Photo editing trials Photo Gallery by Andrys Basten at pbase.com

Photo editing trials

Various experiments while I'm learning Photoshop, and there are more efforts on Page 2. Now I'll need to redo old travel pics that are washed out due to bad monitor settings while processing photos.

UFFIZI Museum pics: At first, I wanted to show friends how the Uffizi Gallery in Florence presents these famous paintings (choice of framing, glass you have to look through!) -- but the glaring reflections, after I noticed them, were a no-go.
So below are the two pics I took there - their Before/After versions. I used pictures from my books to see what was under those reflections and lighter areas and then, by trial and error, found out what color changes are needed to match the unreflected colors.

They're both distorted because I shot from an angle and from the waist (under duress) but it's my personal museum experience rather than someone's perfect post card pic or poster :-)
I've put the modified versions, plus insets with ultra-degraded detail from iso400 shots, in the Florence2 gallery.

VATICAN photos: For the pictures of the famous Pieta at St. Peter's, I needed to do something about the huge distracting glass-window reflection at the top-left. The famous sculpture is protected behind bullet-proof plexiglass now, after a madman attacked it with a hammer in 1972.

We're allowed to shoot even flash photos of the Pieta in St. Peter's, though I recently read that the Sistine Chapel area is fairly strict re any photographs because the Japanese group who paid for the 7-yr restoration owns rights to the ceiling paintings. They are much more strict with people going in with large DSLRs and zoom lenses though, tossing them out.

Will add other experiments and more links to free tutorials online. Let me know if you've tried and liked other free tutorial pages.

===================================================================
TUTORIALS online (FREE ones, with some emphasis on Adobe Photoshop, various versions)
. Adobe Press CS/CSx articles, including How Layers Work
. Stanford IRS Photoshop Level 1 Tutorial, Level 2 Tutorial
. Photoshop graphics - Elated Communications
. Cambridge in Colour - VERY helpful, generally (photography-wise)
and re Photoshop
. Graphic Reporter Photoshop step-by-step tutorials For Photoshop Elements also.
. A basic photoshop course (5.0 to 6.0 w/ notes about differences with CS and CS2) - Graphicssoft
. Photoshop Tutorials and Training - Graphic Design
. Ken Rockwell's How to Use Photoshop - thanks to Matt Yuen for this reminder
. VIDEO tutorial on CS2's Vanishing-Point Cloning tool (perspective keeper)
. VIDEO tutorial on CS2's Smart Sharpen filter
. VIDEO tutorials, more CS2 from PhotoshopSupport - including layers, raw-image processing, one-click
red-eye correction, shadow-highlight, match color, and a lot more
. PhotoshopSupport tutorials in general, including CS - Tips and Tricks
. DreamVision's image-blending tutorial
. Luminous Landscape tutorials - Also, Curves; Instant Photoshop" - a fast intro for photographers
. Photoshop Tips at All Things Photography.
. Sharpening with Unsharp Mask - Carsten Arnholm
. Quick-and-Easy Collages
. Improvising with Layers - a basic tutorial by Sharon Steuer.
Also, Photoshop 7's brushes pallette and Using brush shapes and textures
. Making fine prints digitally
. Digital photos primer

. HISTOGRAMS: Here's a beautiful piece on histograms in general, from the luminous-landscape site.
Steve Hoffman does another good histogram piece also.
. MONITOR CALIBRATION: See this effective intro to monitor calibration. ===================================================================
Photoshop tutorial DVDs - for purchase online

===================================================================
BOOKS on Photoshop, for purchase online:

. My own FAVORITE Photoshop for photographers book (CS2) - by Colin Smith. Extremely clear.
Colin Smith's CS3 book - though a 2nd author joins him and may have modified this edition
of Smith's rightfully popular book.
. Photoshop CS/CS2-Dayton/Gillespie - Consistently high recommendations by many
. Real World Adobe Photoshop CS - Blatner/Fraser - Also highly recommended, for advanced users
. Photoshop Masking & Compositing - Eismann - Intermediate to Advanced
. Adobe Photoshop CS Studio Techniques - Gillmore - intermediate to advanced
. The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers - Kelby - Extremely popular book
Other popular Kelby books: Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips; Photoshop CS (not CS2);
Photoshop Elements 5; The Photoshop Channels Book - which is both praised and reviled.
. Photoshop CS - Miscellaneous Photoshop books listed, with ratings
. Complete Digital Photography, 3rd Ed. - beautifully written by Ben Long,and regarded by many as
the book to get for understanding digital photography from the ground up.
It includes Photoshop CS tutorials on CD. Very clear writing.
- Andrys, an Amazon affiliate for my main website

( *** For full Screen *** : PC's, press/toggle F11. Mac's, maximize screen. )

pages 1 2 3

23-NOV-2006

Original shot, from the car, bridge railing at bottom

Taken from the bridge while a passenger in a

slowly moving car - the exposure is poor

and the picture is blurred.

This one has slight resharpening back

after resizing but even then it's blurry.

0 comments leave a comment

23-NOV-2006

Exposure and blurriness fixed, angle kept

I liked the slant as seen from going into the city

in a moving car but received a lot of unhappiness

from people over the slant and the railing showing.

Used Unsharp Mask and Levels to get detail and better

contrast. Also used color balance. Didn't know about

history brush yet or would have used it on the trees.

The railing was context for me, BUT, since people

wanted the double fix, the final one (just two away)

is nicely static! Must lighten this pic someday.

0 comments leave a comment

23-NOV-2006

Blurry railing removed

Removed the indication we were in a moving car

and did some dodging on the trees.

I kind of like this slant though!

And it IS earthquake country.

BUT, for others, see the next one.

0 comments leave a comment

23-NOV-2006

Straightened, with bridge railing removed

I hope this one meets the approval of the aesthetics crowd! :-)

Did some added dodging on the trees on this also.

Will lighten much of this later.

Am now using this one at SF Visit.

1 comment leave a comment

13-MAY-2006

Badly-Blurred image: First "sharpened" version - still awful

This is the first "sharpened" version I did from

an extremely blurred shot due to high winds while

I was using the telephoto at 300mm from the road

after we'd left San Gimignano and its towers.

Still VERY hard on the eyes.

0 comments leave a comment

13-MAY-2006

San Gimignano, clearer now

To try to clarify the impossibly blurred photo

which I normally would toss but for the subject,

I used Unsharp Mask at radius .05 and amount 33%

for the original image and then resized it.

Then went to radius .02 and 500%, to get

whatever detail was in the image and then used

history brush on the tall tower edges to remove

the sharpening that also had produced halo effects.

Used levels and then curves to increase contrast

while masking out the sky.

Someday I should change the sky but I like to keep

a record of what the trip was actually like.

This is in San Gimignano2 gallery.

2 comments leave a comment

10-MAY-2006

mImg_0517.jpg

Too blue-green and flat

0 comments leave a comment

10-MAY-2006

mImg_0517.jpg

Color-balanced green-blue cast. Increased contrast

with levels but lost face detail and used history brush

at 21% to bring back the facial details. Darkened to

what it looked like when I was there, used hue-saturation

to bring back only reds.

This is a gorgeous window that is a copy of the original,

which was recently restored but placed in a museum instead

of its original religious setting, to preserve colors, etc.

More of the church and window at the Siena1 gallery.

1 comment leave a comment

07-MAY-2006

Sky details missing and lighting was averaged.

I wanted to get back from the image the details

the camera did get but minimized.

0 comments leave a comment

07-MAY-2006

This is what drew me to the scene.

The play of light in Tuscany is one of its most

amazing features. The exposure I used and the

limitations inherent sometimes, in how lenses see

high-contrast situations, washed out the sky and

averaged out everything.

As a beginner in Photoshop, I brought back the

details of what I saw. Mainly, I selectively

masked to do different 'burning in' and highlighting

of what is there, closer to what I saw, which was gorgeous.

It might seem a more intense green to some, but Tuscany's

like that!

This is from the Montepulciano - Italy set.

6 comments leave a comment

02-MAY-2006

Badly underexposed, iso100, 1/250 sec, 300mm at 7:30pm at dusk

0 comments leave a comment

02-MAY-2006

Via Adobe Photoshop and class info of 9/28/06

Not as much work as the others except for color corrections.

Taken at 7:32~pm inadvertently using iso100 and 1/250th sec with 300mm lens

1 comment leave a comment

pages 1 2 3

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Bill Warren		31-Jul-2007 15:47
Galleries like this are the pBase jewels. They teach and inspire. Voted

Karen Mickleson		27-Jul-2007 03:32
Like I said somewhere else, you are a teacher, Andrys, and par excellence!

ashraful masoon		28-Jun-2007 07:21
hey thanks to u , its nice see ur work , i dont know much about photoshop work , just here and there, but i want to learn ....

Andrys Basten		27-Nov-2006 08:56
That's why I have these huge eye-bags that others then have to clone out. This 'modifying' is easy for some others, but I slowly figured some things out with Paintshop 8 and am now taking baby steps with Photoshop.

faltens		27-Nov-2006 07:36
I'm impressed at your accomplishment! You have great stick-to-it-iveness. (I get frustrated just trying to deal with red-eye...)

Andrys Basten		10-Aug-2006 05:43
"Love" is not exactly the wording I'd choose! ;-)

Margaret Lew		10-Aug-2006 05:09
Good work! It was a big disappointment to see these pictures under glass and I'd have thought it was a waste of time to take a picture with the reflections. Since some folks seem to love picture repair, it looks like I was wrong.

Andrys Basten		10-Aug-2006 04:41
Thanks. It was painful! But rewarding. Someday after everything else is done I want to redo the color matching in one area. I just changed the style sheet to make the fonts bigger, as the prettier font was too small and hard on my eyes! Just one pixel size different ! The larger one is more like a typewriter. Win a few, lose a few.

Mary Ann Campbell		10-Aug-2006 04:38
Wow! You have become a pro--with Paintshop? Very nice job! mac