How to make this football scene pop?

Nihilation

I took this shot a few months back and did a quick edit on it last night. Basically all I started off by duplicating the layer, which I set to overlay at ~30%. Then I did a little noise reduction and a slight color curve adjustment.

I feel like this is a photo that has 'wow' potential but not sure how to get there. Any thoughts? Am I just blowing smoke? :dunno

johng

Well, I don't have my laptop here at work so can't get into other PP efforts. But in general, the biggest issue is the receiver in the right of the frame - he's too much of a distracting element since he's out of focus. So, a tighter crop is certainly a benefit.

Something like the attached.

Also, I think you did a bit too much noise reduction on the image - there's a lot of lost detail / texture in the arms and grass. The exif was stripped so I can't tell, but that can also be a result of over-cropping the image to begin with. To my eyes it's the combination of those two things - loss of detail and distracting element of the receiver which are the biggest downsides.

Anyway here's a quick crop - still see the rain / snow but the receiver is less of a distraction and, IMO, there's more tension because of the tighter framing:

r3t1awr3yd

I can't wait to get home to try playing with this pic

sonny_c

Nihilation,

Could you post the SOC photo and let us play around with it?

Until then I did a quick 5 minute edit done on my laptop.

I added four layers total. 'First Layer' (copy of the original photo and place above original photo) is a Topaz Adjust 4 filter named 'Recovery Highlights' reduced to 50% opacity. 'Second Layer' (copy of original photo and place above 'First Layer' is another Topaz Adjust 4 filter named 'Detail Strong' reduced to 50% opacity. Then I added masks to the 'First & Second Layers' for the rain in the dark sky and on the bleachers. I didn't want the rain to have any sharp details over powering the foreground.

'Third Layer' (placed above 'Second Layer') is a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. Brightness is set to +9 and contrast is set to +7. 'Fourth Layer' (placed above 'Third Layer') is a Vibrance/Saturation adjustment layer. Vibrance is set to +40 and Saturation is set to 0.

jiro

Mind if I try?
Here's my idea on how to make it "pop" a little bit.

jiro

Part 2.
Your pic would also look great converted to B&W.

Nihilation

Here's the original unedited image, just resized by flickr:

sonny_c

Edits on SOC photo.

Nihilation

SOnny - I'm digging it! Mind sharing what the steps you took?

digidrone

Nihilation kewl capture 1st off
Looks like everyone had the same idea in mind....grin
Here's mine



Lots of ways to take it....

MJRPHOTO

Here is mine

Svennie

I would take this crop: