Processing
Project Entry: Edit John's Photo
28/Sep/09 14:07
One of my favorite bloggers, Brian Auer, is doing another Photo Project. He asked users to send him photos they would be willing to share for another "Edit my Photo" contest. I wanted to participate in this part of the project - but of course, I forgot about it... But I did remember to vote on which photo should be used for the editing part of the project (You can find all entries here).
The winning entry by John Huson
I really liked the photo that got chosen, because I was drawn to the structure in the wall. I really wanted to focus on the wall for my entry for the project because I think it has a higher draw to it than the person pictured. Brian supplied me with the RAW version of the photo so I had a whole range of options at my disposal to play with the photo.
I started out by opening the photo in Photoshop CS3 and the Camera RAW editior. Next I tried the different outputs for changing the white balance. I decided to go with the results from the tungsten light, which gave the whole photo a nice blue tint.
The photo with white balance set to tungsten light
Next I decided to use a Lomo action for Photoshop I had downloaded some time ago and had gotten really great results from in the past (You can find this photoshop action here).
The photo with the Lomo action applied
I really liked the direction this was going and also how that yellow thingy on the ground was standing out of the photo but the guy in the photo had become too dark and the texture in the wall did not jump out at you, either. Due to this, I decided to keep playing with the photo.
My next idea was to make a new layer with the original photo on top of the lomo-rized version and try different blending modes. The one I decided on was "overlay"
The guy in the photo is looking even worse but the wall had gotten a really nice texture. Now that I liked the wall, I decided to see what I could do to bring the guy in the picture back to a look where you can see his face. For this I made two additional layers on top with the original photo. In the lower one I used the masking tool and only left his face visible and used the blending mode "Lighten", which brought back the details in his face but he still did not have enough contrast in comparison to the rest of the photo, so I selected the whole of him in the next layer and masked this and used Overlay again. This increase the contrasts in his clothes and his skin a lot. Lastly, I decided to use a curves adjustment layer and played around with it until I was satisfied. The result of this I liked to much, that I decided to enter it as my entry into the project:
My final edit
If you want to partcipate in the project, you can do so until October 16th
The winning entry by John Huson
I really liked the photo that got chosen, because I was drawn to the structure in the wall. I really wanted to focus on the wall for my entry for the project because I think it has a higher draw to it than the person pictured. Brian supplied me with the RAW version of the photo so I had a whole range of options at my disposal to play with the photo.
I started out by opening the photo in Photoshop CS3 and the Camera RAW editior. Next I tried the different outputs for changing the white balance. I decided to go with the results from the tungsten light, which gave the whole photo a nice blue tint.
The photo with white balance set to tungsten light
Next I decided to use a Lomo action for Photoshop I had downloaded some time ago and had gotten really great results from in the past (You can find this photoshop action here).
The photo with the Lomo action applied
I really liked the direction this was going and also how that yellow thingy on the ground was standing out of the photo but the guy in the photo had become too dark and the texture in the wall did not jump out at you, either. Due to this, I decided to keep playing with the photo.
My next idea was to make a new layer with the original photo on top of the lomo-rized version and try different blending modes. The one I decided on was "overlay"
The guy in the photo is looking even worse but the wall had gotten a really nice texture. Now that I liked the wall, I decided to see what I could do to bring the guy in the picture back to a look where you can see his face. For this I made two additional layers on top with the original photo. In the lower one I used the masking tool and only left his face visible and used the blending mode "Lighten", which brought back the details in his face but he still did not have enough contrast in comparison to the rest of the photo, so I selected the whole of him in the next layer and masked this and used Overlay again. This increase the contrasts in his clothes and his skin a lot. Lastly, I decided to use a curves adjustment layer and played around with it until I was satisfied. The result of this I liked to much, that I decided to enter it as my entry into the project:
My final edit
If you want to partcipate in the project, you can do so until October 16th
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Not all HDRs are equal
16/Aug/09 21:08
As you might know, I really like to work with HDR files from time to time and I always prefer to keep them pretty close to natural looking (just with a higher dynamic range). Some time ago I spent a day playing tourist guide to friends in Frankfurt, which was kinda fun since you never look at cities you consider your home the same way as tourists would (in fact, this was the first time I had my camera with me in Frankfurt). During that photo shoot, I took almost exclusively three RAW files of every file to be able to make HDRs since the sky was super blue and I didn’t have an ND filter with me.
One subject was especially suited to HDR: a dark gate under an overhanging on which the sun was shining.
This is how it would have looked as a normal photo (totally unprocessed)
It’s really not too bad but the gate does not really pop and you can’t really see all the details in the structure. Therefore I took three shots with the AEB automation with exposure of +/- 2 to get extreme differences in exposure.
As I said, I had taken a lot of shots for HDR processing that day, so I decided to do a batch processing in Photomatix, which is pretty great, even though I can’t do much more with my Mac while this is running. I always let it do three versions of the photo (the two options you find under tonemapping and the fusion option with automatic lighting). The best version was this one:
As you can see, it is pretty close to the originall, just the gate itself is a lot lighter and the reflections in the glass are more pronounced. There is also more contrast in the stones. But I wasn’t totally satisfied with it, so I tried a few more ideas:
The first was a version for which I made the HDR in Photoshop CS3 and then used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix in Photoshop. The result can be seen below and while I liked this version, the details in the gate do not come out at all, in fact, I have a lot of artifacts in the darker areas (remember, click any photo to see a large version).
Then I decided to try Hydra, a HDR app for Macs (I am still using the first version, though), which has pretty good results sometimes, too. This was the result from Hydra:
I didn’t really like this result because it did none of the things I wanted to accomplish, so I decided to fire up Photomatix once again and do a manual processing with it of the photo. I also decided to play a bit more with the levers in Photomatix than I usually do to get a bit more extreme results than usually. This is the version I finally decided on:
As you can see, its a much more moody picture than any of the other versions and the details look like they are supposed to look! It’s really amazing how different you can process an HDR and how different the results can look.
What do you think, did I decide on the right version?
One subject was especially suited to HDR: a dark gate under an overhanging on which the sun was shining.
This is how it would have looked as a normal photo (totally unprocessed)
It’s really not too bad but the gate does not really pop and you can’t really see all the details in the structure. Therefore I took three shots with the AEB automation with exposure of +/- 2 to get extreme differences in exposure.
As I said, I had taken a lot of shots for HDR processing that day, so I decided to do a batch processing in Photomatix, which is pretty great, even though I can’t do much more with my Mac while this is running. I always let it do three versions of the photo (the two options you find under tonemapping and the fusion option with automatic lighting). The best version was this one:
As you can see, it is pretty close to the originall, just the gate itself is a lot lighter and the reflections in the glass are more pronounced. There is also more contrast in the stones. But I wasn’t totally satisfied with it, so I tried a few more ideas:
The first was a version for which I made the HDR in Photoshop CS3 and then used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix in Photoshop. The result can be seen below and while I liked this version, the details in the gate do not come out at all, in fact, I have a lot of artifacts in the darker areas (remember, click any photo to see a large version).
Then I decided to try Hydra, a HDR app for Macs (I am still using the first version, though), which has pretty good results sometimes, too. This was the result from Hydra:
I didn’t really like this result because it did none of the things I wanted to accomplish, so I decided to fire up Photomatix once again and do a manual processing with it of the photo. I also decided to play a bit more with the levers in Photomatix than I usually do to get a bit more extreme results than usually. This is the version I finally decided on:
As you can see, its a much more moody picture than any of the other versions and the details look like they are supposed to look! It’s really amazing how different you can process an HDR and how different the results can look.
What do you think, did I decide on the right version?
Project: Edit my Picture
02/Mrz/09 21:01
Another blog project: This time the project initiator, Phil Price, asks participants to edit his photo, which you see pictured here, and to submit their results to him. In this post you’ll find most of my edited versions of this photo, including what I did and what I liked and disliked about each one. Of course, at the end of the post you’ll also find the photo I am submitting to his project Lesen Sie mehr...
Playing with Textures
01/Feb/09 04:37
A lot of people are playing with their photos and textures to give their photos a slightly different feel. I always wanted to try this but for whatever reasons, I never did. After downloading a few textures last week, I decided to finally try it on one of my photos from last year.
The photo is an HDR of a church in the Smoky Mountain National Park and is very moody due to the heavy clouds with the light coming through. It’s a prime example for a photo that pratically begs to be made look like it was taken 100 years ago. There are several ways to achieve this but I decided to go with some dark, grungy texture and giving both the photo and the texture a sepia color overlay. Additionally, I lowered the opacity and the fill of the texture to make it look more natural.
In addition to that I also cropped the photo so that the cars are not visible in the photo since they would not fit with the mood of the photo. After I had done that I felt that something was still missing from the photo, so I decided to add some old-looking frame to it, which makes it feel more natural and lets the texture seem more like a natural part of the photo.
What do you think of my first try at textures? It definitely was easier than I thought it would be - so if you haven’t be sure to try it
The photo is an HDR of a church in the Smoky Mountain National Park and is very moody due to the heavy clouds with the light coming through. It’s a prime example for a photo that pratically begs to be made look like it was taken 100 years ago. There are several ways to achieve this but I decided to go with some dark, grungy texture and giving both the photo and the texture a sepia color overlay. Additionally, I lowered the opacity and the fill of the texture to make it look more natural.
In addition to that I also cropped the photo so that the cars are not visible in the photo since they would not fit with the mood of the photo. After I had done that I felt that something was still missing from the photo, so I decided to add some old-looking frame to it, which makes it feel more natural and lets the texture seem more like a natural part of the photo.
What do you think of my first try at textures? It definitely was easier than I thought it would be - so if you haven’t be sure to try it
Different apps, different results
21/Dez/08 21:35
In November I did a one-week road trip starting in Atlanta, going to Gatlinburg, Charlotte, Charleston and Savannah. As you probably can imagine, I took a ton of photos on the trip. The hardest thing for photographing was the weather: pure sunshine with no clouds. This meant that the dynamic range was too much for my sensor, so I decided to use HDRs a lot of times. In the past I have used Hydra for this but sometimes Hydra does not give me the results I would like to have. Since I had a ton of photos on my Mac with three different exposures, I decided to try out Photomatix again. This was mainly because one photo didn’t come out in Hydra like I wanted it to look.
This were the three starting photos:
As you can see the middle exposure is not as popping as it could be (remember to click on an image to see a larger version). So I decided to try Hydra on it. This are the two results I liked best:
The first one is a simple overlay of the images and the second one it tone-mapped - although it is a bit too saturated for my taste. But somehow neither picture really resonated with me (especially since I was looking for the best look for the mountains in the background. So I decided to try Photomatix. If you have ever tried it, Photomatix has a lot more options for customizing the results of your HDR, which is a good thing but also makes it more complicated to use. Because of the many options, among others I got these results:
Neither one is really perfect... I decided to also try Photoshop CS3 but I haven’t saved that one because it didn’t look at all like what I wanted to have for my photo So I decided to try Photomatix again after I had decided to buy Photomatix to have more options for my HDR projects. The final result I came up with:
This were the three starting photos:
As you can see the middle exposure is not as popping as it could be (remember to click on an image to see a larger version). So I decided to try Hydra on it. This are the two results I liked best:
The first one is a simple overlay of the images and the second one it tone-mapped - although it is a bit too saturated for my taste. But somehow neither picture really resonated with me (especially since I was looking for the best look for the mountains in the background. So I decided to try Photomatix. If you have ever tried it, Photomatix has a lot more options for customizing the results of your HDR, which is a good thing but also makes it more complicated to use. Because of the many options, among others I got these results:
Neither one is really perfect... I decided to also try Photoshop CS3 but I haven’t saved that one because it didn’t look at all like what I wanted to have for my photo So I decided to try Photomatix again after I had decided to buy Photomatix to have more options for my HDR projects. The final result I came up with:
Quick way to make your picture a Polaroid
09/Nov/08 19:18
Two weeks ago or so I read a post about a pretty cool software on TUAW.com that I immediately downloaded to try it. What software that was? An app called Poladroid (currently there is only a beta for Mac OS X but they are also working on a Windows version) that allows you to simple drag your photo onto the icon of the app and it will start processing your photo as a Polaroid. It will start out as a blank Polaroid, just as it would when you use an actual Polaroid camera and it will start processing from there, slowly revealing your photo, which you can speed up by shaking the Polaroid.
It really is a very fast and convenient way to transform your photo into a Polaroid. I also like how it affects the colors of your photos, making it feel so much more realistic. The most pressing thing that is missing right now is the ability to choose the area it should crop to for the square size of the Polaroid. Here are some more examples of my photos transformed by Poladroid:
and the originals:
If you want to see more, feel free to check out my flickr set.
Playing with potential
20/Aug/08 19:33
Summary: A post on how I took this picture and made it look a lot better using selective coloring and cropping. Additionally, the picutre exampes will give you a good example of how the composition of a photo will have an impact on the overall impression you get from the picture. Lesen Sie mehr...
Presenting a photo to its best advantage
18/Jul/08 16:01
Summary: Last week in my entry „make it POP“ I spoke about selective coloring as a way to make your subject stand out more. While browing my photos from the trip to the Berlin Zoo I saw another picture that I thought would benefit from selective coloring. As you can see (if you look closely), there is a reptile in that tree looking directly into the camera. The problem? Nobody will be able to see him hiding in that tree because he has the same coloring as the leaves around him! Click on „Read more“ to find out what I was able to do to improve this shot. Lesen Sie mehr...