Photo Of The Day.

[Paul_D]

Walking off the Christmas excesses around Fountains Abbey on Wednesday I took this (Mulled Wine in hand).

 

[Steve Randles]

I had a quick play with it Paul, hope you dont mind.

 

 

It would have been a great place to get inside and take some shots of....

 

Steve...

[Paul_D]

Wow!.....I don't mind at all Steve, in fact I'd appreciate you giving me a quick run down of what you did to the shot to improve it so dramatically if you wouldn't mind.

 

We go along to the Abbey quite regularly as we're NT members (and also to Bolton Abbey which is the nearer one to us). It is pretty awsome inside it so I'll take some shots next time then.

[Steve Randles]

Well you would need Photoshop CS2 to start with as the first command below is not in the previous versions. But here we go

 

1. Image/Adjustment then click on Shadow/Highlight, bring out the shadows a little.

2. Image/Adjustment/Curves create a classic "s" curve but for this photo as the sky is so bright anyway, it only needs to be very slight.

3. Image/Adjustment then click on Hue?Saturation and increase the saturation by 2-3.

 

Thats it, only very slight adjustments...but enough.

 

Both 2 and 3 can be done by clicking the half white/half black circle (add new adjustment or fill layer) at the bottom of the layers pallette. Which is how I do it. This way the different layers can be turned off or deleted easier. But if your not sure about this use 1,2 and 3 above.

 

Steve...

[Paul_D]

Thanks for that Steve. I only have Photoshop Elements and Canon's Digital Photo Professional to work with but will have a go myself.

[Snatcher]

Nice photo and clever editing Steve I have yet to get past the level and crop stage yet. Promise to have a bash in the near future. I have JASCPAINT SHOP PRO 9 and ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENT 2.0 at my disposal. Just need to learn how to use them

 

Any advice on where to start would be appreciated

[Guest CJS2]

Paul D and Steve, hope you dont mind but I've had a play as well, inspired by Steve's CS2 offering. Before I go on, this is not a competition, or me having a go, I just thought the comparisons were interesting, thought they were worth sharing? hope you agree.

 

 

Image 1. My thinking, PS Elements 2, I use it as my preferred manipulating package and its cheap, what can be done? Well image one is ok but it took me a long while, 10 minutes to get it acceptable, and I had Steve's CS2 original as a reference. I prefer the slightly less punch of Image 1 but still feel that its not right in comparison to Steve's CS2, (a Nikon owners view).

 

1

 

 

Image 2. The surprise came here with 'PS Elements 4', I never use E4, it has sat on my computer for a year, so I was starting from scratch! One key stroke 'auto smart fix' wow, thats it, how easy can that be!?

 

2

 

 

Image 3. So I then started fiddling a little more with E4, and came up with this, no where near the amount of effort as required with E2, a little closer to Steve's CS2?

 

3

 

The intention was not to try to do better than Steve, I wanted to see, initially for myself, where I could go with the cheaper 'Elements' versions of PhotoShop. Not knowing how much better they had made E4, I know now. Heard good reports of the recently released 'Elements 5', be looking for a copy for myself very soon.

 

So what do you think, does the affordable 'Elements 4' press your buttons?

 

The other thing the above demonstrates very clearly, is how much detail is held in an under exposed shot, food for thought?

 

Cliff

Edited December 29, 2006 by CJS2

[Steve Randles]

Definately food for thought.

 

There is in the golden rules of photography one that states "Expose to the right" this means when you have taken the shot and your viewing it and the info after the fact, you can see that the histogram is bunched up to the right. If the histogram is bunched on the left its overexposed, highlights will be blown with no hope of recovery. Incidently, a "perfect" exposure would be represented by a perfect "bell curve" that starts at the very left and finishes at the very right, forming a "bell shape" inbetween the two points. In my expierience this perfect bell shape does not happen much.

 

I like the differing versions you have done Cliff but as I suspected they are all over-sharpened, okay for web viewing but not for print as I think it would show even more. Look to where the sky meets the Abbey and a white halo can be seen, zoom in on this area and you'll also see the black inner line. But hey-ho thats exactly what sharpening does. My CS2 version use the info thats there and simply brings out the pixels for easier viewing. Yes there are a million and one ways to alter an image for the better and if I was forced to use elements I think I would opt for the "auto-fix" one.

 

I'm not sure what you did in the last one, but I think if you either did not sharpen it of faded the sharpening afterwards a little...it would be a winner!!

 

Nice comparison Cliff

 

Steve...

[Paul_D]

Very interesting stuff. I haven't had a chance to have a go myself yet...but it seems I've a lot to take in. Cheers fellas.

[Guest CJS2]

Definately food for thought.

 

I like the differing versions you have done Cliff but as I suspected they are all over-sharpened, okay for web viewing but not for print as I think it would show even more. Look to where the sky meets the Abbey and a white halo can be seen, zoom in on this area and you'll also see the black inner line. But hey-ho thats exactly what sharpening does. My CS2 version use the info thats there and simply brings out the pixels for easier viewing. Yes there are a million and one ways to alter an image for the better and if I was forced to use elements I think I would opt for the "auto-fix" one.

 

I'm not sure what you did in the last one, but I think if you either did not sharpen it of faded the sharpening afterwards a little...it would be a winner!!

 

Nice comparison Cliff

 

Steve...

 

 

One suspects these are the short comings of the cheaper versions? I used very little sharpening, and of course not knowing the camera used there may be atomatic application of same in the first place. Obviously the manipulation was for computer screen viewing, as are 99% of my pictures.

 

But I will bear this in mind for the future. Also coming to appreciat recently that the razor sharp image can look very hard and uninviting, sharpend or thats how it is because of good glass or something? Another lesson learned, 'sharp' is not always the best?

 

Wonder if the fact that we are dealing with 800 pix wide? that will enhance the white hallow, the pixels are quite large as I blow it up?

 

Again food for thought?? One day I will splash out on the CS2?? Hear that 'Elements 5' has almost all the special features, including the Graph type colour manipulation, I think that was what I read, a month or two ago now??

 

Cliff