Critique My Photoshop Skills - DPChallenge Forums

09/23/2005 05:53:08 PM · #1

REPOST - I accidentally linked to someone elses photo earlier and just noticed. Funny thing was is that the pictures were very similar (both of mountains...sorry for the mis-post. Anyone else care to comment on my post below?
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Hey all,

I'm still in the process of trying to get the most out of PS to improve my shots. I worked on a few this morning and would love to hear what people think and if anyone has additional advice. I've included both the non-PS and PS version of both pictures. The night shot is another shot I felt like including as I took it at my bestfriend's wedding this past weekend. There was a full moon and this shot shows it just getting ready to come over the mountains above the wedding tent. I'd love some comments on that as well.

Thanks!

Message edited by author 2005-09-26 02:24:23.

yasemina

Nikon Coolpix 4300

09/23/2005 05:58:45 PM · #2

l love what you have done with the picture of the little girl..

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

09/23/2005 07:00:47 PM · #3

anyone else please?

Rikki

Canon EOS-20D

09/23/2005 07:10:33 PM · #4

I think you need to tweak levels a bit more... let me work on them...

Message edited by author 2005-09-23 19:11:16.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

09/23/2005 08:05:38 PM · #5

Took a stab at the landscape. The light is VERY flat, but for what it's worth:

Robt.

Apple iPhone 5

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

09/23/2005 08:22:36 PM · #6

I think you could go even further with the levels on the shot of the girl. It still looks a bit on the dark side to me.

Try increasing curves a bit more, and perhaps increase the saturation to make the colours stronger.

cdcootie

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF-S 15-85mm IS USM

09/23/2005 08:57:38 PM · #7

The adjustment you did of the child looked great to me but I couldn't resist messing with the landscape photo to lessen the haze
adj level = levels
adj level = contrast with mask of clouds and lower mountains

cdcootie

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF-S 15-85mm IS USM

09/23/2005 08:58:41 PM · #8

Originally posted by cdcootie:

whoops forgot the photo :-)

09/23/2005 09:20:29 PM · #9

Thanks to everyone for chiming in and offering some good advice. I appreciate the help and support.

Just got NeatImage today, so I'm going to try to learn about that tonight.

Take it easy,
Dave

09/23/2005 09:30:52 PM · #10

OK, so I just did one more version of the flower child picture. I used a little bit of NeatImage and some unsharp mask after that to make her hair higlights stick out a little more. I also bumped up the saturation per some of your suggestions. What do you guys think?

Thanks all!

09/23/2005 09:37:04 PM · #11

How about this take on the mountain photo:

Original:

My attempt:

09/23/2005 09:38:16 PM · #12

I really like your final flower girl pic. Nice work!

09/23/2005 09:45:00 PM · #13

Hey David - Thanks for the kind words. I like your take on my shot...seems even more sharp and a little brighter than mine. Did you just do some additional sharpening, saturation, levels????

09/23/2005 09:52:09 PM · #14

Originally posted by rasdub:

Did you just do some additional sharpening, saturation, levels????

I wanted to try some different ideas... so this is the route I took:

1) Created a copy of the background layer
2) Applied a heavy does of Local Contrast USM (something like about 150%, 90 pix radius, 0 threshold)
3) I set that layer to multiply and then dropped the opacity down to 40%.
4) Then I created a dodge/burn layer (a layer that is in Overlay mode filled with 50% gray). Then I tried to dodge the areas I thought the sun should be hitting, and burn the areas where I thought the mountains should be in shadow.
5) I then created a hue/sat layer and actually REDUCED the saturation because the first two steps had really bumped up the saturation a lot!
6) Then I used a Color Balance layer to add a little warmer light (as in sunset colors).
7) Final Curves tweak
8) A small amount of sharpening on the original background layer
9) Then flatten and save for web.

Samsung Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra

09/23/2005 09:55:27 PM · #15

Nice..I haven't gotten into using layers yet, but I certainly need to learn to. When you created the various layers and made adjustments, did you have to choose only certain sections of the picture with the magic wand tool, or do you just make the changes to the full layer and then once you flatten, you get the desired result as the layers blend into a total flattened picture?

Bear_Music

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

09/23/2005 11:31:26 PM · #16

Originally posted by rasdub:

You see the "desired result" whether or not you flatten the image. When you flatten the image, however, you make it smaller as each separate layer increases the size of the stored image. If you are converting to jpg, which you have to do to display it in here, the image must be flattened anyway as jog does not support layered images. If you don't flatten before saving as jpog, then photoshop does it for you as part of the process.

The flattened image is indistinguishable from the layered image visually.

Robt.

09/24/2005 12:21:18 AM · #17

Thanks Robert!

leaf

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

09/24/2005 06:47:35 AM · #18

Originally posted by cdcootie:

Originally posted by cdcootie:
The adjustment you did of the child looked great to me but I couldn't resist messing with the landscape photo to lessen the haze
adj level = levels
adj level = contrast with mask of clouds and lower mountains

whoops forgot the photo :-)

i think this image has TOO much contrast and looses detail. I liked bear_music's version best (in my opinion)

leaf

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

09/24/2005 06:49:56 AM · #19

Originally posted by rasdub:

yeah you are on the right track now. I still think the face is a little dark.
I would select the fact
L - lasso tool and draw around the face
crtl-alt-d to : to feather it a bit.. perhaps 50 pixels on the high res file
then use levels or curves to brighten up the face a bit, or whole girl, and perhaps just a tad of contrast.

leaf

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

09/24/2005 06:55:33 AM · #20

allright, i took a try at what i was trying to say
your image before ------- my version

Message edited by author 2005-09-24 06:55:50.

09/24/2005 10:55:25 AM · #21

Originally posted by leaf:

I liked bear_music's version best (in my opinion)

99% of the time I prefer bear_music's efforts ... even over my own ... he does great work.

In this case, I felt his was too flat and this time I actually prefer the one I posted over his. Mine has more of a "3-dimensional view" of the mountains by shading them... and a bit more color as well.