need photoshop help, please

sara505

This was taken on the beach--one of many mother/daughter portraits I took on the beach last week. (to see more, go to www.sarapiazza.com >families>lesley and lilia) Taken during the golden hour, a time I can count on for superb results, but I'm not happy with this batch. Shot at ISO 200, AV, exp comp +1/2, fec -1/2 (a combination that usually works great in this lighting). What's wrong with this picture? Is it my monitor? the natural, sallow skin tones of the subjects? the pink and green outfits? the lighting? or? How can I fix these? I tried tweaking levels, curves and contrast, but still not happy. Please help.
I am still getting inconsistent results with my 10-d. Discouraged. Shot a wedding last weekend, on the beach 3pm--some great shots, some--many--too dark. I feel like billing myself as "formerly a professional photographer."
Thanks in advance.
Sara

Shay Stephens

There is not much contrast in the photo, which is not a bad thing, but if you are looking for more "pop" then try editing the levels (e.g. 25, 1.10, 220).

Next you may want more golden color to show up, so hit it with a +15 saturation adjustment.

Does that get you closer to where you wanted to be? If not, what is bugging you about the photo?

Andy

Shay Stephens wrote:

but if you are looking for more "pop"

Did you say "pop" ?

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1100284
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1075277
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1086744

Andy

Andy wrote:

Did you say "pop" ?

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1100284
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1075277
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1086744

20 second example from the pop tutorial:

pathfinder

I think the image needs a better black point - overall the image is too lacking in contrast and saturation to my eye..

I moved the black point and the white point in towards the center ( or you can increase the slope of the curve in the Lightness channel and got this...

pathfinder

A trifecta!!!:D

All within 10 minutes of each other

Andy

pathfinder wrote:

A trifecta!!!:D

All within 10 minutes of each other

Heh. You went a bit further than I, and it's probably better. Hard to tell at the small size.

pathfinder

Thanks Andy.

I did not attempt to alter the color balance of the original image - but I think my version is ever so slightly too yellow. I tried a light blue filter over my rendition, but didn't really like it any better than what I posted up above either. I think the right color is somewherre between yours and mine.

sara505

You guys are awesome--thank you! : Big help. Since I am mostly self-taught in p.s. there are lots of nuances I have not figured out yet. As for Shay's question, "what's bugging me about the photo," I think the combination of pink and green, with the skin tones, is bothering me--even with the corrections.

Would there have been a better way to expose these shots to get more contrast in somewhat flat light?

Thanks, Sara

pathfinder

Add a little off camera fill flash, maybe?

imann08

For color/contrast corrections I don't ever open the levels dialog. I think it's basically worthless when you have the curves adjustment layer to use instead. There are a couple of methods with the LAB color space that can be useful. One for enhancing specific hues is to use the Apply Image command to overlay the A or B channel into the Lightness channel. For instance, if you want to enhance yellows in the skin then you would overlay the B channel into the lightness channel. Understand that you can invert the A or B channel when you apply it to the Lightness channel.

In your picture in particular, you could apply the B channel into the Lightness channel and invert the the B channel in the Apply Image dialog box. This would lighten the background and enhance the skin and hair a bit. That's just a guess though. I'm gonna try it myself here after I post this.

To get enhanced color, you can Apply Image the A and/or B onto themselves in overlay mode. With skin you will want to do both as they are both necessary to achieve the red of skin. If you want to increase one more than another then you can adjust that with the opacity setting in the Apply Image diaglog box.

I should mention that these moves should be done on duplicate layers. You want these moves to go too far. Once you are done in the Apply Image dialog box you the use the Opacity slider in Layers to adjust it to your liking. It gives you quite a bit of control to get it right where you want it.

To add depth into the skin without making it too contrasty you can use the Unsharp Mask Filter (USM) and use a high radius and low amount. The radius will vary depending on the size of the image (somewhere between 10 and 50 or so) but the amount will always be under 100%.

Those are just a couple ways to take care of things that are different than the everyday levels and curves adjustments.

imann08

This is a bad example of what you can do with some of what I just explained. I did this quickly so it's not very good. I have over sharpened it a bit and you may not like the color I took it too. This is all easily adjustable with nothing more than the opacity slider in the Layers pallete though. I also enhanced the background water's blueness. That can be taken out completely I just gave it a go. I usually do it too much as the case here.

More or less I was just showing that you can really boost thing and do it with relative ease.

Isaac

sara505

pathfinder wrote:

Add a little off camea fill flash, maybe?

I actually did. I have been happy lately, in this type of light--diffused, or open shade--with +1/2 exp comp combined with -1/2 fec. Seems to be a nice balance most of the time. Perhaps this situation warranted more flash?

Shay Stephens

sara505 wrote:

Would there have been a better way to expose these shots to get more contrast in somewhat flat light?

Flat soft light, by it's very nature, has little contrast. So you would have to add contrast to the light by adding some hardness (what many mistakenly call "harsh" light, but don't get me started down that path right now hehehe). You can do so with a reflector, flash, and even at times some negative fill (black light absorbing material off to the side of the subject). Anything that interupts the omni-direction of the light to make shadows darker will help.

The trick is to create harder shadow transitions and highlights that will push to the ends of the histogram.

I should add, for maximum contrast, that the light from flash should not come from the cameras position, you want to interrupt the flat light, so light coming from the side would add more contrast than light coming from the lens axis.

Shay Stephens

imann08 wrote:

This is a bad example of what you can do with some of what I just explained.

You might want to consider using levels and saturation, it's quick and effective

Aard

A quick attempt using a couple of actions from http://www.1clickactions.com - ShadowContrastBoost and a subtle PopGlow.

md.jpg

sara505

Aard wrote:

A quick attempt using a couple of actions from http://www.1clickactions.com - ShadowContrastBoost and a subtle PopGlow.

md.jpg

I like this--there's life!

I will be able to figure this out using the link above?

imann08

Shay Stephens wrote:

You might want to consider using levels and saturation, it's quick and effective

My logic is why use levels or saturation when a better result can be obtained with curves? There are times when Hue/Saturation is the way to go but I am talking about normal pictures.

I have become a believer in the methods of Margulis so I am biased in this area admittedly. With the example that I posted, I went over board. I have a tendency to do this. I still have trouble when it comes to fine tuning images to the right amount of contrast or saturation of color or the amount of sharpening that I use. These problems that I am having due to my inexperience does not detract from the effectiveness of the methods though.

sara505

imann08 wrote:

My logic is why use levels or saturation when a better result can be obtained with curves? There are times when Hue/Saturation is the way to go but I am talking about normal pictures.

I have become a believer in the methods of Margulis so I am biased in this area admittedly. With the example that I posted, I went over board. I have a tendency to do this. I still have trouble when it comes to fine tuning images to the right amount of contrast or saturation of color or the amount of sharpening that I use. These problems that I am having due to my inexperience does not detract from the effectiveness of the methods though.

I just finished totally reworking the images from this session, using levels--25-1.10-225 and adding saturation. All of the comments have helped. I have basically been intuitively fumbling around with photoshop for years--I still have a very early version, so can't add the "one-click" feature just yet. I've learned a lot--specifically, how to use the three points on the levels slider together. Never knew to use them together. What I deduced from today is, to add contrast, slide the dark and light points together; tweak lightness with center point. Thanks, will have more questions. Stay tuned.

pathfinder

Imann - your suggestion to use adjustment layers and apply images can work great - I use those commnds frequently , and prefer to use adjustment layers for subtle alterations of my images too. But I believe Sara would not be able to duplicate that easily - it is easy to do IF you know how, but rather hard to learn from a few sentences of text. She is just learning how to use the Levels commands to increase contrast as she says in her last post. Next, she will begin to explore the powers of curves, and maybe some day, curves in LAB too.

But for now, she just needed a little more information about Levels - black and white points and brightness levels.

Sara - You did use fill flash - great - But as Shay and I pointed out, it needs to be OFF camera to increase the contrast in that nice soft light. Maybe a little more + FEC with the flash set 45 degrees or even 90 degrees to the shooting axis.

Duffy Pratt

Here's what I did. This works well for portraits generally.

First I copied the Background Layer. Then I set the mode for the new layer to luminosity. I then did Apply Image, and applied the Green channel in normal mode to the image at 80% opacity.

Then I converted to lab. I created a curves adjustment layer and checked to see where the high and low points were on the people. I control clicked on the high and low points and then boosted the high point a bit and lowered the low point some, to increase the contrast on the subject of interest.

Then I went back to the background layer, and copied it. On the new layer, I selected the A channel, then hit the ~ symbol to show the full picture while the A channel was still selected. Then I went to Apply Image again, and applied the A channel to itself in overlay mode. Then I selected the B channel, went to apply image and applied the B channel to itself in overlay. I reduced the opacity of this layer to 26% (its a reduction to taste.)

Then I went to the Background Layer, selected the A channel and did a Hiraloam sharpen in USM using 55, 15, 12 as the amounts. Converted back to sRGB and saved.

The whole process took alot less time than it did to write up. Maybe 2 minutes. This process works with all sorts of portraits, virtually anything that is dominated by skin tones and does not have a significant cast to it. It's based on a formula that comes from the last chapter of Margulis' Canyon Conundrum book, and I think that anyone with photoshop could learn how to use it, whether or not they understood exactly what it is doing. (Im not sure I understand it completely.)

Duffy

sara505

pathfinder wrote:

Imann - your suggestion to use adjustment layers and apply images can work great - I use those commnds frequently , and prefer to use adjustment layers for subtle alterations of my images too. But I believe Sara would not be able to duplicate that easily - it is easy to do IF you know how, but rather hard to learn from a few sentences of text. She is just learning how to use the Levels commands to increase contrast as she says in her last post. Next, she will begin to explore the powers of curves, and maybe some day, curves in LAB too.

But for now, she just needed a little more information about Levels - black and white points and brightness levels.

Sara - You did use fill flash - great - But as Shay and I pointed out, it needs to be OFF camera to increase the contrast in that nice soft light. Maybe a little more + FEC with the flash set 45 degrees or even 90 degrees to the shooting axis.

Pathfinder-thanks, you totally get me. I would be embarassed to tell you how many years I've been mucking around with photoshop, having no outside help whatsoever, just clicking on things. I've learned more in one day than in several years.

So, my next issue is, I have made index prints of the 80 or so images from that afternoon on the beach, using zoombrowser. My images appear similar to the ones posted here, and I did use the parameters offered--25-1.10-220--but the index prints are totally washed out--very light. I have good ink supply, chose 'quality,' but, wow, the index prints don't look anything like the images on the screen.

I just did this the other day with a wedding, the index prints were simpatico with images in ZB. So, I dunno....oops, I just checked...somehow the slider slipped back to 'speed.' :cry

that's it for me, it stopped raining, I'm going for a walk.:):

ttyl

imann08

pathfinder wrote:

Imann - your suggestion to use adjustment layers and apply images can work great - I use those commnds frequently , and prefer to use adjustment layers for subtle alterations of my images too. But I believe Sara would not be able to duplicate that easily - it is easy to do IF you know how, but rather hard to learn from a few sentences of text. She is just learning how to use the Levels commands to increase contrast as she says in her last post. Next, she will begin to explore the powers of curves, and maybe some day, curves in LAB too.

But for now, she just needed a little more information about Levels - black and white points and brightness levels.

I mistook where she was. I made the false assumption that she was at a level where LAB work would be an option. My bad. With that consideration, my methods would not be the way to go.

imann08

Duffy Pratt wrote:

Here's what I did. This works well for portraits generally.

That is basically the same process I used here. As I have just found out, it's a bit much to help the person concerned. It may seem easy to us but that's cause we've read Margulis' book a million times. At least that's how many times it took me to grasp it.

The one thing I didn't understand is why you need the LAB curves when blending the color channels into themselves already overdoes it. Also, you probably should remove the reds that are darkened when you apply the green channel in RGB.

Shay Stephens

imann08 wrote:

That is basically the same process I used here. As I have just found out, it's a bit much to help the person concerned. It may seem easy to us but that's cause we've read Margulis' book a million times. At least that's how many times it took me to grasp it.

The one thing I didn't understand is why you need the LAB curves when blending the color channels into themselves already overdoes it. Also, you probably should remove the reds that are darkened when you apply the green channel in RGB.

I find all of that needlessly complex. Beginner or experienced, having a quick and easy method that is easy to understand and *reliably* duplicate is worth its weight in gold to some

What good is a complicated technique that even those familiar with it can't effectively and consistantly implement?!?!

Shay Stephens

sara505 wrote:

and I did use the parameters offered--25-1.10-220--but the index prints are totally washed out

Those numbers are not magic numbers that apply to any photo. They just applied to that one example photo. For best results, you would select custom black point and white points (effectively smart contrast) and gamma if needed. Then adding in a pleasing amount of positive or negative saturation is usually enough to produce usable results for any purpose.

Special needs might involve color casts, adding or removing using filters or RAW editor (if you shoot in RAW). But that is another story

Duffy Pratt

imann08 wrote:

The one thing I didn't understand is why you need the LAB curves when blending the color channels into themselves already overdoes it. Also, you probably should remove the reds that are darkened when you apply the green channel in RGB.

I wasn't quite clear. The lab curve was in the L channel only, to increase contrast on the subjects. So there was no overdoing it with the A or B channel overlays.

The only red that was darkened in a bad way (to my eye) was the pink dress. It went from being a soft pink to a darker red. I tried using the blender sliders, but further investigation showed that there was no channel where I could separate the dress from the people's skin. So that option was out.

The other possibility would have been to build a mask that blocked the dress, and frankly, I didn't feel like it was worth it. I don't mind the darker red dress that much. Is there another part of the picture where you think the reds have obviously darkened to much?

Duffy

Duffy Pratt

Shay:

Margulis' books increase in difficulty and complexity from chapter to chapter. In the early chapters he gives very easy to use techniques that will help anyone. As you progress, the information he gives is on the cutting edge for people who do color correction professionally. The techniques are useful because they work magic. They are less difficult to do than they are to completely understand. He also provides some "formulas" that anyone can use, but his basic approach is that people will better be able to do things if they understand what they are doing.

Formulas help you with the small range of images they are designed to work for. But its at least as useful (for me, if no-one else) to know why something works and how it might apply to some other situation.

Duffy

imann08

Duffy, I think in your correction the lips of the little girl's lips got worked also. Those were the only two areas that I was referring to. As far as knocking them out with Blend If, I don't know if you are attempting this in RGB or if you are waiting until you get to LAB to do it. If you wait until you get to LAB and don't flatten the image in the transformation, you have more room to work with than you did in RGB.

Shay, I think that what DUffy says is correct. Once you understand them, they are easy to do repeatedly and reliably. Of course, if you have a load of photos, you can always do one, stick what you did in an action, and then batch the rest of them. No matter what you do though, no two pictures can be done the same way. Sure, you can click auto levels and call it a day but I don't think anyone wants that.

Duffy Pratt

imann08 wrote:

Duffy, I think in your correction the lips of the little girl's lips got worked also. Those were the only two areas that I was referring to. As far as knocking them out with Blend If, I don't know if you are attempting this in RGB or if you are waiting until you get to LAB to do it. If you wait until you get to LAB and don't flatten the image in the transformation, you have more room to work with than you did in RGB.
.

You know, for the most part, I think that people want darker lips so I don't think I even looked at the girls lips. You may be right about them being too dark, mostly because of her age. We will accept much darker lips on a grown woman than on a girl.

And yes, I flattened the image before moving to LAB, so I didn't look at using the sliders there, and I can see that it would probably would have worked. I hadn't thought before about converting to LAB and then using the blend sliders. So thanks for the tip: you can learn something every day.

Duffy

imann08

Duffy Pratt wrote:

You know, for the most part, I think that people want darker lips so I don't think I even looked at the girls lips. You may be right about them being too dark, mostly because of her age. We will accept much darker lips on a grown woman than on a girl.

And yes, I flattened the image before moving to LAB, so I didn't look at using the sliders there, and I can see that it would probably would have worked. I hadn't thought before about converting to LAB and then using the blend sliders. So thanks for the tip: you can learn something every day.
Duffy

I'm getting this from the LAB book. Doing the Blend If in LAB just gives you options that you don't have in RGB. That's not to say that you need to do it there all the time but if you can't do it in RGB then that's an option.

As far as flattening before transferring to LAB goes, if the only thing you are using in your RGB file is multiple layers that only have blending modes of either Normal, Luminosity, or Color, then you should hold off the flattening until you get to LAB. LAB simply blends them together better than RGB can. Sometimes you wont be able to tell the difference and other times it's more significant. Therefore, I just do it when the above is the case. If you are using any other blending mode or an adjustment layer then, of course, you have to flatten before the transfer.