Photoshop help needed

[Mel.B]

Hi,

I'd love some photoshop help with this photo. I have PSE, but everytime I try and do anything more than resize or crop it makes my computer crash :11:

The photo was taken on a night dive at Mornington Pier. The pier is very silty and viz was around 1m. I don't have a strobe and the combination of these factors has lead to the amount of backscatter that is present.

Any help would be fantastic,

Mel

 

[PapaBob]

Hi Mel:

Hope you solve your computer problem. PSE should be a very stable program.

I thought your image would benefit from a crop. The seahorse needed to be darkened which can be done with a levels adjustment layer or with multiply blend layers. The belly needs some more work which I did not have time to do.

Backscatter is a problem in this image as you noted, and will be in silty water without an off camera strobe. I killed it in a separate layer under the seahorse layer with a heavy dust and scratches filter adjustment.

I then used Charlie's suggestion and created a blank layer between the seahorse adjusment layer and the Dust and Scratches filter layer. I grouped the seahorse layer with the blank middle layer and painted in the blank layer to bring the adjusted seahorse and foreground into focus over the heavily blured Dust and Scratches layer. The result was sharpened.

This is the image as adjusted.

The steps are easier to follow if you load my .psd file and open the layers palette. Send me a private message with your email address and I will email you (or anyone else who wants it) the psd file.

You did a good job with the shot given the conditions. Photoshop can help make it a keeper.

---Bob
PS All adjustments were made with Photoshop Elements

 

[doole]

GREAT shot! Looks like the little guy might be pregnant...

PSE crashing sounds like not enough memory. Which Windows version and how much memory do you have?

 

[Dee]

Great fix, Bob!

What about a vertical crop and get rid of most of the negative space? Put the eye on thirds and it's more like a portrait.

 

[Mark Goodchild]

Here is my effort. Not quite as natural as the others. But not too bad.

I use Paint Shop Pro rather than Photoshop.

 

[Mel.B]

They all look great I hadn't even thought about cropping the pic as I use it for my wallpaper and the black space on the left is perfect for all the desktop icons, but I love the vertical crop Dee.

I'm using XP on my laptop and have used 15G with only 3G of space left which I guess is why PSE crashes. Time for an upgrade I think!

Thanks,
Mel

 

[SwimsWithSharks]

I'm using XP on my laptop and have used 15G with only 3G of space left which I guess is why PSE crashes. Time for an upgrade I think!

Thanks,
Mel

Mel,

Since everyone already helped you on the editing problem, I will address your crashing problem. You have way too much on your hard drive. You need to either upgrade your hard drive or get a second drive to get some of your stuff off the laptop. An external drive hooked up via USB is a relatively easy way to do this. There are other options but the external is probably the quickest/easiest.

 

[PapaBob]

Dee: I love the vertical crop. I wanted to give him some negative space to stare into, but I think I like your approach better.

Mark: Nice result. Although I prefer "tight in" shots, your version provides some context and is faithful to Mel's original image.

Mel: SWS is right. Photoshop is very memory intensive, especially in holding prior history states. If there is not enuf RAM then it uses virtual memory by writing to disk. If it does not have breathing room, then PS will slow down considerably and this may be the reason for the crash. This is one reason I upgraded my computer at the end of last year (very nice xmas gift from my wife).

I need to look into how PSE handles memory and scratch disk functions and will see if I can suggest some quick fixes.

Thanks again for your original post. I enjoyed working on it.

---Bob

 

[PapaBob]

Mel:

I am not a computer expert. I am sure there are members who know a lot more than I do and I hope they will pitch in to help you solve your problem.

Regarding Memory: Choose Edit>Preferences>Memory and Image Cache. I dont know your RAM size. My inclination would be to set this preference to use as much memory as your system will let you. I use 75% but have not tried to push this setting to the limit. If you think PSE is using too much memory, you could back off this setting; but my guess is that an increase would be better than a decrease.

If you have taken a lot of steps, then Edit>Clear>Undo History will dump your History states and free up memory. Yes, you lose them but if you are not going back to a prior step you will not miss the history dump.

If RAM is at a premium, you might want to try a program called End It All. It closes all nonessential programs that run in the background and I use it when the instructions for loading new software suggest closing all open programs, and when I run a system backup or disk defrag. I dont know if it will help your problem but you can find it at this site.

Regarding Disk Space: File>Clear Cache frees up the disk space that PSE uses for thumbnails and file information. You can also set your cache levels in the preferences menu.

An external disk may be a good solution if you have other uses than make it worth the expense. Choose Edit>Preferences>Plug Ins and Scratch Disks which let you point PSE to where you want virtual memory. In PSCS the instructions recommend a scratch disk other than your C: hard drive to improve performance.

Again, I am not a computer expert and can only give you my opinion as to how I would troubleshoot the probem. I do hope it helps.

---Bob

PS I just found this post which sounds like your problem.

 

[Mel.B]

Hi,

I've just gone back to look at this image, and wanted to fix up his belly which is a bit 'shiny'. I've tried to clone the outer edges to fill in the bright spots but it just doesn't look right. Any help with this would be great!

Scubabob - I tried to edit the file you sent me of this photo, but I'm not sure which layers to make the changes on??

Thanks heaps!
mel