Thanks Mary Anne & Techo:-) It looks OK on my screen but as we all have different screens it probably makes sense to make sure things are more solid in colour. I haven't used the selective colour thingy but will have a go. Gawd calling me a master must be a reference to Charlie Chaplin:-)
Excellent shot m8. Really like the subtle colors here. If you where to post this again.. Only suggestion would be to totally blacken the background. Looks a tad blotchy on my screen. Try to trick via Selective Colors, for the Blacks, just slide the bottom Black slider to the right. Should do the trick.
Thanks for the explanation, Rod. This is a wonderful shot, and I'm surprised that you were able to get such smooth clarity with the kit lens. Of course, in the hands of a master....
--Mary Anne
Rod
02-Jul-2007 07:26
I don't think I'm smart enough in Photoshop to do anything but simple PP but I do go by the old adage of junk in = junk out so I only process picys that already look sort of good. Mind you with the mastering of Photoshop some can make junk look pretty good.
All I mainly do is open it in PS & give it an unsharp mask of 134.....point 7......0 ( I have a sharpening action that just sharpens the edges so it leaves the sky alone & bokeh) It's quite good & I can email it to you if you want it.I then have a play with the curves tool (almost the same effect as using the brightness & contrast tool set for about plus 8 contrast & minus 8 brightness) Possibly the only thing I might do that others may not is using the dodge & burn tools on most shots, not so much for just lightning or darkening but for making the detail stand out more. Say on this feather everything might look OK but I might use the burn tool set on shadows & do a pass or two over the feather which will mainly only darken the darker parts of the feather which enhances the lighter parts, sort of makes them stand out better & more so if I then use the dodge tool set on highlights & do a pass or two over the feather which will mainly lighten the already light parts. This is really like adding selective contrast I suppose. As I said before I normally only work on shots that look reasonably good from the camera so it's not very hard to polish them up for viewing.
What I can't quite fathom yet is how your picys are always so sharp even in 800 pixel compressed jpeg. Some pp you have figured out that most of us haven't mastered. I think you got the 'delicate' right this time... and some subtle colors as a bonus. -tv
