Newbie Needs Advice

[q582gmzhi]

Hi,

I am new user to photoshop, so I need some advice.

We have aquired a new scanner at work, so I have taken in some colour negatives that I own and scanned them at 600 DPI.

I am a little disapointed to find that the colour quality is not very good compared to the original photographs. What are the basic steps to take in photoshop to get the image looking better. (I have around 500 images on negatives that I would like to scan)

I have uploaded the original tif files to the link shown below if someone wants to play around with them and advise me.

Thanks

Darrell....
http://www.stock-locator.co.uk/images.htm

 

[stickdiesel]

create an adjustment curves layer and set your midtones by selecting the dark and white points with the eye dropper. (in the curves dialouge box) If you dbble click the eyedroppers you can enter the appropriate cmyk andor rgb settings for your output.

Aside from that it all depends on what you want to do exactly to the photo. Sky bluer etc etc. If so, you can select the part you wish to modify by using any number of PS's selection techniques, I personally prefer the pen tool. You can also use the "select colour range" in the selction menu, channels, quick masks, whatever you feel comfortable with.

Once you have your selection, create another adjustment layer and this time select "colour balance." Then adjust the percentages of colour using the sliders.

Hope that helps some.

BTW you can create an adjustment layer either by selecting it from layer menu, or pressing the half black, half white button on bottom of layer palette.

 

[theKeeper]

Good suggestions stick.

Welcome to the community q582gmzhi. Hope you enjoy your stay.

I'd also like to offer a simple method that you may, or may not, think will help.

First off... always work on a duplicate of the original.

To achieve the enhancements seen in this crop of one of your photos, this is what i did:

1) Up the Saturation to 35. (use an Adjustment Layer for this)
2) Unsharp Mask > amount=20% radius=50 threshold=0
Apply this 2x.
3) Unsharp Mask > amount=100% radius=0.5 threshold=0

You can now, if needed, readjust the levels.

Before doing this though, make sure, as stick mentioned, your photo's levels are well balanced. Consult the Histogram if need be to varify the levels.

Also... if you wish to experiment, you can play with the amount of applications you do of Step 2. Try 1 at first. Then repeat the step 2, 3, even 4x more. This will eventually lead to an extreme over enhancement... but that can depend on the quality of the photo.

Experiment. :B

Hope this helps too. [honesty]

 

[q582gmzhi]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback thats been most helpful.

Daz...