And less yellow greens will move towards blue. More yellow greens will become even yellower. Less greens will move towards their complementary color, magenta. Only colors around the center values -10/32 will not change much. Perform an equalize action on the A and B channels, and colors are driven way apart. In a normal photograph like this one, the values for both A and B are always limited to a small range. Also, remember that the color channels in LAB are extremely wide: many color values produce out-of-gamut or even non-existing colors. Remember the average value of the color channels in the initial selection: -10 / 32, a yellowish green. But all the moderating steps (fade 40%, reduce opacity to 30% and the mask) limit the luminosity effect considerably.įor the color part, the mechanism is the same, but the effect is more pronounced. Light pixels will get lighter, dark pixels darker. In our case, L values of the selection are around the midpoint (remember the average value of 47) but their range is somewhat limited. If the selection contains mostly dark pixels, it will largely lighten the image, and vice versa. mostly midtones) then the equalize causes a serious increase of contrast. If the selected area contains a limited range (e.g.
#How to use more than one mme effect full
The equalize action in step 2 spreads out luminosity values of the selected area over the full range. Fair enough, we could expect these values. That means: slightly on the dark side, green with a good dose of yellow. Should we average the selection in the original image, the LAB values measure 47 / -11 / 32. The important ones are 2, 4 and 6, and the really crucial part is the equalize step. To understand how this works, look back at the steps listed above. Let me start with an example image, figure 1. If you have never heard of this action before, I don't expect you to understand it from above description, so I owe you more explanation. For the color layer, create a mask that reveals pixels according to their saturation neutrals are completely masked, fully saturated colors completely shown.For the luminosity layer, create a mask that reduces the effect slightly for darker parts of the image.Still on the same layer, repeat step 4 for the B channel.This again will spread out the A values of the selection over the whole range (-128 to 127) and apply this effect to the whole image On another duplicate layer, select the A channel and equalize that.Fade the previous action to 40% to weaken the effect.Roughly said, this means: spread out the L values of the selection over the whole range (0 to 100) and apply this effect to the whole image. On a duplicate layer, select the L channel and equalize it based on the selection.But before we get into the details, the steps. It matters what the dominant colors and luminance values of the selection are, and how much they are spread. This selection is advisory only, but highly crucial for the outcome. The user is supposed to start with a selection. Very schematically, and leaving out many details, it works as follows. It is a strange beast for sure, a unique action that deserves special attention, both from the retoucher and from myself, trying to analyze the PPW steps.įirst, let's have a look at what MMM does. Modern Man from Mars (or MMM as it is often referred to) seems to escape the strict PPW structure and take its own place. This is a workflow step that affects both hue and saturation, but looking at the result of the panel action, it also affects luminosity. The main purpose of this action is to enhance color variation. Right after the contrast enhancement steps, when we return to color, an action is called for that is mysteriously called "Modern Man from Mars". I like to think of these as Hue - Contrast - Saturation but it's not so simple. Roughly speaking, the major steps of the PPW can be divided in three parts: Color - Contrast - Color again.