Trying Some Photo Manip

[unforth]

So I got my hands on a copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, as it seems to be decent software for doing this kind of thing, and I was able to get it at no cost. Win. So I thought I'd try to see what I can do with a picture - I went with the the pic of the sunset over the Thames.


Here's the original:


Manip 1: Exposure to -2.76; Fill Light to 83


Manip 2: Recovery to 100; Contrast to 62; Clarity to 100


Manip 3: Recovery to 100; Vibrance to 86; Saturation to -21


Manip 4: Exposure to -.67, Recovery to 100; Brightness to 79; Contrast to 41; Clarity to 100; Vibrance to 33; Saturation to 38


Manip 5: Recovery to 100; Fill Light to 21; Blacks to 6; Brightness to 18; Contrast to 18; Clarity to 100; Green Hue to 88; Aqua hue to 36; Blue hue to 40


Manip 6: Exposure to -2.19; Recovery to 32; Brightness 93; Contrast -4; Clarity 100; Vibrance 14; Saturation 17; Yellow Hue 14; Green Hue 60; Blue Hue 19; Yellow Saturation 81; Green Saturation 55; Aqua Saturation 40; Blue Saturation 43


Manip 7: Recovery to 100; Brightness 36; Contrast -21; Clarity 100; Green Hue 71; Blue Hue 14; Yellow Saturation 31; Green Saturation 76; Aqua Saturation 14; Blue Saturation 17; Red Primary Hue 100; Red Primary Saturation 40; Green Primary Hue: 100; Green Primary Saturation 69; Blue Primary Hue -21; Blue Primary Saturation 33


So, I'm going to stop there. Obviously, there's a lot of things I can do to a picture. I think that pretty much all of the manips look at least a little better (more crisp, less washed out) than the original. That said, I would love to market my photos as unmanipulated. All in all, I imagine this post makes it clear that I have no clue what I'm doing...

So I'm taking a look at all of these. I like the ones that draw out the green of the tree leaves, and that increase the saturation of the blue of the sky and the yellow gold of the sunset. I like the crispness of the clouds in Manip 2, and I like that all of the manips bring out sun rays while reducing the saturation of the sun. Looking at all of them, I think my favorites are Manip 2 and Manip 7. Manip 5 is not bad either. I kept worrying that I was making them too dark, but looking at the progression, I think that actually I ended up making most of them too bright.

Since the idea was to do a few manips and print them all, I was thinking that I'd try printing out the original, Manip 2, and Manip 5. I think these two manips look the most natural while emphasizing different elements of the photo.

But...I could really, really use some input. :)

Comments

[akashiver.livejournal.com]

I think 7 is my fave, as it manages to bring out the green of the trees without making the blue look unnatural. The blue in #8 is too bright for my taste - it doesn't seem to match the rest of the lighting. If you selected the sky region you could alter the color just in that patch though.

[nekomata.livejournal.com]

Here's how I made it look. (But I am very tired, and don't know what's what...)


I personally think is 4 a step in the right direction, but this is a hard photo to work with because of that vibrant light.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense. I clearly need to do this a bunch more, and spend a lot more time on each image (I tossed each of these together in only a few minutes)...but I definitely need to keep an eye on the blueness and greenness of the blues and the greens. I saw the options for messing with only one section of the photo, but I ended up being too intimidated to mess with those settings. :)

In case I haven't made it clear, thanks SO MUCH for taking the time to go through the posts I've been doing on this topic. I really, really appreciate it.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

....that looks really good. The sunset is maybe a little too pink, but other than that...You've got some experience with this! So...what did you do?

I kinda wish I could average 2 and 4...which I probably can (that's why I took notes on what I did to each one, so I could try to isolate what seemed to be working.)

And thanks so much for your input and time on this!! I don't have a clue what I'm doing, so it really helps. If it wasn't for you guys, I'd not have even considered doing any manip work.

By the way - I know you use Adobe Photoshop Elements - have you tried Adobe Photoshop Light Elements? It's available from IU, too - it's what I used to do these...I haven't tried Elements or GIMP yet, though I did install both of them....

[nekomata.livejournal.com]

I...played with various settings until it looked right. In PS you can use a sliding scale to fiddle with contrast, light, hue, saturation, etc. It's a bit pink because I used a layer of warm color over the whole thing. I've had both photography and Photoshop classes, but for the life of me I can't explain how to fix photos. I would make a terrible teacher.

I actually use Photoshop CS4, I just happened to have Elements from some software that came with my laptop and it works about the same. I might try Light to see how it works, but no experiences with it so far. I personally hate GIMP; I used it back in the day and it was horrid. GIMP may have come a long way, and it's free, but I have prejudices.

No problem! I'm just glad I can be helpful and put all my "fun" classes to use.

[schenker28.livejournal.com]

"That said, I would love to market my photos as unmanipulated."

In my opinion, each conversion you do in this process:

1. going from real world light to camera
2. going from camera to computer screen
or 2. going from camera to printer ink

is an imagine manipulation. The camera is automatically doing lots of crazy stuff to translate light in to color data.... it's not a simple "unprocessed" or "raw" mapping by any means. Likewise, printers and your computer screen (but especially printers) are doing another crazy mapping -- indeed, that's why things look different on screen vs. ink, or on different color printers... So I think "unmanipulated" is a myth. Even if I go straight to film and then develop in the darkroom, I'm still making choices about exposure time, etc. in the darkroom.

So I think that minor changes like the ones you showed so far are fair game to say "unmanipulated" if you feel it's necessary. Cutting and pasting is going to far... and maybe you don't like the idea of editing individual parts of an image (like the sky vs. the ground) separately... although they even showed us things like that in the darkroom in photography 101. Anyway, I think you should treat color/exposure enhancement, at least at the level of the whole picture, as a normal part of the photo-development process, not something "unnatural".

[unforth.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent point, and not one I'd really considered. I could kind of sense that my attachment to "unmanipulated" was silly, but couldn't put my finger on why - I think you've nailed in on the head. I can't count the number of times I've been frustrated by my inability to get the camera to accurately reflect the colors I see in front of me. :)

[unforth.livejournal.com]

lol. Well, I guess I'll have to play with various settings until things look right. :)

I used to use JASC all the time - I used to do a lot of image manipulation (I was a winamp skinner back in the day) but never this kind of work.

I'd like to take a photography class at some point, but not quite yet...