Pimp my Pixels!

[curtiswheat]

As a member of several photography forums I have noticed a few editing threads out there that allow those who are not very strong in the editing side of our ever changing side of digital photography.

How about a thread where some of those shots that are just not quite right or just need that extra little boost can be posted and tweaked by those who like editing?

 

[ukcatfan]

We had one a couple years back, but it was hard to find someone with enough time to keep it going.

 

[curtiswheat]

I'm your man!

 

[ukcatfan]

You should send a message to rtphokie. He is this board's mod and he runs the weekly contest. He could fill you into any details you would need to get it going.

 

[Ashmanarion]

Just to keep the thread noticed because I love the idea. Here's a picture I took tonight of the setting sun off some clouds with storm clouds rolling in. I can't seem to get the orange quite the way it was naturally though. Didn't shoot it in RAW like I probably should have to work on it, but I did do some leveling and a tiny bit of sharpening.

 

[Mosca]

But I didn't see it....

 

[Ashmanarion]

Thanks Mosca. I think the problem was that my camera could not pick up the sun on the clouds as much as my eye could. What did you do the picture?

 

[Mosca]

Oh, I worked and worked on it for hours, bringing my knowledge and experience, and my artistic eye which for years and years has been acclaimed, from Brussels to Beijing...



I loaded it into Lightroom 3, and went to the white balance tool. I selected the eyedropper, which is a sampling tool, and I put it over the part of the photo which I thought should be about 18% gray (lower right corner), and clicked.

 

[Ashmanarion]

Thanks so much for working on it.

 

[Mosca]

I was expecting to do more, but when I did that it looked "right", I dunno. I tried some other stuff, but kept coming back to that.

Nice dramatic sky, btw. I like the photo, it was a joy to look at and work with.

 

[Ashmanarion]

Well I was hoping to capture the different light effects coming off the cloud but failed for the most part. The weather was turning quickly so it was really neat to try and capture the feeling.