Having trouble making pictures pretty

[Nina]

Hi all,

I was wondering if you could give me some tips on how to "prettify" pictures. I recently took a picture of swans in a pond near us. original photo here, 2.5MB

The best I could make out of it was this: Copy, used the stamptool, adjusted levels, lightened the area around the heads and necks, sharpened, and compressed

What would you suggest I do differently to make the end result better?

Thanks in advance, and hope the question is not out of order in any way... Feel free to give critique, I'm motivated to learn.

 

[Gaussian]

Hi Nina, welcome to the board.

First of all, that?s a nice shot, we?ll done.

I see that you already improved the image pretty well, but you asked for some suggestions so I have a few.

A ? focal point

To increase the focal point in the image you can consider to add depth of field by blurring the background. A good tool for this if you have CS2 or higher would be the Lens Blur tool. The Lens Blur tool also has a pull down menu box in which you can select the channel that you want to use for your lens blur. Now if you would add a black and white gradient of the size shown in red (A), then Lens Blur is going to create a smooth blur based on that gradient. Of course you have to avoid blurring the swans, only blur the water.
Now I can?t be too specific as how this all works (would make my post too long), so feel free to check out Russell Brown?s excellent Lens Blur tutorial called Hocus Pocus Focus on this page:

http://russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

B-C-D Sharpening

I see that you?ve sharpened the image, but you went too far in some areas. A good indicator of over-sharpening are halos that will appear at edges. Took a look at the neck of the swan (B) and look at the magnification; notice how the edges are pretty bright. This is a sign that you?ve gone too far. Now mind you, halos can?t always be avoided, but you have to keep them under control.

I already noticed halo like edges in the original photograph, so I wonder if the camera already added some slight sharpening on its own, which can in some circumstances only make things worse. Btw, halos are not just white, they can also be black.

Photo retouching is always about taking time to analyze and? taking time to execute the proper corrections. In the case of sharpening too many people tend to sharpen the complete image, which is often wrong and can make things worse. Too much sharpening could increase halos but also make noise more visible. It can also bring out other unwanted details, like in this example in the water in front of the swans (compare before and after).

My advice would be for this image to duplicate the image, sharpen it, adding a mask, inverting the mask (Ctrl+I) and then paint with white on the mask with a small soft brush where you want the sharpening to be revealed (edges of swans, feathers, head, etc).
Change the opacity of the brush to have more control over the amount of sharpening.

You can even consider to use more sharpening in the feathers on the swan?s back (D), but again... avoid too strong halos around edges.

Personally I always prefer to use a product called Focal Blade, which is a lot more powerful than any available sharpening solution in any version of Photoshop. It's also very good at controlling our enemy #1, which is halos.

http://www.thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/focalblade/index.htm


I think the colors look fine althought here might be small tendancy towards green in the upper section, but it's hardly notoceable. Important when you adjust the brightness of the image (often with levels or curves) is that you keep the details in shadows and highlight intact, which you have done well, so that?s a good thing.

E ? cloning

I would clone out area E, it?s slightly distracting.


From a photographer?s perspective I would also avoid to put the subject ?in a box?, which happens when the edges are too close to the main subject. For example in this image I would have preferred more space at the top and in front of the swans, it gives them ?virual? breathing space, it makes the image more powerful.

Just always remember; don?t always remove noise of the complete image, sharpen or color correct the complete image; photo retouching is not just a matter of WHAT to do, but also about what NOT to do, so use masks if they can help you to get better results and forget about the fact that it?s more time consuming if you want optimum results.

 

[Nina]

Thank you so much Gaussian, very useful information. I can see I've done some pretty basic mistakes! I will start from the beginning, try to follow your advice, and post the result.

This was precisely the kind of feedback I was hoping for, being a beginner I didn't even know about the halo ;\ I see exactly what you mean though!

When I use a mask, should I use feather when creating it? Is it better to use unsharp mask than sharpening?

My PS is rather old I'm afraid, 7... The camera is a Nikon 8800. I'll check and see if it does add sharpening, and if so, if it's possible to turn it off.

Thank you again 8))

 

[Gaussian]

When I use a mask, should I use feather when creating it?

Yes Nina, in case you have to make a correction based on a selection, then it's indeed wise to use soft edges in your mask, either by

- adding feather to a selection that you convert into a mask by clicking on the mask button
- editing the mask itself by using the blur tool, gaussian blur, a soft brush, gradients, etc.

When I use a mask, should I use feather when creating it? Is it better to use unsharp mask than sharpening?

Of all the sharpening tools in older versions of Photoshop, unsharp mask would be the best choice, since it's the most advanced one.
To make sure that you don't sharpen too much, simply use the CtrL+Z key combination a few times (undo) to get a good sense of the amount of sharpening you have applied. Often it might also be wise to look at your images with a 100% (1:1) zoom factor. You can hold down the space bar if you have to move the photograph inside your document window (your mouse cursor will turn into a hand). Please remember this important but easy to use shortcut, because it makes photo retouching so much easier.

 

[Gaussian]

I experimented a little with your image to see what works best. One thing I forgot to mention is that the image is slightly tilted to the left, so that's the first thing I tried to fix. Then I added a blur to the background, sharpened the image, but only the feathers and part of neck and heads.

The other thing I noticed by looking at the image is that the dark reflections in the water were pretty distracting. I was able to tone this down with the lens blur, but the most impact had a shadow/highlight correction (a CS tool, but you could use curves instead) which increased the contrast in the light feathers and brought down the dark parts of the image, resulting in more softer, toned down look, which suites this particular subject very well.

So you bring down or remove distraction elements (background blur, leaves, water on the left, crop, harsh shadows) and at the same time you bring out the main subject with better sharpening and slight correction on the lighter areas.

In this image no color correction was done, because I think that the ambient light in this image works pretty well.

So the important details are still sharp (head, feathers on neck and back), yet the water in front of the swans is still reasonable smooth and although the halos are still there, they are slightly tuned down.

Mind you, this is just a quick correction, there are still areas that can be improved, but hopefully my attempt can make you understand which areas you should focus on the make the image stand out. Also keep always in mind the kind of subject you're photographing. In this case the subject is swans and the softness of the feathers, colors and background can actually increase the impact the swans have on the viewer. With a different subject we might be looking at a slightly different approach, so try to be flexible, try to think out of the box.

 

[ronmatt]

I'm going to critique this from a different angle. Taking into mind all that Gaussian said, with which I agree totally, I'm going to get into composition. It is a pleasent photo as is, but from my personal viewpoint there are a few things I would work on which I sort of mapped out in the photo I attached.
The area in red, above and behind the swans is too vertical and the 'lines' in the waters reflections are too straight. Even though gaussians remedy for this is somewhat effective, it doesn't hide the vertical lines. It looks as though the foreground was set against a backdrop. Possible adjusting for depth of field. Depth of field is controlled by 2 things: aperture (F stop) and focal length. Shallow DoF (blurry backgrounds) = low F stop, long focal length (telephoto). Deep DoF = high F stop, short focal length (wide angle). Also, using a telephoto lens (anything above 50mm) won?t push the background away?it?ll bring it closer. Telephoto lenses compress the depth of the image; wide angle lenses expand the depth of the image. But you probably knew this because you do have some DoF in your photo.

 

[Nina]

Thank you so much to both of you!

Your example makes it very clear to me where I went wrong, and where I overdid things Gaussian. I also understand the softer serene look that is suitable for this picture, but might be wrong for another image.

Would it be better to finish with the stamp tool before making any other corrections? Or is the order in which I do things unimportant?

You can safely assume I don't know much at all ronmatt, but trying to learn I wasn't aware of how the telephoto lens would impact the picture, so it was very useful for me that you pointed that out!

The picture was taken just before sunset, and it was overcast, so even though I don't know (the setting was.. "auto"... ) I would imagine the aperture would have been rather low (low means larger opening, and less debth of field..?) as the light was very poor, and yes , the subject was zoomed in. The water was completely still, so the vertical lines are ripples from the swans themselves. Should I try to remove/tone them down? If so, which approach would be best? Or is this one of the things I should try to look at when taking the picture in the first place?

Agan, thanks to both of you it is much appreciated 8))

 

[ronmatt]

If everyone could 'get it exactly right', out of the camera, then there wouldn't be a need for Photoshop. Even the great ones like Ansel Adams spent hours and sometimes days in the darkroom ( Photoshopping? ) his prints. The best you can do is to get to know your camera so that the photos you take are as close to what you want to see as they can be. By getting to know your camera I mean, get to the point that you can visualize the result and know what to set the camera at to achieve that visualization. I'd also recommend a tripod as well as bracketing. That way the photos will be free of any errant movement and the bracket ( 2 stops up and 2 stops down plus the normal exposure ) will virtually guarantee you'll have something to work with. If you have auto bracketing on you camera, PS has some great features like photomerge and merge to hdr that you'll be able to apply to the shots. As important as the technical aspect of photography is, even more important is the composition. Without composition the most technically correct photo will have no appeal. I'd suggest that as a 'newbie' you really consentrate on that. The other stuff will come in time. Just keep posting here and getting advice. If you don't totally understand just let us know. Another thing, not all of us do everything the same. We've all developed our own techniques in PS so the advice we give will be a bit 'personal'. It will also be 'varied'. One person will tell you one thing, another will tell you something else. Probably, neither is wrong, simply different. I prefer dynamic photos, and color saturation, which is why I enjoy HDR. Some people prefer softer, more subtle images. Critiques will be 'subjective'. So don't get your feelings hurt if you work your butt off on an image and someone says something negative. ( people on this forum generally don't do that though. But on some forums they'll tear you up )
Good luck and I look forward to seeing more of your work.

 

[Gaussian]

Would it be better to finish with the stamp tool before making any other corrections?

Before using the clone tool I would advice to do a global brightness correction first ( levels and/or curves), because it allows you to see as much details as possible in both highlights and shadows. This way you will avoid any suprises when you decide to correct the brightness levels after you used the clone tool.