Phillip Mackenzie - Photographer

So I was watching Deke McClellan’s “dekePod” podcast and he has a lesson on why not to fear the LAB color mode in Photoshop, because it’s the closest to the way that humans see! Watch the video and you’ll be itching to try it out, which I did. So here’s the original, straight-out-of-the-camera shot:

Here’s the histogram in RGB:

And here’s what it looks like if you adjust the levels in RGB (to the same extent that I adjusted it in LAB):

Notice the gaps in the histogram; that’s where there’s absolutely no color information at all! It’s just gone!

So here’s Deke’s method: open it in Photoshop, convert it to LAB color, then adjust it with crazy (!) levels of saturation. This is more than I’d usually do, but it’s still pretty awesome how super-saturated you can make your images in LAB mode. Now the best part: after you’re done, convert it back to RGB and then look at your histogram. It should look clean, without those pesky gaps:

And here’s the corresponding image (with sharpening and vignette/blur from TRA):

Try it! Just play with the sliders in LAB mode, and see what effects they have on your image. It really is surprisingly intuitive. Deke says it in a fabulously entertaining way, but here’s the message: Don’t fear the LAB!