Editing Tips

PPAAUULL · Jul 5, 2007

So I have been doing photography for a couple of years now and I am getting the hang of taking the pictures but when I compare them to others on, let's say Flickr I find that no mater what I do, my pictures' colours look like junk, all washed out and dull even when I take them in the sun. Now I know real photographers never just take a picture and that is it so I have been reading around and found that editing the pictures colours and such might be able to help. What I would like to know is what should I be doing to the pictures every time I off-load them to my computer? What types of thing should I fix and edit with my pictures to get them looking more professional.

If you want to take a look at some of my pictures to give me a better idea you can find them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulvolk/

Thanks so much for the help.

Big Mike · Jul 5, 2007

Welcome to the forum.

With most images, I will use Photoshop to adjust the 'Levels' and then 'Curves'. Sometimes I will adjust the Hue/Saturation and maybe the Color Balance. I like to do each of these adjustments with it's own 'Adjustment Layer'

Sharpening can also help to give an image some 'Pop'.

PPAAUULL · Jul 5, 2007

What kind of Curve adjustment? I have played with the curves a bit but I didn't really see how it could help me that much.

Big Mike · Jul 5, 2007

The curves adjustment is usually a very small tweak...to increase the mid range contrast.

Check out this site http://www.luminous-landscape.com/
The Tutorials and the Understanding Series are filled with good information that is easy to read.

Smith2688 · Jul 5, 2007

A lot of the pictures that I have seen on Flickr are ridiculously oversaturated. From what I saw on the first page of your Flickr page, your pictures look great! To me they are naturally vibrant and colorful, so I wouldn't worry about over tweaking them. A little touch up in Photoshop can always add some pop to a picture, though.

xfloggingkylex · Jul 5, 2007

a lot of the pictures you are talking about on Flickr are probably an HDR or HDR hybrid of a normal picture, where oversaturation and a hyper-realistic look is par for the course.

PPAAUULL · Jul 5, 2007

Well here I will give you an example. I take a lot of pictures of close up nature and landscape pictures. When I have green in them it always looks dull. What I wish to achieve is a green much like the grass in this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/algo/92463787/
or the vibrancy of the colours in this shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/algo/18939485/in/set-72157600201301733/

I want to achieve colours much like those in there vibrancy

The_Traveler · Jul 5, 2007

Are you changing the color profile from RGB to sRGB?
If not, that could be the problem.

PPAAUULL · Jul 5, 2007

Do I change that on the camera or in the editing process?

Garbz · Jul 5, 2007

The first one you posted is oversaturated. When have you ever seen blue fog. Wet grass and an late afternoon sun provides the sunlight with very yellow colour.

The second picture looks much more natural but still a bit strong. I reckon curves were used to bump the contrast on that a bit.

In nature especially have you looked at getting a polarising filter? That bumps up saturation quite a bit in many situations.

bdh1974 · Jul 5, 2007

PPAAUULL, what program are you using to edit your photos.

I sometimes use Picasa when I am at work, gov company so cant load photoshop. It has a great tool for playing with photo's. You can do basic fixes, cropping, etc. Or flick to the effects tab & you have 12 options.

The best thing is picasa is a free download from google.

It might be a good starting place. Play with the saturation & then go back to photoshop & play with the levels & try & match it.

Cheers

Brad

PPAAUULL · Jul 5, 2007

Grabz: I do have a polarizing filter. I never thought of using it though. I will give it a try.

bdh1974: I have both Photoshop and GIMP. I like and use GIMP a lot more then photoshop though. I have been fooling around with the curves/levels and suck in the past two days and ya it does seem to give me a better looking picture. Although for the past two days it has been raining so the lighting has been very dull and drab. I will try some more and tell you what I find in the coming sunny days!!!