image post processing

[spinetnglr]

I have really been enjoying this thread also and this is my first post of an edit I am really happy with. I used Lightroom3 for editing.

the original before I did anything:

I was really trying to get a picture of just one of these two fisherman alone with him situated between me and the sun as it was setting. I couldnt seem to get an angle that both of them weren't in the shot. So I took one that I did get and tried to make it more like what I imagined it would look like when I took it.

this is the end result:

My first step was to crop out the second fisherman and to clone out the portion of his net that was still visible in the crop. I tried cropping it first to eliminate everything behind him but it was too close so instead I cropped and cloned to get the composition I was looking for. I then adjusted the temperature to the 9700 neighborhood to give it more of a sunset color glow. Next step was to adjust the exposure to an underexposure to basically make the fisherman a silhouette. I did a little adjustment to the black clipping to make the fisherman even more just a silhouette and finally I adjusted the clarity to +70 which created more of a "sparkle" feel to the light reflecting off the water.

 

[SrisonS]

I have really been enjoying this thread also and this is my first post of an edit I am really happy with. I used Lightroom3 for editing.

the original before I did anything:

I was really trying to get a picture of just one of these two fisherman alone with him situated between me and the sun as it was setting. I couldnt seem to get an angle that both of them weren't in the shot. So I took one that I did get and tried to make it more like what I imagined it would look like when I took it.

this is the end result:

My first step was to crop out the second fisherman and to clone out the portion of his net that was still visible in the crop. I tried cropping it first to eliminate everything behind him but it was too close so instead I cropped and cloned to get the composition I was looking for. I then adjusted the temperature to the 9700 neighborhood to give it more of a sunset color glow. Next step was to adjust the exposure to an underexposure to basically make the fisherman a silhouette. I did a little adjustment to the black clipping to make the fisherman even more just a silhouette and finally I adjusted the clarity to +70 which created more of a "sparkle" feel to the light reflecting off the water.

Oooooo!!!! Great work on turning that around. You made quite the difference there.

 

[spinetnglr]

Oooooo!!!! Great work on turning that around. You made quite the difference there.

Thank you Scott!

 

[mrcricket]

But a great book to look into is Scott Kelby's Lightroom 3 book. I only have LR2 right now, but it's still extremely helpful. Also made me realize how much I want LR3 now.

So Scott I see you're a Kelby fan. I am too. Huge. I'm a member of NAPP and Kelby Training. I've learned a ton, I mean a TON from these sites.

I was just wandering if you've ever attended a Photoshop World, as once a year they have one in Orlando? I'm thinking of attending this coming year's Photoshop World in Orlando. I think I'd learn even more. We should get some Disers to meet up at the event. That would be great!

 

[SrisonS]

So Scott I see you're a Kelby fan. I am too. Huge. I'm a member of NAPP and Kelby Training. I've learned a ton, I mean a TON from these sites.

I was just wandering if you've ever attended a Photoshop World, as once a year they have one in Orlando? I'm thinking of attending this coming year's Photoshop World in Orlando. I think I'd learn even more. We should get some Disers to meet up at the event. That would be great!

I'm more of new Kelby fan. I've heard his books mentioned quite a bit; but it wasn't until recently that I decided to actually check one out.

I've actually never thought about attending Photoshop World. It wasn't until earlier this year that I even stepped into the Lightroom universe (no pun intended). But who knows, maybe I'll check my schedule to see what happens next year.

 

[SrisonS]

I'm still constantly learning the ways of night photo processing. And I know that the masters out there could definitely breakdown the techniques better than I can *ahem*Tom*ahem*. But here goes......

Exposure 13 sec.
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 100


0116 Levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

The first thing I did was crop out all of the unnecessary dead space at the top and sides. This was actually "hard" for me to do, because I really didn't care for pics that were more square (only for my pictures though.... because I like when others do it..... Strange); I tend to go for more of a widescreen look. But it fit this shot, so I had to do it.

After that, Fill Light was added to lighten up the dark areas of the photo; which as you can tell, is most of it. I'd say that was the main change to turn this shot around; while most of the other adjustments were just 'tweaks'. The increase in Recovery helped to knock down the brightness of the lights, which also made those neon lights have more of rich color. And on that same note, the decrease in Luminance had the same effect; but I was able to adjust each color individually, to really fit what I was going for.

Final Product.....

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow....Land by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[ColleenG]

Thanks so much for posting this Scott! I think I have the photography aspect down, now I just really need to learn how to pp better. I liked seeing your before shot. That's what a lot of my night shots look like and it bugs the heck out of me that no matter how many different things I try while shooting, I'm not getting those "Tom" kind of shots. I think I will be adding Lightroom to my Christmas list! Oh, and by the way, Tom, you are my night shots idol! Scott, I have learned a lot about composition from your shots!

 

[tlcmommyx4]

Scott, I will second that, your are so great at post processing!!! I love your night shot. I went out tonight and bought the Lightroom 3 by Scott Kelby and between the book and what I have learned from you, I might have a chance. I will be at Disney in 23 days and I just can't wait to see the world with my DSLR and my new Tokina 11-16mm. Thanks again

Tom, I love your stuff so much too that I bought your calender!!!!!

 

[EeyoreEma]

OK, y'all are just so amazing! Scott, I'd like to just follow you around for a while and learn all the things you do - your photos, and editing, are amazing!! I don't have any real editing programs, but this thread makes me want to get something! Also, it makes me realize how much I still have to learn in the photography department - I'm very much a beginner, but I want to take pictures like all of you do!! Thanks for posting all this great work for beginner's like me to drool over.

 

[mrcricket]

I'm still constantly learning the ways of night photo processing. And I know that the masters out there could definitely breakdown the techniques better than I can *ahem*Tom*ahem*. But here goes......

Exposure 13 sec.
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 100


0116 Levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

The first thing I did was crop out all of the unnecessary dead space at the top and sides. This was actually "hard" for me to do, because I really didn't care for pics that were more square (only for my pictures though.... because I like when others do it..... Strange); I tend to go for more of a widescreen look. But it fit this shot, so I had to do it.

After that, Fill Light was added to lighten up the dark areas of the photo; which as you can tell, is most of it. I'd say that was the main change to turn this shot around; while most of the other adjustments were just 'tweaks'. The increase in Recovery helped to knock down the brightness of the lights, which also made those neon lights have more of rich color. And on that same note, the decrease in Luminance had the same effect; but I was able to adjust each color individually, to really fit what I was going for.

Final Product.....

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow....Land by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

Scott,
Since I can't see this really large I can't tell if you've done any sharpening or any noise reduction. The photo looks like it has had some sharpening and it looks fairly clean, but I always like to finish up with sharpening and especially on night shots to do some noise reduction. Other than that, I think your processing looks great.
Jonathan

 

[SrisonS]

Scott,
Since I can't see this really large I can't tell if you've done any sharpening or any noise reduction. The photo looks like it has had some sharpening and it looks fairly clean, but I always like to finish up with sharpening and especially on night shots to do some noise reduction. Other than that, I think your processing looks great.
Jonathan

Thanks for the great comments everyone!!!

And I did add sharpening to this shot. I sharpen all of my pics. As far as noise reduction, I didn't do that here. Someone pointed out that the sky looks noisy. But I wasn't sure if thanwas actual noise, or just an effect of all the lights in the area casting a slight red glow. I tried increasing the Blacks to help that out, but it made everything else darker than I wanted. Any ideas on what to try, that doesn't require way too much work??? Then again, I just learned some techniques on using the brush tool better. So maybe I can start there.

I also need to get in the habit of viewing my pictures in their Originsl size, to really focus on fixing the minor details. The noise issue didn't even stand out to me, until someone else mentioned it.

 

[SrisonS]

Trying to keep this alive!!!!!

 

[Kphoto]

Hi - newbie here...to the forum, not to post processing. What a fun thread! Gonna spend some time looking over all the previous posts. There's a lot of talent here.

Here's my before & after. Used Photoshop CS4.

Karen

 

[Experiment_626]

I was thinking that it might be nice to have a thread called something like "Disqualified: I couldn't enter the weekly contest!" Use it for photos that fit the theme of the weekly contests but which, due to having received more than "minimal editing," can't actually be entered into said contest. Any interest?

Scott

 

[Kphoto]

It sounds like fun! I enter a lot of before & after Photoshop challenges and love to experiment on pictures and add special effects.

Karen

 

[Experiment_626]

I was just wandering if you've ever attended a Photoshop World, as once a year they have one in Orlando? I'm thinking of attending this coming year's Photoshop World in Orlando. I think I'd learn even more.

I've been to Photoshop World about seven times, and will be going again in March. You will learn tons of new things if you go, and you'll be learning from the very best, surrounded by hundreds (thousands) of other more-or-less like-minded people. It's one of my favorite things to do -- outside of WDW, that is. I can't wait -- I'm more excited every year I go, and especially this year because I've had to skip a couple of years since I last went.

Tip if you're interested in going -- if you use Travelocity's "Top Secret Hotels" feature, you can get the official conference hotel for a third of the "special rate." At least, I did.

Scott

 

[SrisonS]

4621 Levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

The great thing about post-processing, is that you can make your picture look very close to how you actually saw the scene in person. Not to say this is exactly what I saw, but it's still very close. No camera can capture the dynamic range of highlights/shadows/colors that your eyes can see. But this shot is a great example of that. I knew right away that the sun wasn't gonna initially stand out like I wanted it to. I also knew that Fulton's was gonna be very much in shadows. One of the first things I did was to add Fill Light to this. This made the details in the shadowed areas come out some. And increasing the Black levels added some contrast to those areas. To bring out that warm/golden light in the final image, I decreased the Brightness and Increased the Vibrancy. To make the sun seem like it's radiating more of the sky, an increase to the Highlights was made. As far as Luminance levels are concerned, I decreased most of them to deepen the associated colors. And the Red was increased there to give the Fulton's sign a little more brightness. There is also some slight vignette added to the edges of the pic.

One cool thing about Lightroom is that it keeps the History of all the adjustments you made.... no matter how slight. So with the little preview screen over that History section, you can go back and see how your past adjustments affected the picture. One of these days, I should show all of the trial and error it takes to get some pictures to look the way I want to (I made 91 adjustments to this). It'd be cool to see how quickly (or how long) other people also take to process a picture. And although I wrote this with the sense that I knew exactly what I wanted to change, and how it would definitely affect the pic.... I really can't hit it on the head that good. I do a lot of just sliding the levels back and forth; and just jumping from adjustment to adjustment.... and going back and tweaking something I changed before. But that's what it takes sometimes.

Happy Processing!!!!!


Final...........


Downtown Disney Dusk by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[SrisonS]

3101 levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

Recently, I've had a couple of people wonder about the treatment to this shot. I basically start out with a Custom preset of mine, then just tweak things depending on the picture/subject. But here are screen shots of all that went into this image. Someone also asked if there is something particular you can do in Photoshop to obtain this look. Since I don't use Photoshop, hopefully posting these settings will help out.

One of the biggest changes to turn this around was the great increase to Temperature. Other notable adjustments are the decreases in Contrast and Saturation. Also, the decrease in Brightness helped to combat the major increase to the Fill Light that I did.

Final Image...


Anandapur Transportation by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Thank you!

 

[jimim]

I'm still constantly learning the ways of night photo processing. And I know that the masters out there could definitely breakdown the techniques better than I can *ahem*Tom*ahem*. But here goes......

Exposure 13 sec.
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 100


0116 Levels by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

The first thing I did was crop out all of the unnecessary dead space at the top and sides. This was actually "hard" for me to do, because I really didn't care for pics that were more square (only for my pictures though.... because I like when others do it..... Strange); I tend to go for more of a widescreen look. But it fit this shot, so I had to do it.

After that, Fill Light was added to lighten up the dark areas of the photo; which as you can tell, is most of it. I'd say that was the main change to turn this shot around; while most of the other adjustments were just 'tweaks'. The increase in Recovery helped to knock down the brightness of the lights, which also made those neon lights have more of rich color. And on that same note, the decrease in Luminance had the same effect; but I was able to adjust each color individually, to really fit what I was going for.

Final Product.....

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow....Land by Scott Smith (SRisonS), on Flickr

Scott,

Great pic! Do u find with lightroom that the fill light setting increases noise a lot? I'm always afaidcto use it. I also feel that I always overuse the recovery setting but it just appears to help so much with some blown out shots.

I never really mess with the luminance settings. I have always been Adair to go there to.

Do u have any opinions or suggestions?