Who took the deck

[readingr]

Shot in London last Wednesday - grey dank day

[jar_e]

This composition looks great, but I can't really comment on it. It is waaaaaaay to pixely to make any sort of judgement or comments! Maybe try uploading a better one!

Jared

[readingr]

Shot in London last Wednesday - grey dank day

Jar try this version

[Dzerzhinski46]

Dear Roger,

Much better on the second (in terms of nonpixelated). I can't help but notice though, on the nice one, that it has a kind of brownish/smoggy cast to it. That might be in consequence of the clouds though. It also seems a little dim and dark. Maybe upping the gamma or curves. It is a little hard to critique as it is now, but from what I can make out, I like the linear pattern of the pilings.

Dzerzhinski

[Seb]

Shot in London last Wednesday - grey dank day

Roger, I think that this is a well composed shot. I like how everything fit into place. But, the lighting is flat/dark as it stand. You may want to reshot at a different time of the day (I would see this one with some directional lighting early in the morning...) or simply adjust level or curves in post processing. In fact, chances are that a little post processing could bring more details to the shadow and a little more drama to the whole scene.

regards

Seb

[gahspidy]

Roger, this is an interesting scene and I like the huge red pillars. good composition and framing. Brings me right into the pic. It does appear flat in lighting, but I think if you open it up in curves a bit by bringing up the shadow areas slightly, it would help. Good Show, Mate.

[jar_e]

Jar try this version

Much better and beautiful colors here! I love the redness of the poles!

Great shot!

Jared

[readingr]

Roger, this is an interesting scene and I like the huge red pillars. good composition and framing. Brings me right into the pic. It does appear flat in lighting, but I think if you open it up in curves a bit by bringing up the shadow areas slightly, it would help. Good Show, Mate.

Is this any better? The light was really flat on the day

[gahspidy]

Yes Roger, it is better but still a bit murky in high contrast and not ideal lighting. I hope you don't mind, I worked on the image some and painted a little more interesting lighting and brought out the details in the shadows. I also enhanced the sky some, not sure if you would like it but though some more elements will help keep the image a nicer visual. If you find you like this, i will explain some of what I did.

[gahspidy]

Hmmm. . .think I went a bit too far with the sky here, but just trying to give you an idea of how much more detail you can bring out from the shadows sometimes and what a little lighting painting can do to enhance what may be a flat day.

[readingr]

Its much better

Please explain how you get this to happen I spent ages trying to get detail in the sky - must get some training in this tool

[gahspidy]

Its much better

Please explain how you get this to happen I spent ages trying to get detail in the sky - must get some training in this tool

Basically. . .first I opened up the curves adj. and then upped the level on the bottom quarter of the curves line, thus bringing up the lightness in the shadow areas. Don't overdo it as it will start to "wash out" so do it until your satisfied that as much can be brought up without sacrificing image quality. Also, make sure to leave the bottm most part of the "curves line" where it is , o, to ensure that the black areas are true black. Then, while in curves, you can select at the top where it says rgb. .selct blue channel. Then in this channel just slightly bump up the upper area of the line to bring out whatever blue there may be in the sky. When satisfied, click OK.
Next, I duplicate the image( background) by right clicking on it in the layers pallette and selecting "duplicate". Then I set the opacity for that new layer ( called Background copy) to about 40% and set its propery to "multiply". Multiply layer does wonders bringing out detail and dramatics in the sky but also darkens already dark areas of the image. So now you will select your eraser brush, with an opacity setting of about75%, and erase the multiply effect (top layer) off of everything except the sky.
then flatten the image into one layer again. Now, you can try using the dodge brush to just highlight and mimick accent lighting in some areas of the water where there is already some evidence of light. then, finally apply a small, but noticeable amount of unsharp mask and that will further bring out some more detail and you should be better off than when you started. hope this was helpful and not too over the top for you.

[CarbonTerry]

Gahspidy,

Nice job on the “Who took the deck.” You are missing one of the most versatile features of PS (I take it that’s’ what you are using? If not, then this may help others.) Masking makes life much easier after you have learned to use them. It’s really easy once you start working with them.
After doing a curves correction New Adjustment Layer>Curves (or whatever you want to do) you will notice that there is a white box next to your curves “box” in the layer. That is a “mask”. When it is white it shows all of the adjustments that you made on that layer. If you use a soft edged black brush and click onto the mask “box” wherever you paint (on the image) the effect will be hidden! Using a lower opacity for the brush will partially hide the effect. The benefit here is that you are hiding an effect not erasing pixels. If you make a mistake or want to make a change later on all you have to do is to paint with the opposite tone and you can get right back to your starting point easily.
You can do a curves adjustment for the shadows ignoring the highlights if you choose and then do an adjustment layer for the highlights ignoring the shadows. Use your mask on each layer to paint out the areas that you don’t like and you have a well blended photo.
If you want to do a simple dodge and burn fill an empty layer above you image layer with 50% gray set to “multiply.” Paint on this layer with a soft edged brush set to white/black. Wherever you paint with black the image will darken. Wherever you use white the image will lighten. You can go back onto this layer and paint with the opposite tone to reverse the effect.
Happy PSing.

[gahspidy]

Terry, thanks for the helpful tips. Much appreciated. I am using PS 7.0 ( just aquired it). . There are lots of ways to do the same thing in PS,, and I have always heard lots of people talk of the great reasons to use masks, and i have not even begun to experiment with them, but I do need to set aside the time to learn . It seems to me the Eraser brush is not actuall removing or erasing pixels, it is simply reducing their opacity to the desired amount, and with the history brush, one can bring back to the original amount wherever you brush. I cannot debate you on this as I do not have experience at working with masks and therefore cannot weigh the benefits or results of the different aproaches, this is just a method that I have found very simple and effective and gets me the results i have wanted thus far. But I am glad you pointed that technique out as it will further push me to finally trying it out, as it does seem to be considered one of the powers behind PS. Thanks again

[readingr]

Gary, Terry

Thanks for the instructions. Played around with the curves and masks - works differently in Paint Shop Pro which is what I have. Will eventually get round to buying PS when I get a load of cash.

What do you think of this version? Spotted a few things I will have to watch for in the future

[CarbonTerry]

It looks as if the alignment of the mask is incorrect and the color of the sky appears to be too cyan.

[CarbonTerry]

Gary,
I mistyped some info earlier. The layer mode should be set to "overlay" when using the 50% gray layer for dodging/burning. Sorry about the error.

[readingr]

Gary, Terry

Do you have a good reference book for learning how to use these tools?

[gahspidy]

Roger, As Terry pointed out, you have not masked your edges properly as we can see the areas around the objects that protrude into the sky are missing effect around them looking very unatural. And yes, you have too much cyan in the sky. You have well in bringing out the details in the darks areas.
As I pointed out, I have not used masks , yet, and the method that I described will not leave you with "edges" that are not outlined correctly. I use layers, and eraser and history brushes.
As far as reference, there are lots of sites on the web as PS is a highly supported software, but I have only taught myself through experimenting and cannot recommend a site for you.

[CarbonTerry]

Roger,
I enrolled in a beginning PS course at a local college a few years ago. I spend several hours a week following free online tutorials. There are thousands of tutorials to do. I started by typing "free photoshop tutorials" in the URL bar and was off and running from there.
Good luck..

[gahspidy]

Roger, you did say you were using paint shop pro. I had used that for several months before getting PS, and even in comparison, I find that PSPro is a very good program, especially for the money!!
My opinion is, that unless you need to work with color management, and need to have the ability to do some basic adjustments in 48bit color depth( which honestly most people find it hard to tell the difference between two images of different colordepth and color space) you need not switch from PSPro to PS. save your money for a new lens!
That being said, I did find a site that I had come across a while back that has lots of instruction and tutorials that are well laid out for paint shop pro
try these
http://campratty.com/Resources/linda/sort1.html

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/paintshopprotutorials/

[CarbonTerry]

Should keep you busy for a while


http://www.vtc.com/productdetail.php...ealercode=A337

http://www.vtc.com/productdetail.php...ealercode=A337 this is a good one too

http://www.mccannas.com/pshop/menu.htm

http://www.tema.ru/p/h/o/t/o/s/h/o/p/

http://www.adscape.com/eyedesign/photoshop/four/links/

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...hotoshop.shtml a real good site

http://share.studio.adobe.com/axBrow...tType.asp?t=19

http://www.sketchpad.net/photoshp.htm

http://myjanee.home.insightbb.com/tutorials.htm

http://www.tutorialoutpost.com/photoshop-effects/20

http://www.heathrowe.com/tutorials.asp

http://www.icehousedesigns.com/tutor...orial_list.php

http://www.teamphotoshop.com/photosh...als/ps_tut.php

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/tutorials.html

http://www.good-tutorials.com/

http://www.davrodigital.co.uk/tutorials/howtoo.htm

http://www.wannalearn.com/Computers_...ons/Photoshop/

http://www.graphics-world.com/tutorials/Photoshop/ #2

http://www.photofoolery.com/tutorials_all.php

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/7 a JILLION Tuts

[readingr]

I did have to ask didn't I. Thanks to both you and Gary for all the help, its very much appreciated.

[CarbonTerry]

Be careful what you ask for....you may get it!