Brutal evaluations sought! (partII)

[TitusvileSurfer]

I shot a couple high school football games last season and an administrator asked for a shot for his office. I gave him 20 or so images to choose from and he selected this one (the play itself was very significant):

After my first round of editing I got this:

 

[swjim]

Nice shot! I like the action and the crop.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Here is a 100% crop to evaluate over-sharpening ect.

 

[jedininja]

Great picture. Can you soften the background a little bit? I think that would make the picture a little less busy and more focus on the runningback.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

I sure can, I have a radius 2 Gaussian blur on it right now to reduce noise. He's actually a line backer, one of the elements that made it so special Off to school right now but I'll tweak that and any other suggestions when I get home in a few hours. Thanks for the tips, and don't worry about my feelings. I just want a good final result.

 

[Recty]

I just want a good final result.

Then send me the raw file

 

[boodlefish]

^^^ lamo ^^^

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Alright I'm back, I gave the background some additional blur but it just didn't look right. I'll toy with that some more but I might just scrap it. The ref looks like he's going through half-life cycles...lots of clone stamping needed to even him out.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Editing round 2:
Old:

New:

Thoughts? Too warm? They still seemed a little blue in the 1st, maybe not I've been staring at it so long my mind might be playing tricks on me. I tried to bring out the shadow's shrouding the ball carrier's face as well.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Oops double. I dunno-does it look cartoonish?

 

[xtm]

#1 looks great! #2 looks like it needed some actinic. LOL

Now if you can only remove that referee.......

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

I could cut him out easily I suppose. I think he adds character though.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

I don't know how those film guys did it :lol:

 

[JHemdal]

Wasn't there a story about a staff photographer from a newspaper that lost his job because he cropped out the disembodied legs of some people standing behind the scoreboard at a H.S. football game? I always thought that was a bit harsh.

Would you want to remove the ref's shadow also?


Jay

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Oh good point, I didn't even think about the shadow. But I'm not really removing him for the final draft, that was more of a joke. If you work for a news organization you have a different set of rules. Photoshop scars the general public (and rightfully so). I'm just an amateur at Photoshop, a real pro could draw that entire photograph from scratch. But this is going in someone's office, not a news report, so I'm just being artsy.

 

[BlueCorn]

Wasn't there a story about a staff photographer from a newspaper that lost his job because he cropped out the disembodied legs of some people standing behind the scoreboard at a H.S. football game?

That's pretty normal practice for journalism photos. Re-touching is a big no-no. For an art print or poster, however, anythings fair-game.

 

[BlueCorn]

TS - The whole scene is pretty dark. To get a good print you might want to brighten the whole image about 1/2 stop. Since monitor screens are luminous, the image almost always looks slightly darker on paper.

Adding the half stop can be done in LR, using the exposure slider, or in PS.

To do it in PS, add a levels adjustment layer but don't actually change any levels. Change the blend mode of the adjustment layer to "Screen" (you've just brought up the whole frame by 1 stop) to back it off, change the adjustment layer opacity to 50%.

Cheers

 

[BlueCorn]

Here is a 100% crop to evaluate over-sharpening ect.

One problem that you run into when sharpening a noisy image is that you sharpening can bring out noise. Something that I do, to help with that, is only sharpen the edges of things. I do it with masks and smart objects so it's completely editable and doesn't harm the image. I generally do the process manually but I do make an action available to folks after I give a presentation on it. You're welcome to try it if you'd like.

http://www.binaryemulsion.com/assets/delivery/Edge-Sharpening.zip

unzip the file and load it into your actions palette. Your image needs to be a smart object, and selected, for it to work but it should prompt you about that.

Cheers

 

[Recty]

http://www.binaryemulsion.com/assets/delivery/Edge-Sharpening.zip

Freaking sweet.

 

[MeuserReef]

Thanks for the input (and the action) Doug! The proxy here at my job wont let me see the pics TS, so I wont be able to comment