<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13078664#post13078664 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thirschmann
nice work.
Thanks!
Want to give us a short run down of what you do? Just started to play with curves and it does a lot for photos. Any other tips or tricks?
Sorry I've been out of touch this week, just been a little busy....totally wasn't ignoring you thirschmann. In fact, I hate when people hord information to themselves. How are we ever going to learn anything if people don't share?
Here goes:
I use Photoshop CS3, pull up the photo, duplicate, and apply unsharp mask at 150/0.7/0 (on the 3 slides in the box, then tweak a little above or below those levels the first time to see what I like). Then if needed, I apply unsharp mask a second time at these levels: 20/30/8 on the 3 slides in the box.
Next I apply an inversion of the main (blue) color to red by choosing Filter>Blur>Average (which should make the entire photo a blue box....don't worry it gets better. The hit Ctrl + I on the keyboard, this should invert the color of the blue box to a solid reddish/pink box.....hang in there! Then, go over to your Layers palette in the lower righthand corner of your screen, and from it's drop down box, choose Overlay. This will bring your picture back but with a less blue cast. You can then vary the amount of red in the pic by sliding the Opacity slide back in forth in the same box. Hopefully that made sense.
The next thing I do is use Curves or Levels to bring the colors into sync. Most of the time I use the "auto" but I have individually set the points too.
Next step, I have another program called Nik Color Efex Pro that I used their Brillance/Warmth filter and just played with the levels until I like what I see. Again, this could probably be done in PS, but I really like some of the cool filter effects this Nik software has and I recommend it.....especially for removing noise and hot pixels from your background.
In your diver pic, I did do a small amount of dodging to brighten the darken portion of the upper lefthand corner of the reef and cloned in a couple of the neighboring coral heads to blend it better. I also liked the fact that your diver had a feeling of floating downward just over the edge of the wall into the abyss, and the one fish was a little distracting to me, (editor's preference
) so I cloned him out using the seawater around him. (Did the same thing with the damselfish in your lionfish picture, then cropped it.)
In Lowredranger's B&W sea turtle picture, I used a soft filter from Nik Color Efex Pro to brush a slight softness around the pre-sharpened turtle...just because it was B&W, I wanted the turtle to pop and the rest to look classical. Again, just my preference.
I hope that helps! You'll be surprised just what the first two steps of using the unsharp mask will do to improve your images!
Now I just need to get out there and go diving some more. If you have any other questions for me, just shout!
Enjoy!
Kristy
