Photoshop Help please
Discussion
Hi, I need a bit of help. My sister and her husband went to China at the end of last year, and was disappointed with her photos (which are only snaps), which were taken with a compact camera (don't know what). So as a thank you for feeding and watering us at Christmas, I decided to stick the images on to a portable hard drive, tinker a bit in photoshop, get them printed and put them in an album for her.
I'm a PS novice, but most of them only needed straightening, cropping, levels and a bit of saturation. I'm stuck on the ones of the Yangtse delta though, which are very misty. Can someone give me a pointer of anything else I can tinker with to bring these a bit more alive? An example is below.
I'm looking for tips for parameters to alter, rather than for someone to do it for me, because there are dozens of them!!
I'm a PS novice, but most of them only needed straightening, cropping, levels and a bit of saturation. I'm stuck on the ones of the Yangtse delta though, which are very misty. Can someone give me a pointer of anything else I can tinker with to bring these a bit more alive? An example is below.
I'm looking for tips for parameters to alter, rather than for someone to do it for me, because there are dozens of them!!
jeez, RudeGirl...you could've given us a better image! 
OK...I played with: lassoo tool - colour balance - unsharp mask - measure tool (to straighten) - saturation and contrast.
Only played for 2 minutes...I expect it to be done a lot better by someone more proficient with PS than me.
Martin.
OK...I played with: lassoo tool - colour balance - unsharp mask - measure tool (to straighten) - saturation and contrast.
Only played for 2 minutes...I expect it to be done a lot better by someone more proficient with PS than me.
Martin.
I would send them all through Auto Colour correct (provided you have set up the dark, light and midrange values correctly in levels) and then send them through an unsharp mask (I don't have my cheat sheet with me at the moment or I would give you values).
The good thing about both of these is you can save the whole process to an action and then automate it from within photoshop...
ErnestM
The good thing about both of these is you can save the whole process to an action and then automate it from within photoshop...
ErnestM
Ok, quickly for this one image:
Mask out each hill seperately using lasoo, cleaning up with quickmask save each as alpha channel.
Copy and paste each hill on to new layer, run shadow hilite over each one, followed by some brigntness contrast/colour balance to your taste.
Mask out sky (save selection), apply selection as layer mask to new layer, fill layer with linear b/w gradient. Appy appropriate blending mode. Re select Sky apply mask to adjustment layer. You could repeat using a clouds layer and fade that using the same linear grad as part of a compound mask.
Repeat for water. But add a sharpen filter and vary the gradient.
Add a couple of total adjustment layers, group as layer set and colour crunch.
Don't forget to feather the selections or you will get halos around the areas you have adjusted.
Things you want to alter are, saturation of the sky, making it a bit darker with more of a graduated feel. Bring out the hills slighly make them more imposing without over contrasting them, and also bring out some of the detail in them. Richen the colour of the water slightly. But as the scene was misty then you want to retain some of this feel, so don't go too crasy with the saturations. If you over blue the sky it will look unnatural, you need to keep the whites prety much white.
That should do it. Drop me a line or a mail if you need a bit more of a detailed breakdown.
Chris
Mask out each hill seperately using lasoo, cleaning up with quickmask save each as alpha channel.
Copy and paste each hill on to new layer, run shadow hilite over each one, followed by some brigntness contrast/colour balance to your taste.
Mask out sky (save selection), apply selection as layer mask to new layer, fill layer with linear b/w gradient. Appy appropriate blending mode. Re select Sky apply mask to adjustment layer. You could repeat using a clouds layer and fade that using the same linear grad as part of a compound mask.
Repeat for water. But add a sharpen filter and vary the gradient.
Add a couple of total adjustment layers, group as layer set and colour crunch.
Don't forget to feather the selections or you will get halos around the areas you have adjusted.
Things you want to alter are, saturation of the sky, making it a bit darker with more of a graduated feel. Bring out the hills slighly make them more imposing without over contrasting them, and also bring out some of the detail in them. Richen the colour of the water slightly. But as the scene was misty then you want to retain some of this feel, so don't go too crasy with the saturations. If you over blue the sky it will look unnatural, you need to keep the whites prety much white.
That should do it. Drop me a line or a mail if you need a bit more of a detailed breakdown.
Chris
Quick and easy:
Auto colour with values set at:
Shadow
R 20
G 20
B 20
Highlight
R 244
G 244
B 244
Mids
R 133
G 133
B 133
And then an unsharp mask at 85% 1pixel 4 threshhold
also, and just because I think this picture lends itsself to it, a lens flare:
Best of all - these settings can be saved to an action, you can set Photoshop to batch process and then go have a nice cuppa while you wait for PS to do all of the work...
ErnestM
Edited to add - sorry forgot to say that the picture actually had TWO helpings of the unsharp mask at those settings...
>> Edited by ErnestM on Saturday 21st January 02:13
Auto colour with values set at:
Shadow
R 20
G 20
B 20
Highlight
R 244
G 244
B 244
Mids
R 133
G 133
B 133
And then an unsharp mask at 85% 1pixel 4 threshhold
also, and just because I think this picture lends itsself to it, a lens flare:
Best of all - these settings can be saved to an action, you can set Photoshop to batch process and then go have a nice cuppa while you wait for PS to do all of the work...
ErnestM
Edited to add - sorry forgot to say that the picture actually had TWO helpings of the unsharp mask at those settings...
>> Edited by ErnestM on Saturday 21st January 02:13
I agree, Joust. There is a slight chromatic abberation around the mountain and the sharpening actually increases the impact of that on the photo. Rudegirl, you may want to correct that before sharpening and then just use a single unsharp mask at the settings that I gave instead of two.
ErnestM
ErnestM
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