Photoshop baby steps.

[Kim]

Ok folks I would like some comments/critique/tips etc. I have been working on a picture in Photoshop Elements 3.0 and I submit both the original saved directly from a RAW file with absolutely no adjustments, and a 'finished' version that I have attempted to use my somewhat limited skills on. I would really appreciate experienced comments here - good or bad!

Original:

Photoshopped:

 

[justleesa]

I miss the surface reflections in the PS'd photo...other wise well done.

 

[diversteve]

Ok folks I would like some comments/critique/tips etc. I have been working on a picture in Photoshop Elements 3.0 and I submit both the original saved directly from a RAW file with absolutely no adjustments, and a 'finished' version that I have attempted to use my somewhat limited skills on. I would really appreciate experienced comments here - good or bad!

You did a nice job of getting rid of the remoras. I didn't even notice them at first.

I took the after picture and toyed with it a few minutes in PS. I don't have Elements so I don't know if you can duplicate these processes.

Does Elements have Selective Color adjustments? If so you might try pushing the magenta and black in the Blue range. I pushed the magenta about +60 and the black level quite a bit, didn't record the value.

It gets rid of a little of the green cast in the wings of the ray. If you push the Black range also, it will define his head better, but at the expense of darkening the bottom of the wings, they're supposed to be light right? Slight changes here might be acceptable, but it will change the under wing surfaces.

You could try increasing the contrast slightly if PSE doesn't have selective color adjustments. Back off the brightness around -15 and increase the contrast around +14-18. Too much seems to darken the water.

Try just the slightest amount of sharpening around his head also, It makes the eye pop out a little bit more. If you select his head using the lasso tool, there's a nice break just behind his head - I generally look for a hard edge near the specific area to be sharpened, it looks more natural than if you sharpen into the surrounding areas unless you go back and clone/blend it. Only what's selected will be sharpened.

If PSE has the unsharp mask tool, try using it instead of the regular Sharpen tool - with a small radius and a large threshold. You'll notice that the glare above his eye will get worse too, so I'd get rid of it first.

To remove the glare above his eye I used the clone tool and cloned from the darker areas on each side of the eye and blended them together.

I'd have posted the image I played with but like a dumbs**t I forgot to save it b4 closing PS. Nice job though and what a great subject!!

 

[Kim]

Thank you both for your comments!

Justleesa - I wasn't sure whether to keep the reflections or not. I'll put them back and see if you like that better!

Sjspeck - thank you for your very helpful comments. I have this image on three layers at the moment so I can still minipulate it quite a bit. I actually have CS but I found the learning curve a little steep so I downloaded the Elements tryout. It must be helping a lot as I actually understood your comments about the selective color levels now!!! What I am going to try now is to make another layer from the manta layer and use it to protect the white. Then I should be able to use your tips to improve the black. I missed the reflection above his eye the first time (maybe as I saw it as a continuation of the reflection from his back) - but I think you are right - it has to go.
I'll get right on it now and post the result back a bit later. I've not used the lasso tool yet so that should be fun! (or the unshark mask)

 

[Kim]

I've made a few slight adjustments. Bringing back the reflections was quite hard as I had cloned them out of the PSD file and I had to rebuild another layer from the original.

For the green I tried a few of the things that you said but in the end I think that it was easiest to get the effect using the levels tool on the individual color channels. I hope that most of the green is now gone without sacrificing the light under the wings.

The lasso and unsharp mask worked fine!

 

[alcina]

It's a great job in software - you are well beyond my meager skills, for sure!

Just as an aside, the redone versions look, I don't know, not very photo-y. They're nice and I'd be glad to have something to show ppl, but they just lack something. A feeling of being unreal, maybe. But then again, I have seen shots with very little manipulation that also feel that way, so who knows.

 

[Kim]

A feeling of being unreal, maybe.

Well I figure if it's good enough for super models then why not!

I know what you mean though - I'm not really sure if there is any way around that except to be able to take excellent perfect pictures to start with (which I can't!) I suppose in the end the ability to produce a pleasing image from an otherwise unremarkable shot is the best I hope for - as long as it doesn't look too contrived.

 

[H2Andy]

awesome stuff, kim

lisa, great eye for the surface ripples... it makes such a difference

 

[diversteve]

Well I figure if it's good enough for super models then why not!

I know what you mean though - I'm not really sure if there is any way around that except to be able to take excellent perfect pictures to start with (which I can't!) I suppose in the end the ability to produce a pleasing image from an otherwise unremarkable shot is the best I hope for - as long as it doesn't look too contrived.

Nice job on the corrections, especially around the head. You really brought out the detail in the eye, which was overlooked before due to the glare above it.

I do see what alcina is saying, this one just doesn't pop. I think it has something to do with the separation between the manta and the background, but it's possible that it's just the coloration of the water between the manta and the camera that's monotoning the image. I don't know if it can get much better w/o looking photoshopped - it looks very much like what you'd expect to see, the light from above is highlighting the right areas, so I don't know if you can improve on that.

 

[justleesa]

The ripples give the picture more depth, the other way it looked like a ray on a graduated background, not water..

I played around with it a bit - it isnt' as crisp as I worked from your upload