Jump to content

Making a silk purse from a sow's ear


Recommended Posts

Advertisement (gone after registration)

or, making lemonade from lemons. With the cold rainy/snowy weather we've had lately I've had time to go back to older photos to see what I could make of them. I've learned a bit about photoshop in the last few years thanks to the help of many so I'm trying to improve on photos that didn't quite do it for me the first time around. This is probably old hat to many of you but bear with me, I'm learning this stuff.

 

The photo I've been working on this last week is a Western Bluebird, photographed locally in March 2007. The bird was in the deep shade of an oak forest, the only light on the bird was sunlight filtered through the forest canopy. Very green. Until this week I haven't been satisfied with the color balance; with a good background color that looks like oak forest, the bird's colors are way off:

 

webl06bg.jpg

 

With the color balance adjusted for the bird, the background is colorless:

 

webl06fg.jpg

 

Previously I tried to find a happy medium between these two, but I wasn't happy with the medium I landed on. For the last week or so I've been working on another approach: I split the photo into foreground and background layers, applied separate color correction to suit each layer, then combined them, erasing the background areas from the foreground layer. Here's the result:

 

webl06.jpg

 

(all on-topic of course: equipment was R8/DMR, 560mm f/6.8 Telyt-R) Comments and suggested alternate approaches to this problem are welcome, but keep in mind the most advanced software I have is PS6.

Link to post
Share on other sites

split the photo into foreground and background layers, applied separate (anything) correction to suit each layer, then combined them, erasing the background areas from the foreground layer...

 

 

Isnt that what everyone does? You could also try splitting your curves in RGB, and often helpful for the supersaturateds, try a black and white layer beneath to affect contrast adjustments in and transparency the colour layer above.

 

PS ... Often it is easiest to make your adjustments to the backround layers which will be your subject, and erase down to them.

 

Using both your first two images without affecting their colours, and bringing your bird through from beneath took about, thirty, forty seconds?

 

...... [ATTACH]178030[/ATTACH]

 

Making adjustments way over the top, to the foliage in the forgraound layer and bringing your original bird through, another half minute go to woe.

 

...... [ATTACH]178031[/ATTACH]

 

I am not saying these are right, I have no idea of the proper colours, only rough and readies, but it is easy enough to do and the result is what you decide to present. Turn your favourite b&w film into colour if you get bored enough to feel like it.

Edited by rob_x2004
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...