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  #1  
Old 06-06-2009, 10:14 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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Photoshop help with a non knife photo

I took a picture of a covered bridge here in Oregon and punched the detail up using HDR. I really like the effect it has on the bridge making it appear 3 dimensional and like the additional detail of the clouds. The first picture is the original and the second is the HDR. I obviously need to do some corrections (using CS3) to the HDR pic but I keep trying and am not pleased with the results. Any guidance on how to perfect it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.



HDR photo


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  #2  
Old 06-07-2009, 08:05 AM
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mete mete is offline
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First I find the bushes in the foreground a distraction.I would crop out the lower half of the bushes which would leave some for the three dimensional effect but no distraction.
The photoshop of the bridge looks artificial like the hand coloring of the old black and white postcards.
The bridge is very plain and flat looking and certainly could use some help.You've made the sky and background mountains too dark. It would be nice , I think , to get a beam of sunlight on part of the bridge for some interest.
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  #3  
Old 06-08-2009, 09:24 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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Thanks for your response. I agree the bridge looks a little artificial and that the clouds / trees in the upper center of the picture are too dark. This is what I am trying to get suggestions on (how to lighten with a mask) to improve the image. I personally like the fact that the clouds give the image more dimension but definitely need to be lightened some. I may just resort to replacing the sky. I did re-crop the image but am limited due to composotional elements. I have included the re-crop so you may see the effect of the re-crop.

[IMG][/IMG]


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Last edited by Barbara Turner; 06-09-2009 at 01:26 AM.
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  #4  
Old 06-09-2009, 10:11 AM
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mete mete is offline
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Yes that's an improvement .I would only suggest that you darken the clouds just a bit. I'm not a photoshop person so I can't help with that.
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  #5  
Old 06-09-2009, 04:35 PM
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Buddy Thomason Buddy Thomason is offline
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Hi Barbara - HDR is a great new tool but so far there doesn't seem to be concensus about the qualities of an image that make it suitable or not suitable for HDR. I think any discussion of HDR or an HDR example would benefit by asking that question about the scene in question.

You are implementing a personal artistic vision so there is no right or wrong, good or bad. I'm not sure what the vision looks like in your mind's eye, but here are a couple of my edits just for fun:





I typically don't use masks in PS so I'm not able to speak to that aspect of this.


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  #6  
Old 06-09-2009, 07:14 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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Thanks, Buddy and Mete.

You have both given me an idea. I have been so desperately trying to work with the photo cropped where I had it, that I just overlooked cropping down low. I have removed all the distracting plants in the foreground per Mete and converted to
Black & White, plus warmed up one of the images in Aperture so it looks like an old time photo. The 3rd image is the one with the Sepia tone. Let me know what you think. The only problem with the last 2 images is the banding in the sky. I am working on a solution.

Thanks, Barbara

Black & White


White Balance Adjustment


Sepia


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Last edited by Barbara Turner; 06-09-2009 at 07:22 PM.
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  #7  
Old 06-10-2009, 02:41 AM
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Buddy Thomason Buddy Thomason is offline
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For purposes of scale, depth and context... I'd keep the vegetation in the foreground.

After thinking and looking some more, I've decided that what really keeps this image from being exceptional is the dominant horizontal line created by the straight on view of the bridge. Over time I've subscribed to the notion that horizontal lines are to be avoided. They don't promote 'flow' which is created by lines that move at an angle across the frame. I know, Barbara, that this isn't helping you with this particular image - probably because you can't go back and shoot the bridge again and you have to make this image work for your purposes. If this is the case, I can empathize in spades as any photographer would.

Speaking of covered bridges, here's one I shot some pictures of down in North Mississippi. It's a close crop but the angled lines are there. How would it look if all the lines were horizontal?



While not a great image, this one would be ever so much more boring without the sloping tree line in the foreground.



So, not only am I no help... I won't shut up either.


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Old 06-10-2009, 02:47 AM
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PS: One thing you can try that might reduce or eliminate banding is to reduce the black in the sky. In Photoshop, go Image - Adjustments - Selective Color - black.


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  #9  
Old 06-10-2009, 12:12 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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Thanks for the tip on reducing the black in the sky. I will try that. I can go back and shoot the bridge next time I am up that way. Overall I like the picture, but agree it needs to be shot from several angles to see what looks best. Thanks for all your help.

P.S.

Keep talking otherwise we can never learn.


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  #10  
Old 06-10-2009, 08:14 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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These 2 are the best I can come up with. I will need to re-shoot the bridge. They could still use some minor tweaking but for the most part I am done editing. Let me know which you prefer. Thanks, Barbara





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  #11  
Old 06-11-2009, 09:42 AM
fred carter fred carter is offline
 
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bridge photo

Barbara- here is my modification of the scene - I selected the sky and darkened it using curves then modified it again with levels. The foreground plants were cropped a bit and blurred to make them less involved to make the bridge stand out more. Then the whole photo slightly adjusted again with levels. Photoshop 7 Fred
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  #12  
Old 06-11-2009, 06:08 PM
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Fred's blur technique is a good one.

Barbara - I vote for #1 in your post #10. But before you send it out into the world representing your work as a photographer, do correct the pink color cast that you've somehow introduced into that most recent version. It's everywhere but most evident in the white of the bridge, in the clouds and on the water in places. It would be important to retrace your steps and figure our how that happened so you can avoid it in the future. That kind of thing can happen easily and it happens to me most often when I've simply worked on an image too much for too long: I tend to lose my objectivity. In Photoshop you can use the dropper tool with the info panel to get the RGB numbers by simply holding the dropper over the area in question. White white is 255, 255, 255 - black is 0,0,0. These are good reference points. As is always true with Photoshop, there are umpteen million ways to do this or anything else one wants to do.

I do like the final crop you settled on. It's a lovely evocative scene.


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Old 06-11-2009, 06:17 PM
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Here are the measurements I got: Red-230, Green-213, Blue-180. Now you can see how the red dominates and a lot of the blue (some of the green too) has gone missing. You probably don't want pure white for the bridge but it could be a lot closer than it is.
My color version in post #5 reads 226, 218, 215 at the same location where I sampled yours - less red, a little more green and a lot more blue.


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  #14  
Old 06-12-2009, 03:40 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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Smile

I really appreciate all the suggestions. I was aware of the pink cast on the pics and it has been removed. Now if I could only learn to isolate just the bridge and warm up the backround that would be great. I will figure it out eventually. This is another version, although a little on the cool side. The second one is very slightly warmer that appears to have a touch of yellow & even very slightly pink to me in the clouds. This may be due to the fact that my monitor isn't calibrated. Is either a possibility if it was warmed up a little, or do I get a thumbs down. No, this is not a HDR photo but does have some Photoshop effects applied. Thanks for your continued guidance and support.





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  #15  
Old 06-25-2009, 12:32 AM
CWKnifeman CWKnifeman is offline
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The last shots look more natural than the origional one. By cropping just some of the bottom of the photo it brings it into more of the bottom third type of scenic photograph that looks more appealling to the eye.
What I mean is to basically break the photo into thirds. Bottom third is the main body, middle third is the main background, top third is the extreme background. There is nothing wrong with having horizontal images in a shot if it is broken up into thirds, this makes it appear as a naural occurance (which it is).
I hope this helps,
Curtis Wilson


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