How do you know that you have edited your photo correctly?

[texkam]

How do you know that you have edited your photo correctly?

Um, that's why we're here.

 

[shefjr]

The one word answer to your question is practice -- not all that helpful.

You do need to devote time and study to learning how to use the tools; this is doable, but you need to be careful to get good info and not be misdirected. The Internet is 10% good info and 90% misdirection. You've found Cambridge in Colour -- that's the 10% so you off to a great start.

You want to reach the point where you can look at the photo in question and name the problems. Back up; can you name the fundamental technical characteristics of a photo that make it good or bad in the first place?

1. Tone response.
2. Color.
3. Rendition of Detail.

Now look at your photo:

1. It's very flat and has a compressed tone response -- it looks grey. You need to practice until you can see it and know you're right without having to rely on histograms and software. But always check the histogram for verification. Histogram stays up front on the screen for me 100% of the time I'm editing a photo.
2. The white balance is way off and the photo is blue. Again you want to get to the point where you can see it and name it -- you will with practice. Look at the bird feeder; it's painted black but in your photo it's blue/black.
3. Your photo could be a little sharper. This one is pretty easy -- it's numbers 1. and 2. that take time to learn.

So I look at your photo and see that it's blue and flat. I look at the histogram and get a solid verification that it's flat. The histogram is a little short of the left (black corner) but really short of the right (white) corner. Then I see trouble: there's a long thin line extending right off the white side of the histogram. I use a Threshold test to see what that is. It's the white feathers and beak of the bird. Any attempt to adjust the histogram for a more normal tone response will cause that information to clip -- gotta stay of top of that.

Color first. Does the photo have any data that I can assume should be neutral? Safe bet that bird feeder stand is painted black and black is neutral. It's a gloss black paint however and will reflect color. I get Levels and use the bird feeder to set a neutral grey point -- blue gone.

The tone is harder. If I use Levels with an RGB photo and make the kind of adjustment needed I'm going to drive the color saturation way up and likely too high and then there's those feathers and beak. I went to layers and created a Levels adjustment layer that I could mask to retain the feathers and beak. With the tone adjusted I added additional contrast and reduced the excess color saturation that came from the Levels correction.

And to finish some fairly aggressive sharpening.

Most of what I did was accomplished using Levels. I got the slight contrast increase using a Soft Light blend mode between the original and a dupe. and I used Unsharp Mask to sharpen.

Joe

BOOM!!!
Joe, you just blew my mind! Thank you for taking the time to explain and think out how you process photos. It's like you slapped me in the face to wake me up. It's funny every time I feel like, "Eh! there can't be that much to this." I'm quickly brought back to reality. When I first bought my camera I used to think people take amazing photos and "Hey! I can do that too!". I never knew it was more than just actuating the shutter. That part I'm great at but, what comes out at the other end is well.... LACKING (which is frustrating ). In either case, thanks for waking me up, giving me a "what to look for and kind of a how to", and keeping it positive for me.
John

 

[Ysarex]

The one word answer to your question is practice -- not all that helpful.

You do need to devote time and study to learning how to use the tools; this is doable, but you need to be careful to get good info and not be misdirected. The Internet is 10% good info and 90% misdirection. You've found Cambridge in Colour -- that's the 10% so you off to a great start.

You want to reach the point where you can look at the photo in question and name the problems. Back up; can you name the fundamental technical characteristics of a photo that make it good or bad in the first place?

1. Tone response.
2. Color.
3. Rendition of Detail.

Now look at your photo:

1. It's very flat and has a compressed tone response -- it looks grey. You need to practice until you can see it and know you're right without having to rely on histograms and software. But always check the histogram for verification. Histogram stays up front on the screen for me 100% of the time I'm editing a photo.
2. The white balance is way off and the photo is blue. Again you want to get to the point where you can see it and name it -- you will with practice. Look at the bird feeder; it's painted black but in your photo it's blue/black.
3. Your photo could be a little sharper. This one is pretty easy -- it's numbers 1. and 2. that take time to learn.

So I look at your photo and see that it's blue and flat. I look at the histogram and get a solid verification that it's flat. The histogram is a little short of the left (black corner) but really short of the right (white) corner. Then I see trouble: there's a long thin line extending right off the white side of the histogram. I use a Threshold test to see what that is. It's the white feathers and beak of the bird. Any attempt to adjust the histogram for a more normal tone response will cause that information to clip -- gotta stay of top of that.

Color first. Does the photo have any data that I can assume should be neutral? Safe bet that bird feeder stand is painted black and black is neutral. It's a gloss black paint however and will reflect color. I get Levels and use the bird feeder to set a neutral grey point -- blue gone.

The tone is harder. If I use Levels with an RGB photo and make the kind of adjustment needed I'm going to drive the color saturation way up and likely too high and then there's those feathers and beak. I went to layers and created a Levels adjustment layer that I could mask to retain the feathers and beak. With the tone adjusted I added additional contrast and reduced the excess color saturation that came from the Levels correction.

And to finish some fairly aggressive sharpening.

Most of what I did was accomplished using Levels. I got the slight contrast increase using a Soft Light blend mode between the original and a dupe. and I used Unsharp Mask to sharpen.

Joe

BOOM!!!
Joe, you just blew my mind! Thank you for taking the time to explain and think out how you process photos. It's like you slapped me in the face to wake me up. It's funny every time I feel like, "Eh! there can't be that much to this." I'm quickly brought back to reality. When I first bought my camera I used to think people take amazing photos and "Hey! I can do that too!". I never knew it was more than just actuating the shutter. That part I'm great at but, what comes out at the other end is well.... LACKING (which is frustrating ). In either case, thanks for waking me up, giving me a "what to look for and kind of a how to", and keeping it positive for me.
John

Glad I could help. It's like playing a musical instrument; you gotta log the practice hours.

I think it really helps early on to learn to specifically name the problem. You can't approach it with, "This photo looks kinda off to me." Where's the "kinda off" adjustment brush in Photoshop? When you go to the doctor and say, "Doc I don't feel good." The doctor is going to start with a battery of diagnostic questions; "Where does it hurt?" The doctor will use carefully chosen words to get at your problem. We're the same; photography as a discipline has it's own terminology developed over many decades of refined practice. You want to adopt that same diagnostic terminology and learn to apply it. Then you can say, "The white balance is shifted orange. Is there a neutral point where I can use the white balance tool?"

Joe