The infamous Yellow House (from the legendary Photographic Discussions thread)

manaheim · Jul 22, 2008

I always enjoy a good photoshop challenge.

Obviously a big part of your core problem (aside from composition) is that you focused on the rock with a relatively shallow depth of field, but I tihnk you know that.

This isn't perfect, but honestly I don't think the image is actually recoverable... it does, however, show the potential of what can be done to fix a missed image.

If I put a bit more work in it could have been better, but this was about 5 mins effort just to see.

What I did:

Used a color range to select the sky, feathered the selection, and saved it.
Copied in a decent sky from another shot I had lying around as a new layer.
Loaded the selection and feathered it slightly, created a layer mask to only reveal that part of the sky.
Messed around with the opacity of that layer so it wasn't overly blue for the scene. (this also helps obscure the fact that it was a pasted in sky)
Used a paintbrush to clean up the edges of the layer mask a bit to make the fact that I pasted a sky in less obvious.
Did an unsharp mask to reduce the haze (20% sharpening, 250 pixel range, 2 threshold)
Desaturated the image just slightly.

As I'm sure you know, getting the sun behind you as much as possible will improve the colors in the sky, but sometimes you can't control that. A neutral density graduated filter will also help.

A circular polarizing filter can also help a bit on colors and harsh glare in bright sun conditions, but I don't think this was really a problem in this case.

K8-90 · Jul 23, 2008

Well, I think Manaheim gave a good explanation on how to do it, so I'll leave it at that

manaheim · Jul 23, 2008

K8-90 said:
Well, I think Manaheim gave a good explanation on how to do it, so I'll leave it at that

Sorry, didn't mean to ruin your fun!

Jon_Are · Jul 23, 2008

Thanks a lot, Manaheim. I'm going to try it myself following your instructions as soon as I get a chance.

Is it OK if I PM you when (not if :mrgreen

I get confused?

Jon

manaheim · Jul 23, 2008

Jon_Are said:
Thanks a lot, Manaheim. I'm going to try it myself following your instructions as soon as I get a chance.

Is it OK if I PM you when (not if :mrgreen I get confused?

Jon

Absolutely. Anytime. Glad to help.

K8-90 · Jul 23, 2008

manaheim said:
Sorry, didn't mean to ruin your fun!

No problem! You said it much better than I could anyhow!

Wyjid · Jul 23, 2008

i love this house. but the colour of the house demended a sunset, so i took a shot at it.

1. curves, lower everything and boost contrast.
2. magic wand sky. inverse selection. layer via copy.
3. insert appropriate sunset.
4. curves on forground layer, boost red, and darken to match sunset lighting.
5. clean up remaining light edges of horizon with burn tool. burn flagpole/chimney.
6. select forground rock, layer via copy.
7. fill in scenery behinde rock (clone tool)
8. drop the rock in a more pleasing location for appropriate composition and darken it. (mabey just remove the rock next time)
9. flatten and save image, and upload to thephotoforum
10. try to remember the steps and put them in writing, submit reply.

invisible · Jul 23, 2008

Wyjid, that's great work. It has to be noted, however, that the yellow house almost goes unnoticed now, as the sunset takes centre stage. Not that there's anything wrong with it

Hawaii Five-O · Jul 23, 2008

wooo cool, how did you do that!?

manaheim · Jul 23, 2008

This is turning into a photoshop contest...

"So I liked the house, but I really pictured it as more of a north pole scene, with Santa Claus coming in for a landing..."