Ok, what happpens when you take a pic of a knife and it stinks? If you have a digital camera then just re-shoot. If you have a film camera and dont know the pic stinks until the film is developed, it maybe to late. There are any number of reasons for a photo to turn out bad. Dont worry to much though, they can be fixed. Now before we go on, I eant to say that there is no substitute for a well done photo, but sometimes you have no choice other than to work with what ya got. Soooo....load your pic from a digital or scan a print and lets get to work.

This is an example of a terrible photo that is in dire need of touching up before its displayed. Now, the most common thing people do is grab the camera and point and shoot with flash and all. Many times that is all they know how to do, so thats what I did for this example.

First pic:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=110070&a=12288620&p=47280136&Sequence=0&res=high

Now, the knife is my Mike Cooper hunter with stag handles and a scotch brite finished blade. Notice how the flash causes the blade to really turn out dark, and the handle looks like crap too. All around a really crummy pic. Ok, onto the fixing.

Steps for repair.
1. The blade - I used photodeluxe and in the menu bar I went to selection. I chose the polygon tool and with the knife at 300 percent magnification I carefully used the tool to outline the blade. Now, since the blade turned out so black (the extreme oppisite of its natural color) I went to the effects option in the menu bar. From there I went to negative. If you have ever seen a film negative, you see that colors are flip-flopped for lack of a better term. Thats what the negative function did for this blade. Flipped it from black to white. Now, you see in the above pic how there is a dark gold tint in part of the blade? Well, the negative function turned it blue. So, to get rid of that I again went to the effects in the menu bar and in there I selected black/white. That makes the selected part of my photo (the blade in this case) only have black and white properties. Next in the menu bar I selected quality. From there I selected brightness/contrast. I decreased the brightness until the blade was a shade of medium grey. To get rid of any blotchy spots in the blade, I also decreased the contrast. I then went to the text function, and using dark grey letters, I put the makers name where it is on the knife. It doesnt look exactly true to life, but it serves its purpose. And presto, the blade is finished.

Now on to the handle. All I really did here was to use my polygon tool, select the handle. I then brightened it and sharpened it up a bit. Its not perfect, but its definately better than the original picture.

The background. For the original picture, I just grabbed an old sheet and tossed the knife on it. So, I went and snapped a quick photo of a table top. Then I went to the effects section and just messed around with the various selections in there. You can do tons of different stuff to pictures with them. For mine, I gave it a heavy swirl, then gave it a crackle pattern. A very slight yellow tint, and it was done.

After getting the background how I wanted, I then went back to the repaired knife picture. I used my polygon tool to outline the entire knife, removed the original background and added my new digital background to it. Then I added a shadow effect to the knife and this is what I ended up with.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=110070&a=12288620&p=47280137&Sequence=0&res=high

Now I know this is not perfect, but it is an illustration of how a poor photo can be salvaged when you need to. There are any number of problems that can hurt a picture, and there are almost an equal number of software fixes. All it takes a messing around and practice. Hopefully this will help people in some small way to better show off their prized knives.

The above example covers a very tiny portion of what can be done. If you have a specific problem you need help with, ask it here. I will try to help, and if I cant I am sure that others here can.

Whoops, got a little long winded didnt I? Sorry :p

Just catch your breath and keep going!! This is the kind of help alot of people need.There are many of use that has put all our money in our shops that we just can't possibly spend more on programs,cameras,etc...:(

Thanks for bringing it to the level that ALL can understand.:)

Long winded? Hey, more wind please! This is good stuff.

Richard ...

Masterful work! Very nice ...

Alex

You sure make it sound easy.

Thanks for the positive response folks. I understand that many maker probably sink most of their money into shops and materials. So I have a feeling that you need an inexpensive way to do your photos properly. A person can make the finest knife in the world, but if all you can show is a crummy pic than people cant appreciate it as much. What I demonstrated above is the "cheap" way to do it. I used photodeluxe, as that is what comes with many digi-cams and scanners. Its a cheap software pakage and easy to obtain. The pics in the demo were taken with my 1.3mp Olympus digital camera. It is well under 300 dollars for it or a similar model. So, all you need is a basic good quality camera (software usually included) and time and practice.

By the way, if you are having any trouble getting a decent pic of a knife, post the pic here that you have. If it is fixable, I will attempt to fix it and post the revised photo here and explain step by step how I did it. That will give you a place to start practicing. So start putting them up here and lets see what we can do with them :)

http://www.zing.com/picture/p8837ea01b289d1c6cebab42dd5e28f22/fe8f2177.jpg.orig.jpg
shrunk the image down to fix the width on this thread!


Richard, think this one has any hope?

It's a Trace Rinaldi TTKK with a 5 1/2" blade in Bg42 with micarta handles and mosaic pins. It's a scan with my flannel shirt as the background.

Ok, heres what I came up with. I will say a few things up front here. First, the handle in the original was almost to dark to do anything with. Dark enough that no grain pattern was visible even with attempts to bring it out with the software. The handle pins were OK though, although they lost a bit of detail in order to shrink the pic down to a convenient size for the forum. Also, scans are limited as far as viewing angles and such. Anyways, enough excuses from me :p

First thing was to get rid of the gold blade. All I did here was use the selection tools command and chose the polygoon tool. After using it to outline the blade I brightened it up about 50 percent. After I had the desired brightness, I then changed the blade to black and white properties using that feature in the effects menu. The logo on the blade was very faded, so I zoomed in on it at 500 percent magnification. I then again went to selection tools and using the line tool at 1 pixel width, I selected a very dark grey color and traced it over the faded original logo. That part didnt come out exactly right (poor eyesight here) but it is now visible. I then went to effects, in that menu is a 'noise' selection, and from there a 'clean up jpeg' function. I then used it to smooth the blade a bit to get rid of some of the grainy appearence. Now the blade is done.

I wasnt able to do much with the handle, but I used the same polygon tool to outline it. I bumped up the brighness a bit is all. No other enhancement attempts had positive results, so the brightness is all I could do with it. After that, I used the circle command under selection tools and used it to select each of the mosaic pins and brighten them to the desired level...about 40 percent for each. I then used the same tool to select the thong hole and cange it to black and white since it was gold in the original.

The background is just part of your shirt that you used in the original. It was saved as a seperate pic so I could do whatever effects I wanted. Using the effects selection you will see many choices, just try some different things until you get one you like. Afterwords, I saved the altered background and reloaded the touched up knife pic. Using the polygon tool again I outlined the entire knife. Then, choosing 'special effects' then 'collage' then 'background effects' then change background. From there you will see a 'delete background' this will erase everything except the outlined knife. Then choose 'add background'. Then choose 'file'. From there I chose the file to be the altered background. After that, choose 'done' and save the final pic.

Here is the altered photo:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=110070&a=12288620&p=47689220&Sequence=0&res=high

As stated before, sometimes these heavily altered photos dont come out as well as hoped for, but can be an improvement over a faulty original.

My wife read this before submitting the post and thinks the instructions are confusing, so if you have any specific things that I didnt explain well, let me know and I will try to clear it up as best as I can.

Also, if you have any specific backgrounds you would like future pics on, let me know as sometimes my imagination is not all that good :)

Richard, You almost did what to me was impossible........
A masterful job!!! ;) Jerry will think you can fix all the pictures that he was ready to burn.

You know, I am going to feel really stupid if the blade was "SUPPOSED" to be gold :p

Steve, glad to see you made it back. Thanks for the good words. None of this is all that difficult, just a little trial and error. I guess its just somehow become a neat little hobby to me. I enjoy doing it and also enjoy sharing what I have learned with others....keeps me out of the pool halls :)

Nope, blade isn't gold, it's bead blast. The scan mucked up the colors. As for the image size, all I can say is photopoint compressed the image, I'm now using Zing and they don't modify the image at all!

Hey Rich can I play too?

Max entered this pic a few weeks ago in the contest here, and it wasn’t a bad pic, but most pics can be improved. Since this is my knife, I can tell you, the after is a lot more accurate reproduction of how the “blued” blade and red stag handle really looks.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=254126&a=1889226&p=47804059&Sequence=0&res=high

I’ve been lurking here for a while and really enjoyed all of your photos. Most could have been improved with a few simple steps in Adobe PhotoDeluxe, which is a very inexpensive program. It makes no sense to me to go to all the trouble to photograph a knife and not spend five extra minutes making it look the best it can.

Here is a link to my scanned version of the same knife.

albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=254126&a=1889225&p=41165687&f=0 (http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=254126&a=1889225&p=41165687&f=0)

Well Phil, its about time you popped in here :) Interestng sidenote: Phil is probably the person who helped me most with my photos. He is darn good at this stuff and is definately one to listen too.

Anyways Phil, glad to see you here, I always enjoy your work.

Of course it's easy to get carried away, (like JerryO's scrolling screen of death) :eek:

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=254126&a=1889226&p=47809350&Sequence=0&res=high

Richard,
You have struck a chord in everyone who would like to improve their images with a program like Photoshop.....
whatever. You have given me some needed enthusiasm that I know someone who can sprinkle that magic on my images (God knows they need it);) and help me with what I always thought was a "witch-doctor program". I hope that you make this into a tutorial so everyone can benefit. Thanks for coming aboard!!!
Steve



knifephotography.com
"Great pictures sell knives"

Steve, I intend to set up a web site, and also have a tutorial on photdeluxe (just the parts I know). I would also encourage everyone to submit what they know about it, and it can be included in the tutorial with credit of course being given to the contributer. This will be in the future however as my wife is having medical difficulties and will be undergoing surgery next week. During this time I will be spending time helping her recovery and such and making sure her needs are met. Until then, all my photo stuff will be a "spare time" thing. So, when ya think I have vanished next week, im really here just attending to other things.

Wish you and yours well and a speedy recovery.First thinds firt!!!!! :)

Rich, sorry to hear about your wife, I'd like to wish you both the best and I hope she has a quick recovery.

I like the idea of your website. I'd like to offer the shortest tutorial on Adobe PhotoDeluxe I could think of. I hope it helps?

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=254126&a=1889226&p=47855149&Sequence=0&res=high

Pretty simple huh?
I admit that's not all this photo could use, but I think it's the least this pic deserves.

Phil,

Welcome to the CKD! Great work there partner!

Get signed up for a user account, so we can send you the newsletter's and announcements.

We always have room for another PRO!

Help him "Log-in" men ...

Alex

Thanks for the nice welcome Alex.
I'm just about to switch my ISP and E-mail, so I've been waiting to sign up here. One less thing I'll have to change later. I appreciate being able to post in the meantime while not being a registered member.

I know a lot of people who play Games on their computers, but I've never found a practical application for the amount of time spent. I've preferred to spend my time playing with PhotoDeluxe and more recently PhotoShop. I would strongly suggest that anyone who is taking pics to put on the Net get themselves a copy of PhotoDeluxe. It's an easy program that anyone can learn to use, and the best part it gives you a lot of control over your pics.

Hey Mike and Phil, thanks very much for the well wishes. They are indeed appreciated.

Surgery will be wednesday, so as you can imagine the closer it gets the more nervous she gets. Anyways, thanks alot.

Richard, Hope your wife is much improved by now because it's my turn for a little surgery. Cover my butt for a while. Having back surgery so I don't know how long it will be 'til I can sit in front of my computer. You are doing a great job and so is PhilL.