Thunderbird Flyover - Learning to edit

James H MacAllister wrote:

Orbit220 wrote:

James H MacAllister wrote:

Try adjusting the curves in Capture One. Here's a quick (limited, due to jpg) curves adjustment done in Paint Shop Pro (too cheap for PS).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n8J2t73itcYmbUp3FIVPoxFGZFfFRNOR/view?usp=sharing

Here is my attempt at sharing the raw of what seems to be the most popular and exciting shot. Let me know if this does not work. I appreciate everyone's feedback. How would one go about adjusting the curves in Capture One? If it is a complex topic I would be happy to search the web, but if I can gather good advice here I would appreciate it

Here I just upped the light falloff (under the Lens tab by default) to 120. And again adjusted the curves. The curves tool is a straight diagonal line, the top of which are the highlights and the bottom the shadows. By selecting any point along the line and moving it up will bring it toward the highlights (brighter). And moving it down will bring it toward the shadows. For instance, if you select the middle of the line and drag it down you will darken the mid tones. Pulling down the top of the line will darken the highlights; and vice versa. You can adjust the color channels in the same manner to adjust color tone. Just play with it, you can always reset it if you don't like the results.

Great explanation, thank you for taking the time to do that. A few follow up questions. What does light fall off do? I am playing with it myself and can't seem to notice a difference. Furthermore, is using the curves tool similar to using the "high dynamic range" tools? For instance, would increasing the highlight slider have the same effect as moving the right side of the line and moving it up? Or does moving the highlight slider to the right increase the "highlights" of the shadows, midtones, and highlights globally?