Spiders, webs and tubes.

[Bevb]

Wanting to get to grips more using the tubes, i went out early knowing the spiders and their webs would be about in the early dew, taking Loupeys advice these were the best of the bunch, not clinched it yet, but i think getting better.


www.k9imageworld.com
www.bevbarkerphotos.com

[Loupey]

Yeah!!! See, it's easy and fun!

I see hairs on the spider's legs and on the leaf edge on #3. The detail is there. The tube, lens, and you seem to be on the same page :thumbsup:

I think the rest is in the post processing to tweak it out. I'm going to play with your images some of here.


Keep posting!

[Bevb]

Wey hey! so im getting there! yes it was fun and il definately be doing more.

Look forward to seeing your editing on my images, going to a 2 day dog show now over the weekend so will check when i get back Sunday evening.

[Loupey]

First of all, let me remind you that I bought CS2 just a few months ago and I haven't utilized some the tools which would probably make my life easier (like adjustment layers, masks, and such). But I have found some basic steps which work for me. For those of you out there that I know are PS experts, please follow up with your techniques

That being said, let's first look at your image #3. Here's my crack at it:

1) Curves: did a reverse "s" to flatten the contrast a little (to undo some earlier contrast adjustment)
2) Shadows/Highlights: increased shadows 5%, decreased highlights 7%
3) Levels: changed input levels to 25, 1.15, and 240
4) Color Balance: shadows (magenta -30, blue +20) and highlights (blue +15)
5) Shadows/Hightlights: hit the highlights again by 7% to tone down the leaves
6) Curves: did a small standard "s" curve adjustment to bring up the contrast
7) USM: a slight sharpening of 25%, with 1.5 radius, and 0 threshold.

I'm sure that these steps could be simplified/optimized. Just an example of the incremental steps I normally take to bring out the image. Some steps seem to offset earlier ones but I found these to help preserve detail while maintaining high dynamic ranges.

The adjustment amounts seem rather high to me but I was trying to recreate that bright, contrasty look that must have been there originally.

[Loupey]

OK, here's image #1. Again, trying to preserve the bright, contrasty look:

1) Shadows/Highlights: shadows 0%, highlights 15%
2) Curves: another "reverse s" to flatten the image even more
3) Levels: input levels to 25, 1.15, 235 to bring up the initial contrast levels
4) Curves: put in a standard "s" curve to accentuate the contrast
5) Color Balance: midtones to -5 cyan, -10 magenta, +10 blue
6) Levels: input levels to 10, 1.00, 255 to compensate for color balance change
7) USM: slight increase of 25%, 1.5 radius, and 0 threshold.

What do you think? Does this help?

Like I said, if anyone can do it easier, let us know (I really need to buy that book everyone keeps recommending )

[OBie]

Wow Loupey. If ever there was an argument for investing in Photoshop, this is it! I looked at Bev's originals and liked them. Then I looked at your redos and was bowled over! Definitely a thread on post processing needs to be started (as I saw in the list of threads a minute ago).

[Loupey]

Thanks, OBie. Yeah, it is a significant bite to the checkbook but well worth it. Especially if you are simply upgrading. Even if you have Photoshop LE (which I believe comes with many cameras and scanners), you can get some discounts.

I lucked out. I bought the cheapest upgrade CS2 even though my version Photoshop at the time (5.0) wasn't on the list. It turned out that version 5.0 didn't even qualify as it was an upgrade as well - along with my previous version 3.0.5 The nice folks at Adobe and I traced my original full version to a version 3.0 (long time ago) and activated the cheap CS2 upgrade with that!

It's too bad that CS2 isn't included with DSLR's. It's kinda like they give you the keys to the photo lab but some of the nicer pieces of equipment are broken.

Still beats printing Cibachrome prints with an agitating drum. And after an hour, maybe 1 print looks kinda sorta like the slide.