Fixed an image.. Need feedback.

Bayer-Z28

What do you guys think? THe first one is the original. The second is the 'fixed' image. I think it looks pretty good, but what can I improve on?

I messed w/ unsharp mask, sharpening, gamma correction, hue and curves. CS3, btw... Also, the second pic appears a bit more pixalated upon resizing than it did on PS..

Bayer-Z28

Here's two more.. Original and the PS version.. I'm still learning how to use this program. I just got it earlier this week.

I think I added a bit too much contrast to this one..


EDIT: WOW... THat's WAY too much of something.. Too much sharpening and too much contrast.. and I effed up the curves. Nothing drastic as far as the graph.. Ehh.. I'll mess w/ it tomarrow.. I'm going to bed..

pyrtek

Both are extremely oversharpened. I also prefer the more contrasty
sky of the original in the first pair.

Bayer-Z28

^ Yeah... I'm starting to notice that now... A bit too much.. It's kind of hard to tell when you're doing a lot of very subtle changes, untill you look at the finished result compared to the new one.. .


Yeah..... Yuk... I gotta fix them.. I'll just start over from the original.

Updated version. I started over and I didn't make such extreme sharpening adjustments.. VERY little this time.. I was trying to bring out the foreground, but I suppose it would be difficult w/ out an under exposed version to layer... Hmm... I can make a duplicate and just under expose it then layer it..

jjbong

Bayer-Z28 wrote:

What do you guys think? THe first one is the original. The second is the 'fixed' image. I think it looks pretty good, but what can I improve on?

The question is, what are you trying to do with this? What do you want to fix? In your second image, you mentioned bringing out the foreground. Here, I'm guessing you want the sky to pop, and you also want the car more dominant.

Here's my attempt, which took a couple of minutes:




I did the following:

1. duplicated the layer, set mode to luminosity, and used Apply Image to put the background R channel into this layer. This increased contrast in the sky, and had the pleasant side-effect of lightening the car (normally, I would have to somehow limit the effect on the R channel to the sky, but in this case it did some good elsewhere)
2. .To make the car redder and lighter, I used Image->Adjustments->Selective Color to decrease the Cyan and Black in the Reds
3. There's not a lot of detail here, so HIRALOAM sharpening seemed in order (high radius, low amount). I used a radius of 10.4 and an amount of 50% on a separate layer. I thought the result was too much, so I lowered the layer opacity to 50%.

There are plenty of other approaches possible, depending on what you want to accomplish and how much time you want to spend on it.

Bayer-Z28

^ you kinda killed the car, but I see where you're going..

I still have yet to learn more layering.

pathfinder

PSCS3 allows the creation of Smart Objects, so that you can get an exposure for highlights and one for shadows from the same RAW files and then blend them with a mask. Kelby's 7 Steps book details this very nicely. I may get time to describe it in detail in a few days.

Your images are seriously oversharpened for viewing on the web.

pyrtek

pathfinder wrote:

PSCS3 allows the creation of Smart Objects, so that you can get an exposure for highlights and one for shadows from the same RAW files and then blend them with a mask.

You can do this without Smart Objects, as well.

pathfinder

Yes you can indeed.