photographers. I don’t know many photographers who sit in an office toiling away at a large desktop all of the time? They’re constantly out and moving around. I always have my laptop with me when I’m out on a shoot and that’s where I want to start working on my images (as would many pro photographers).

Finally, the next logical question is how do I use it? Again, I could write an entire magazine on this, so I’ll have to take a pass here. However, I won’t leave you stranded with this one. Visit www.layersmagazine.com/category/tutorials/lightroom for some video tutorials.

The End
Will Lightroom replace the need for people to use Adobe Bridge? It may. Depending on how you work you may find that Lightroom is all you need when it comes to organizing your photos. The other question is will Lightroom replace the need for Photoshop (see, I’m a Photoshop freak—I had to tie this back into Photoshop somehow). In my opinion, the answer is no. There are still many things that I do to my photos that Lightroom just can’t do. It will replace the need for me to use Adobe Camera Raw, so I’ll use Lightroom instead and export my photos to Photoshop from there.

What is Beta Software?
A beta version or beta release of software is the first version of a program that is ready for someone (other than the engineers building it) to view. However, it’s definitely not ready to sell to the public.

To help clarify, here’s an example: When Adobe releases a new version of Photoshop it doesn’t go straight from the software engineer’s desk to the store where you buy it. Adobe goes out to hundreds of people in the industry (AKA beta testers) and gives them what are called “builds” of the beta software to put through the ringer. The beta testers then provide feedback about what doesn’t work, what is missing, or what is incomplete about the current build. Adobe engineers then scramble back to their desks to address that feedback and incorporate changes into a new updated build. This process continues (many times for nearly 6 months to a year) until Photoshop is bug-free and ready to sell in stores.

So what the heck does all of this mean to you? Essentially, as a beta tester of Adobe Lightroom, you’re adding to the completeness and quality of the final product. Okay, let’s cut to the chase and call it how it really is: You’re helping Adobe work the kinks out of Lightroom. But hey, the good news is that any work you put in will result in a more comprehensive and useful product for you later.

“Oh my god! My pictures of the polar bears are gone. They’ve disappeared. I was looking at them on the monitor a minute ago, and now I can’t find them. Can anyone help me find them? Please help me. Please!”

A novice digital photographer shouted those words of panic one night during a “downloading” session in the course of my recent expedition to the sub-Arctic Circle to photograph polar bears. Quickly, I tried to calm the woman down by saying that the pictures were probably not lost, and they could probably be found or rescued.

After working what the woman thought was my “digital magic,” her panic turned to pure joy at seeing the found file folder and her pictures on the computer’s monitor. I got a bear hug that would probably rival a hug from a polar bear! Her pictures—once-in-a-lifetime memories of the adventure—were saved.

Actually, I didn’t work any magic. Rather, I simply followed some basic guidelines for image recovery. The experience gave me the impetus for this lesson. We’ll get to image rescue in a bit. But first, let’s start with downloading images and backing them up so that hopefully, image rescue will never be an issue.

Memory card basics
When you get a new memory card, and every time you take it out of your camera and put it back, it’s important to format the card—in the camera, and not through your computer. Formatting the card wipes it clean. Totally. Plus, in-camera formatting sets up the card for your specific digital camera.

Before you remove a card from the camera or card reader, you must wait for all the files to be either written to the card or transferred to your computer. A blinking light usually indicates data transfer. If you remove the card too quickly (before the light stops blinking), you might lose data, or it might seem as though you lost the data. That was the panic-stricken woman’s situation when she removed the card too soon from the card reader and then, thinking that she had made a mistake, reinserted it into the card reader.

The problem in this case is that the woman was viewing her pictures directly from the card reader, whereas she should have been viewing them from the computer’s hard drive (after she transferred them), where she could have viewed her pictures much faster and easier.

Two copies are better than one
After transferring files to a computer and before you do anything else, you should back them up to CDs, DVDs, or an external hard drive. If you shoot RAW files or lots of pictures, transferring your pictures to an external hard drive is much, much faster than burning a CD or DVD. With a lifespan of 20–25 years, CDs and DVDs will eventually deteriorate, so hard drive storage is safer—but you should still have your pictures saved in two places because even a hard drive can crash. You don’t have to transfer files to a computer; you can hook up hard drives in tandem and transfer files between drives—but be sure you have the correct cables for connecting the drives, which could be FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 1.1 (if you’re very patient), or USB 2.0 (if you’re not).

You may have noticed that I mentioned external hard drives (as opposed to internal hard drives). Why? Well, say your internal hard drive crashes. If it does, how would you be able to see your pictures and other data? If you have all your files saved on an external hard drive, all you have to do in the event of a computer crash is to unplug the external drive from your computer and plug it into another computer to see your files.

Search and rescue
Okay, it’s finally time to reveal my “magic trick” of saving/recovering the panic-stricken woman’s pictures. I worked the magic by using SanDisk RescuePro, an image-recovery program that comes on a CD with SanDisk Extreme cards. While the memory card was still in the card reader, I simply inserted the CD into the computer and followed the onscreen instructions. I always travel with that CD, as well as with ImageRecall 3 from FlashFixers, for just such emergencies. (Lexar offers Image Rescue software for its cards.)

Manage and edit
By the way, Photoshop CS2 was already loaded on the computer on which I was working. I used Adobe Bridge to view the woman’s RAW files. I find that Bridge is an excellent method for viewing all my files, RAW and JPEG files alike.

If you shoot RAW files, you’ll need Photoshop CS2 (with the latest Camera Raw plug-in) and either your camera’s software (Canon’s Digital Photo Professional illustrated here) or another RAW program (such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple’s Aperture) to view, manage, and edit your pictures. You can also use programs such as Extensis Portfolio 8 to view and manage your pictures as well as archive your images to CD and DVD. If you only shoot JPEGs and have a Mac OS computer, you could use Apple’s iPhoto.

So no matter what camera you own—top-of-the-line pro SLR or compact zoom lens model—handle your cards with tender loving care. If you don’t, and do things too fast, you may lose a once-in-a-lifetime shot like this picture of a polar bear standing on his hind legs to get a better look at me! So, think carefully before you remove a card and click on a folder, icon, or prompt on your monitor.

STEP ONE:
Duplicate (Image>Duplicate) the Kenai Mountain image to create a working version, and open the Levels dialog (Image>Adjustments>Levels). To improve overall image brightness and contrast (while maintaining the original color balance), we’ll make adjustments to the highlight and shadow sliders.

First, move the highlight slider left, to the beginning of the significant data (the start of the rise in the histogram). When dragging the highlight slider, hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key to locate the lightest diffuse highlight point (you’ll use this in Step Two to establish your first Color Sampler point). Next, move the shadow slider to the right until you create the shadow density you like. We moved the shadow slider beyond the beginning of the significant shadow data, so as to create a dark silhouette of the foreground trees, thereby increasing the contrast in the image. Note: As above, you can hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key as you drag the slider to see which portions of the image will be silhouetted.

STEP TWO:
To set up and evaluate color sample points, select the Color Sampler tool from the flyout Eyedropper tool options in the Toolbox. Up in the Options Bar, set the Sample Size to 3 by 3 Average, then press F8 to open the Info palette. With the Color Sampler tool, click on the highlight point you located using the Levels display in Step One. This will place a #1 at that highlight point on the image. The RGB values for this point are recorded at the bottom of the Info palette as point #1. Now select three other Color Sampler points in critical areas of the image. We located points 2–4 in progressively darker tonal areas: points 1 and 2 are on well-lit slopes, and points 3 and 4 are on cast shadow slopes.

Note: To help keep these points straight in your mind, try making the points sequential by tonal range as we’ve done here: point #1 is the lightest, through point #4, which is darkest.

STEP THREE:
Evaluate the RGB values. Note that at points 1 and 2 (well-lit slopes), the Red values are higher than both the Green and Blue values, and the Blue values are the lowest. This makes sense as Red + Green = Yellow cast. At points 3 and 4 (cast shadow slopes) the Red and Green values are nearly equal, indicating a shift in color balance. At point 3, the Blue value is slightly below the Red and Green values. At point 4 (the darkest tonal area) the Blue is actually greater than the Red and Green. The change in the RGB ratios demonstrates the shift in color balance across the tonal range of the image. Because the Green values in all the color sampler points are typically the median value, we’ll use the Green values as the target values.

STEP FOUR:
Select Image>Adjustments>Curves to open the Curves dialog. Select the Red channel from the Channel pop-up menu. Press the Command (PC: Control) key and click on the middle of each of your Color Sampler points on your image. This will place four control points along the Red channel curve.
While monitoring the Red values of your four Color Sampler points in your Info palette, starting with sample point #1, drag the control points up or down until the Red values equal the Green values. For instance, we dragged the upper-right Curves control point, associated with the #1 highlight point, down until the starting Red value of 255 measured ~243. Adjust points 2–4 similarly.

STEP FIVE:
Now, select the Blue channel from the Curves Channel menu. Press the Command (PC: Control) key and click on the middle of each of your Color Sampler points on your image. This will again place four control points, but now along the Blue channel curve.

While monitoring the Blue values of your four Color Sampler points in your Info palette, starting with sample point #1, drag the control points up or down until the Blue values equal the Green values. For instance, we dragged the second Curves control point from the right, associated the #2 point, up until the starting Blue value of 179 measured ~204. Adjust points 1, 3, and 4 similarly.

Adding additional points: You can add and adjust additional control points to any curve. You’ll simply have to monitor the RGB values in the main/default Info palette field display.

Results
The result of these corrections is an image that’s neutral with respect to most of the snow values across the entire tonal range of the image. Note how the shape of both the Red and the Blue adjusted curves changes along the tonal range. This change in shape shows how you have adjusted for the shifting color cast.

Workflow note: When correcting color images, particularly those with complex color casts, the use of Color Sampler points in conjunction with Curve control points will make your color correction easier, faster, and more accurate.

[Note: To follow along, download Keani_Start.tif from www.layersmagazine.com/magazine-downloads.]

STEP ONE:
Duplicate (Image>Duplicate) the Kenai Mountain image to create a working version, and open the Levels dialog (Image>Adjustments>Levels). To improve overall image brightness and contrast (while maintaining the original color balance), we’ll make adjustments to the highlight and shadow sliders.

First, move the highlight slider left, to the beginning of the significant data (the start of the rise in the histogram). When dragging the highlight slider, hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key to locate the lightest diffuse highlight point (you’ll use this in Step Two to establish your first Color Sampler point). Next, move the shadow slider to the right until you create the shadow density you like. We moved the shadow slider beyond the beginning of the significant shadow data, so as to create a dark silhouette of the foreground trees, thereby increasing the contrast in the image. Note: As above, you can hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key as you drag the slider to see which portions of the image will be silhouetted.

STEP TWO:
To set up and evaluate color sample points, select the Color Sampler tool from the flyout Eyedropper tool options in the Toolbox. Up in the Options Bar, set the Sample Size to 3 by 3 Average, then press F8 to open the Info palette. With the Color Sampler tool, click on the highlight point you located using the Levels display in Step One. This will place a #1 at that highlight point on the image. The RGB values for this point are recorded at the bottom of the Info palette as point #1. Now select three other Color Sampler points in critical areas of the image. We located points 2–4 in progressively darker tonal areas: points 1 and 2 are on well-lit slopes, and points 3 and 4 are on cast shadow slopes.

Note: To help keep these points straight in your mind, try making the points sequential by tonal range as we’ve done here: point #1 is the lightest, through point #4, which is darkest.

STEP THREE:
Evaluate the RGB values. Note that at points 1 and 2 (well-lit slopes), the Red values are higher than both the Green and Blue values, and the Blue values are the lowest. This makes sense as Red + Green = Yellow cast. At points 3 and 4 (cast shadow slopes) the Red and Green values are nearly equal, indicating a shift in color balance. At point 3, the Blue value is slightly below the Red and Green values. At point 4 (the darkest tonal area) the Blue is actually greater than the Red and Green. The change in the RGB ratios demonstrates the shift in color balance across the tonal range of the image. Because the Green values in all the color sampler points are typically the median value, we’ll use the Green values as the target values.

STEP FOUR:
Select Image>Adjustments>Curves to open the Curves dialog. Select the Red channel from the Channel pop-up menu. Press the Command (PC: Control) key and click on the middle of each of your Color Sampler points on your image. This will place four control points along the Red channel curve.
While monitoring the Red values of your four Color Sampler points in your Info palette, starting with sample point #1, drag the control points up or down until the Red values equal the Green values. For instance, we dragged the upper-right Curves control point, associated with the #1 highlight point, down until the starting Red value of 255 measured ~243. Adjust points 2–4 similarly.

STEP FIVE:
Now, select the Blue channel from the Curves Channel menu. Press the Command (PC: Control) key and click on the middle of each of your Color Sampler points on your image. This will again place four control points, but now along the Blue channel curve.

While monitoring the Blue values of your four Color Sampler points in your Info palette, starting with sample point #1, drag the control points up or down until the Blue values equal the Green values. For instance, we dragged the second Curves control point from the right, associated the #2 point, up until the starting Blue value of 179 measured ~204. Adjust points 1, 3, and 4 similarly.

Adding additional points: You can add and adjust additional control points to any curve. You’ll simply have to monitor the RGB values in the main/default Info palette field display.

Results
The result of these corrections is an image that’s neutral with respect to most of the snow values across the entire tonal range of the image. Note how the shape of both the Red and the Blue adjusted curves changes along the tonal range. This change in shape shows how you have adjusted for the shifting color cast.

Workflow note: When correcting color images, particularly those with complex color casts, the use of Color Sampler points in conjunction with Curve control points will make your color correction easier, faster, and more accurate.

One Peekaboo

Layout
Once open, your design can ignore the folds. Note how the brochure has been designed in halves–the dark half is a narrative and the light half is a listing.

Type

The halves of the page use the same two typefaces but in different sizes and line lengths: On the left half, oversize, 15-pt type creates a richly textured introduction.

The narrative begins beautifully with both headline and subhead in the same typeface (ITC Motter Corpus). Note the subhead runs with the text (Utopia). This attractive detail requires adjustment–san-serif type usually has a greater x-height than serif type, so its point size must be reduced until it lines up (see left).

The panel-width column (see left side of figure) yields a narrative-style look, awhile on the right, the narrow listing looks like a directory.

Template: One peekaboo

Legal-size page (14×8½”)
Eight panels (four per side)
Accordion fold with one, half-inch reveal (panel 1)

Two Peekaboos

Three panel widths yield two peekaboos, which serve as a tiny table of contents. Inside can be similar products (as shown) or different products.

Layout
Repetition and scale are key to this handsome design—two motorcycles, two views each, two paragraphs of text, all the same size in the same place on both pages.

Giving this brochure its unusually clean appearance are its high contrasts of scale– one motorcycle is much larger than the other. Such a large difference has two benefits: It ­establishes a clear hierarchy and keeps the images visually apart—images of too-similar size tend to fight for the reader’s eye. Note that the large side views are straight-on, detailed, and meant to be examined, while the small views are angled, casual, and meant to be felt. This is a storytelling contrast.

The repetitive format–one page exactly like the other–allows the eye to fall into an easy, page-by-page rhythm. This is an excellent way to present small quantities of similar products.

Template: Two peekaboos

Legal-size page (14×8½”)
Eight panels (four per side)
Accordion fold with two, half-inch reveals (panels 1 and 4)

John McWade is a designer, teacher, and author who has been at the forefront of the graphic design and desktop publishing worlds for two decades.
He is founder, publisher, and primary voice of Before & After magazine (www.bamagazine.com; email: layers@bamagazine.com).