Color correcting no-flashl digital pics

[Gilligan]

ssra30 mentioned on a previous post (http://www.scubaboard.com/t38479/s.html) seeing this process by "mandrake" on digitaldiver.net
The process is for correcting digital photos taken without a flash. I posted a photo of a patch reef on that previous post mentioned above using a diffrent process. I have posted 4 photos on this link (http://kayakdiver.com/scubaboard/100903.htm) to demonstrate the use of "mandrake's" technique, one photo I took using auto white balance and one I took using manual white balance from a dive slate.

"mandrake's" process is using Photoshop Elements and I used Photoshop 7:
1) create 3 duplicate layers of the original photo.
2) Make the middle duplicate layer active and fill it with 50% gray (Edit->Fill->50% Gray, 100% opacity, normal)
3) Make the top duplicate layer active and change its blending mode to 'Luminosity'. Merge it down into the middle (gray) layer. You now have a b/w image of your original photo in this layer.
4) Create a new fill layer above this b/w image (Layer->New Fill Layer->Solid Color). Check 'Group with Previous Layer'. Fill this layer with red (R: 255, G: 0, B: 0). Change this layer's blending mode to 'Multiply', and then merge it down into the previous layer (the b/w image). You've now got a funky red photo.
5) Change the blending mode of the funky red photo to 'Screen' and merge it down into the first duplicate layer. You've now got your original image with a much nicer red.
Now run auto-levels, which actually works now, make the midtones a little brighter (move the midtone slider a little to the left), and sharpen.

[ssra30]

I think this is a really cool process. It also works very well for a picture with flash when the flash is not set properly,misaimed etc.
Occasionally it would add a bit too much red especially when the flash is used. In that case I just turn down the opacity for the final merge between the original and the funky red pic and that works really well too.

[khel]

Thanks for the info, cannot wait to try it out :)

khel

[Meddler]

You can perform the same trick using Gimp.

1. Open Layers->Layers Channels & Paths
2. Click on the duplicate layer button and make it active (and make the original image invisible)
3. Add a new layer with a forground colour of grey #808080
4. Set the layer mode to "colour " to get your grey image
5. Merge the grey layer and the duplicate layer
6. Add a new layer with a foreground colour of red #ff0000
7. Set the layer mode to multiply and merge your grey image with the red.
8. Set the red image mode to "screen" and make the original
image visible. If you get a purple colour cast, fiddle with the transparency of the red image until it looks about right.

I have to say its quite a nice technique and is rather good at restoring the fleshtones of your buddies. Im not sure that I like the way it makes the water disapear, but I guess you can fiddle with it to get the right amount of blue.

[khel]

Meddler once bubbled...
You can perform the same trick using Gimp.



Are you using Gimp in Linux?? and if so, do you know, by any chance any good programs for working with RAW format??

khel

[mandrake]

Hi, I'm mandrake from the digital diver forum. Just wanted to say how honored I am that you're using a technique of mine (merging a b/w image projected with red back into the original image). I also wanted to point out a few things I consider important:

1) My idea came from reading (and extensively playing with) the chapter on color separations in the book 'The Hidden Power of PhotoShop Elements 2' by Richard Lynch. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone really into photo-editing. You'll benefit from it if you have PS Elements or the full PS, though you'll get most benefit out of it with PS Elements. It includes a CD toolset to give Elements many tools that exist in the full PS, like curves.

2) My technique is only a shortcut version of what I would really do, which is a full color separation and examination of the three layers (as described in the book, and automated through the 'split RGB with preview' tool). I would also create at least 2 and possibly as many as 4 different b/w images (there are several different options) and see which one worked best, whether as a replacement of the red tone layer or as a supplement to it.

The four different b/w images I consider for use are:
a) original image as luminosity layer merged back into 50% gray layer
b) desaturated image
c) the green tone from the original image
d) the blue tone from the original image

In general I find that either a) or c) is best, and d) is worst.

3) After you've put the red into your picture, you often have to take some of it back out again. I use the hue/saturation tool and make either a change of about -20 to -30 on the master hue, or else play with individual colors or make selections with the eyedropper tools. I consider this an essential step that goes hand-in-hand with adding the red back in. You must do something like this to turn your water blue again.

4) After all this is done, it still doesn't hurt to try auto-levels, auto-color correction, or if you have PS Elements, the color cast tool, or any other color-balancing tool or scheme you have, just as sanity checks.

Again, thanks for the tribute. But don't turn it into a formula. Every photo is different. I tend to get in a rut with these things, and forget to try simpler things sometimes. On a couple of photos recently I found that, after going through my 20 usual steps, that just an 'auto-levels' in a separate layer, with an opacity of somewhere less than 100%, was better than anything I could do.

I've also stumbled across a great technique called 'contrast masking' recently. Here's a pointer to the site I found it on, which also contains pointers to other places:

http://www.normankoren.com/PWP_contrast_masking.html

I can't believe how wonderfully this enhances many of my photos. Hope you like it. Read the 'Contrast Masking with PhotoShop' section -- I haven't bothered with anything after that.

If you'd like to check out my image galleries, try:

http://www.pbase.com/dkusner

[No Fish]

I tried it and just can't quit. I am using PS 6. This technique is amazing. Thanks Mandrake and Gilligan. Now...Back to those blue-green photos...........

[James connell]

here's the job setup as a loadable action.

i'm working on a fix to auto adjust the amount red put in - mandrake's right , it needs tweeking. still a good fix.

after the action is run you still need to tweek the red channle a little and sharpen.

[khel]

No Fish once bubbled...
I tried it and just can't quit. I am using PS 6. This technique is amazing. Thanks Mandrake and Gilligan. Now...Back to those blue-green photos...........

Same here, I've been playing with it all the evening - it's GREAT!! I just cannot believe, that I didn't use it before (shame on me as a former graphics designer) :)

Thanks a lot guys!!

khel

[Dee]

Glad you found our pond! I've printed your technique and plan to play with it this weekend.

[Meddler]

There is another technique that can improve pictures.

Make a duplicate layer
Blur that layer (I use 25 pixels for a 5Mp image)
Change the mode to Multiply (Burn)
Adjust the transparancy until the picture is to your liking.

For best results do this after any levels adjustments. It can result in a loss of detail.

[saltywater]

Here are the before and after versions of my experimenting with Mandrake's method.

Before:
http://www.mctechsite.com/scuba/twinsweb.jpg

After:
http://www.mctechsite.com/scuba/twins2web.jpg


I think I'm going to enjoy trying this on other shots.

Thank You

[mandrake]

But if you go into the hue/saturation tool and change the hue for 'Blues' by -30 and 'Yellows' by -20 (a little more might be better), you get the following. It turns the purple water blue again and warms up the vegetation:

[saltywater]

Thank You again,

That is even better. I was just getting ready to go back to play with that image some more to reduce the purple and you told me how to do it. This is going to be fun to clean up a few of my pictures.

Mike

[mandrake]

It's pretty staggering, isn't it? My first photographic trip was to Little Cayman in April 2002, and I have tons of photos from that trip that have that blue/green cast (until I figured out how to work the strobe reasonably consistently). Going back and using these techniques on them has been a real pleasure.

Using the hue/saturation tool can be pretty simple, as in your picture, or extremely complicated, depending on the photo. I could make a very long post just on the use of this tool, but it's better if everyone tries to work it out for themselves. I'll just warn that it's very easy in fixing some colors to damage others. Anything that's magenta to start with can be turned a really solid blue, which can make your fairy basslet heads look pretty awful. Also, changing the hue can really accentuate any color noise in your photo -- it usually shows up as patches of purple in your blue water. I've come up with a couple of techniques for dealing with this, but they're very involved and vary from picture to picture. Also, you tend to end up with a bit of a yellow cast overall, which I then try to deal with in the levels tool (changing the midtone sliders for red/green/blue until it looks just right).

[sapphire]

James connell once bubbled...
here's the job setup as a loadable action.

i'm working on a fix to auto adjust the amount red put in - mandrake's right , it needs tweeking. still a good fix.

after the action is run you still need to tweek the red channle a little and sharpen.

Thank you for posting this - but I am a little dense and I still don't get it. Once I downloaded this and ran it, it just pulls up Photoshop Elements. What do I do then? Or should I open Photoshop, pull up a photo, and THEN run your loadable action?

Thanks for the help :D !

sapphire

[James connell]

sapphire once bubbled...


Thank you for posting this - but I am a little dense and I still don't get it. Once I downloaded this and ran it, it just pulls up Photoshop Elements. What do I do then? Or should I open Photoshop, pull up a photo, and THEN run your loadable action?

Thanks for the help :D !

sapphire

once the action is installed, you open a pix and run the action. then do what ever fine tuning you wish and "save as" to get a fixed copy.

i don't have elements - i use PS7.
the action should be saved in \Photoshop 7.0\Presets\Photoshop Actions. it may be nessesary to 'load' it. for that you use the small sideways arrow in the actions window - select "open actions..." and douple left click (on PC) 'underwater'. to run the action select the "actions" tab in the 'history/actions/toolpreset' window, find the action left click it to highlite it then click the small arrow at the bottom of the window to run it. PS6 is almost the same.

my daughter has elements on her machine - i haven't figured out how to run an action on it! but it has the same dir structure - Photoshop Elements\Presets\Photoshop actions so the action would go there.

[Eli]

Thanks Mandrake, Gilligan & everyone for such a great tool. I tried it on a unsalvageable completely blue photo, and it actually salvaged it! ( Yes I did also clone out the scattered light)


Uncorrected Stingray & Friend (http://www.pbase.com/image/22196513)


Corrected Stingray & Friend (http://www.pbase.com/image/22196553)

Pretty Amazing
:relaxing:

[sapphire]

James connell once bubbled...


once the action is installed, you open a pix and run the action. then do what ever fine tuning you wish and "save as" to get a fixed copy.

i don't have elements - i use PS7.
the action should be saved in \Photoshop 7.0\Presets\Photoshop Actions. it may be nessesary to 'load' it. for that you use the small sideways arrow in the actions window - select "open actions..." and douple left click (on PC) 'underwater'. to run the action select the "actions" tab in the 'history/actions/toolpreset' window, find the action left click it to highlite it then click the small arrow at the bottom of the window to run it. PS6 is almost the same.

my daughter has elements on her machine - i haven't figured out how to run an action on it! but it has the same dir structure - Photoshop Elements\Presets\Photoshop actions so the action would go there.

I haven't given up - I was able to move the action into the correct folder. But when I try to use the "preset manager" to pull it up, I can only pull up "brushes" "swatches" "gradients" and "patterns". I was unable to follow the suggestion above, I could not find an "open actions" option anywhere. Perhaps this is a difference between Elements and 7.0??

Anyone out there with Elements figure this out?

Thanks :D

sapphire

[ssra30]

Mandrake, I also would like to thank you very much for posting the process on digitaldiver. I understand that it is not a fix all but it is definitely very useful. I was away diving over the weekend and tried out my new rig. Still have not check all the pics from the trip yet but I am sure there will be some pics that will need your help:)

[TedJ]

I don't believe we can do "actions" with PS Elements 2. But thanks for the lead on correcting Mandrake!!!
TEdJ

[mandrake]

Several different things have been referred to as mandrake's technique, or 'the mandrake method', to my immense amusement. I thought I would follow Eli's approach and put a few sample photos on my website, along with exact descriptions of what I did (which was a bit different in each of the three photos there now).

Hope this helps clarify the mandrake method. Or confuse it, or whatever. LOL

http://www.pbase.com/dkusner/photoediting

[James connell]

sapphire once bubbled...
Perhaps this is a difference between Elements and 7.0??

Anyone out there with Elements figure this out?

Thanks :D

sapphire

it seems that elements doesn't do actions - at least i can't find a way and there's nothing in the documentation about them. but take a look at this page: http://hiddenelements.com

the book looks like a great thing for elements users - and the actionplayer download May be just what is needed.

[Dee]

I'm just starting to work through it. It's a heavy read but the tutorials and CD projects promise to be very educational.

[James connell]

Dee once bubbled...
I'm just starting to work through it. It's a heavy read but the tutorials and CD projects promise to be very educational.

Dee, if you can find better instruction about how to set up the action player, post it eh? i can't make heads nor tails of the stuff supplied with the free download!!!

[TedJ]

James,
You really need to get the book to take advantage of the techniques that Richard Lynch presents. And as Dee has pointed out it's not an easy read, but you just have to stick with it. It's not a typical "xxx for Dummies" type of book. I'm slowly getting thru it.

[mandrake]

TedJ once bubbled...
James,
You really need to get the book to take advantage of the techniques that Richard Lynch presents. And as Dee has pointed out it's not an easy read, but you just have to stick with it. It's not a typical "xxx for Dummies" type of book. I'm slowly getting thru it.

Agreed. As I acknowledge on my photo-editing site, this book was the source of many of my current techniques, and an inspiration for others. You really have to work through the examples, possibly more than once, and some of the explanations are a little terser than they perhaps should be, but I've never read anything else so useful.

[James connell]

right now i'm interested in getting the free down loadable tools from the web site running. i want to see if the actions i use regularly will work on elements too.
I use PS7 ( soon to be 8) and the elements stuff he has doesn't interest me at the moment. i will probably get his book to see if there are technics i don't know about and can use. my main concern now is the vague ( at best ) instructions on how to load an action into the ( replaced) welcome screen player.

[jiveturkey]

Thank you so much for posting this. I'm still learning but my photos are looking much better already. This is so nice.

[jiveturkey]

Comparison

Before:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-10/427115/P7290108originalsmall.jpg


After:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-10/427115/P7290108bsmall.jpg

[mandrake]

jiveturkey once bubbled...
Comparison

Before:
...

After:
...


This is good, but I think you only added in the red layer. That's only the first step. The second step is to make hue/saturation adjustments as necessary, as well as minor color-balance and exposure cleanups if necessary. Here's what I get if I do this with your picture. See my website if you want to see examples of what I do -- http://www.pbase.com/dkusner/photoediting.

Note that I'm not 100% sure what the colors on this fish are supposed to look like, and without this as a guide I may have gone a little wrong. You should always use reality as a guide.

[Zept]

Thanks for all the tips, everyone!

I have been playing with Jame's Connell's Photoshop action in Photoshop 6 (hope you don't mind, James). Here's a modified version that uses adjustment layers. Once you have run the action, you can:

-- Adjust the opacity of the red layer to reduce the amount of red
-- Double-click the thumbnail for the Levels layer to adjust the levels (hold down Alt and click the Cancel button to undo the Auto Levels operation)
-- Double-click the thumbnail for the Hue/Saturation layer to adjust the colours

The nice thing about this approach is that you can see how the different operations interact. However you'll probably want to flatten the image before you save it, because otherwise you end up with an enormous file.

Z

[Scubapauly]

These pics look fantastic once you've applied the process to them. Does anyone know how to do this in Paint Shop Pro? Or even if its possible?



Scubapauly

[James connell]

Zept once bubbled...
Thanks for all the tips, everyone!

I have been playing with Jame's Connell's Photoshop action in Photoshop 6 (hope you don't mind, James).

i just want to say - I didn't come up with the technique!!!! Mandrake posted the steps, i just set them to an action.
HE deserves the credit for it all!

if he doesn't care if it's tweeked , i certainly don't.

[mandrake]

Ha, I just wish I could use it! I don't have PS yet. Soon, soon... :)

By the way, a while ago I mentioned a process called contrast masking and gave a few pointers to websites that described it. I finally put an example on my website. If anyone's interested, you can use the link from my last post at the top of this page.

David

[saltywater]

Now if I can just find some free time.......

I am looking forward to giving more of your pointers a try.

You have taught me a few things that I didn't know I could do with Photoshop and in the process I have been able to improve a number of pictures that I otherwise might have ignored or discarded.



Thanks,

Mike

[segal3]

Don't worry everyone. Everything nowadays is manipulated. Reality expired in 1999.

~Matt Segal