Enhancing pics with Photoshop? (1 Viewer)

[classic seanc]

I've heard much talk from photographers about photoshop.
"Are the pics ready?" I say
"I just have put them through photoshop first" They reply.

But I can't really figure out what they do in photoshop exactly.
In these conversations they're usually talking about gig photos, but I'd also like advice on regular photo's.


So my question is, have yee got any tips hints or advice in how to make photo's a little better using photoshop? What to yee do? Might be nice to show examples of your work too.

 

[classic seanc]

Here's some of my examples. Please criticise:

The original:

I wanted to make the writing a little clearer, so I tried to select the written parts of the page, and made it darker. That didn't work, so I selected the whole page as best I could, and made that a little darker. I think I used the selective colour tool, and turned the whiteness down.

There's a couple of bits that obviously weren't selected. What do I do about that?

I was just messing with this:

I wanted to make the whole lot jump off the screen a bit.
I selected the black parts of the cat and changed the contrast and the colour levels on that, and the rest of the cat and did the same. Then, I selected all the weeds and did the same thing, but differently. But,

The end result is that the cat looks superimposed onto the pic. Also I realise I didn't select the whole cat. Any tips?

 

[La La]

i dont know much about photoshop, but i'd suggest actually sharpening up the top one as it looks a wee bit fuzzy.

 

[Anthony]

Generally the first thing I do is convert to CMYK (but you don't have to do that). Then play with "levels" a bit.

 

[tripoli]

very often a play around with the contrast and the brightness will sort you out. there is a nice sharpen tool which works rather well. like lala, i'm no expert either, there's so much in it. start with the tutorials though, they're really helpful.

 

[inspector horse]

use as many filters as possible sean and you ll be flyin

 

[La La]

i'd love to have photoshop but i cant find anywhere to download it illegally


i use the default enhancer on iPhoto and i find it works pretty well. it has all the standard functions you can toggle around with which is good because very often my pics look lifeless when i first load them up.

 

[Rogue]

i'd love to have photoshop but i cant find anywhere to download it illegally

Those who can't find P'shop would be well served downloading The Gimp, tis free and seems to do almost anything p'shop can.

 

[classic seanc]

i dont know much about photoshop, but i'd suggest actually sharpening up the top one as it looks a wee bit fuzzy.

I'm clearly missing something very obvious about the sharpening tool, must look that up.

use as many filters as possible sean and you ll be flyin

Of course.

 

[pete]

Those who can't find P'shop would be well served downloading The Gimp, tis free and seems to do almost anything p'shop can.

gimpshop makes it look even more like the daddy

 

[Rogue]

gimpshop makes it look even more like the daddy

aha, touche!

 

[La La]

so should i go for the gimp or gimpshop?


you gimps.

 

[classic seanc]

so should i go for the gimp or gimpshop?


you gimps.

Surely someone in your work would have a copy of photoshop that a bunch of people can use legally? Then you're not stealing from Adobe. Though it is kinda stealing from work.

 

[La La]

Surely someone in your work would have a copy of photoshop that a bunch of people can use legally? Then you're not stealing from Adobe. Though it is kinda stealing from work.

sidled up to the photographers section a few weeks ago and asked but no joy.

 

[pete]

so should i go for the gimp or gimpshop?


you gimps.

gimpshop is just a frontend for the gimp

 

[MeleKalikimaka]

i use gimpshop on the old lappy since support for ps on linux is crap, its ok but i like my psCS2, it does just bout anything, can fix most common problems(shoot in raw/NEF).

 

[quasiquasi]

Another endorsement for Gimp, though I'm not exactly a power user.

 

[Goff]

Can’t stand The Gimp or Gimpshop. Let’s face it; it’s NOT Photoshop. Doesn’t come close.

But for free, yeah, go for it. But if you can get Pshop, you’re much better off. Even if you only ever use some parts of it.

 

[Wavioli]

Here's some of my examples. Please criticise:

The original:

I wanted to make the writing a little clearer, so I tried to select the written parts of the page, and made it darker. That didn't work, so I selected the whole page as best I could, and made that a little darker. I think I used the selective colour tool, and turned the whiteness down.

There's a couple of bits that obviously weren't selected. What do I do about that?

I was just messing with this:

I wanted to make the whole lot jump off the screen a bit.
I selected the black parts of the cat and changed the contrast and the colour levels on that, and the rest of the cat and did the same. Then, I selected all the weeds and did the same thing, but differently. But,

The end result is that the cat looks superimposed onto the pic. Also I realise I didn't select the whole cat. Any tips?

use curves under image>adjustments to correct the exposure (it looks a little under-exposed) i cant be arsed explaining it fully, partly cos I couldnt. but basically the bottom left of the graph is the dark tones, the middle of it is mid tones and top right are the highlights. mess around with it until it looks right. thats the best way to learn photoshop.

Also - for selecting furry things, or anything with minute gaps on the area you want to seperate (hair on someones head for example...) use the extract filter (filter>extract) you can draw around the edge of the cat roughly and then fill the middle, then press preview, so you can make small adjustments to get it right. you may want to make a copy of the layer first though...

hope that helps

 

[Goff]

And feather the selections. It’ll make a huge difference in avoiding the cardboard cut-out look.

Curves are a bit advanced and need your monitor to be properly calibrated. I’d go with the levels command. As in the Curves command, you can choose the White Point, Black Point and the Grey Point using the eye-dropper tool. It sounds a bit more complicated it is. But once you do it a few times, you’ll fly through it and really appreciate having gone to the bother.

This seems to cover it all, though not as user-friendly as I’d prefer:
http://www.biorust.com/tutorials/detail/198/en/