Since I got such great advice on my last image, I thought I would try again!!

I shot a senior at a local park with a pond a few weekends ago and the pond is a putrid green!!! Any ideas on how this could be altered to make the pond seem more pleasing to the eye? :confused:

Thanks,

Wendy

Hi there

Many ways to do this as I'm sure with other posts you will see.

I just quickly made a mask out of the green channel. Then used the selection to cut the pond to its own layer. Then a simple Hue/Saturation adjustment will allow you to change to the color of your choice.

Butch

Wendy, I just added a Hue/Saturation layer selecting the Yellow/Green range to select the water. The selection spilled over a little onto the leaves but I just painted with a black brush over those areas on the layer mask automatically created by the Hue/Sat adjustment layer. You can change the color to whatever you like just by playing with the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness.
Regards, Murray

This was pretty quick and dirty.
I used the magic wand tool to select the water (any number of ways you could accomplish this), created a layer mask on a dupe of the background layer, blurred and fine-tuned the mask and applied a hue/sat adjustment layer, then painted with black at low opacity on the layer mask of the h/s layer to simulate reflections of the foliage on the water.

dc

Hi, I just colored it in, and reduced the opacity, which will also allow you to get the color you want.

Opps I had the opacity set to high, this should look better.

I increased the saturation, increased the contrast, and changed the green of the pond to a more blue color using a HSL adjustment layer on the green part of the spectrum.

Since the natural color of the water tends to green (stagnant or slow flowing water usually is green), I did a selective color adjustment to add a little more blue to soften the "scum".

Swampy is correct (true to her name lol) and the deeper 'green' looks heaps more natural (deep ocean, backyard pools and blue-green algae infested rivers/lakes are the only bodies of water that I have ever seen that are actually 'blueish') besides, the girl is wearing blue jeans... So I basically went for a similar result as Swampy but in a different way with a selectively masked Curves Adjustment Layer. I darkened the overall green hue and did some slight tweaking to individual channel curves to make the green slightly 'cooler' and to add a little depth.

I used the clone tool to put an extra eye on her forehead. That way you don't even notice the green water. It's a simple fix but it's elegant in its own way.

We have a drought in our part of Australia, so its good to see water again. Ive not changed the water to much. Just light changes using selective colour. Did blur the water a tad, ran the clone iron over the jeans ... Tell.

goose - it is! so! elegant! -Thanks ... you brought tears to this poor boy :lol: :lol:

Yeah Tell, that water stuff may be scarce but beer is still plentiful, not so good for the plants but at least I have no fear of dying of thirst :D
Hmmm, Goose... interesting take there on tackling the problem...never would've thought of that lol :lol:

Great job everybody!!!


Goose,

I just love your fix!!!! :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

Wendy, I got your message and here is some more detail about my earlier post. I have stuck notes on what I did in with the attatchments here.
You may want/need to use different values in your curves and mask adjustments than I have used in my examples to get the result you like... just play around with it :grin:

Littlecoo,

How did you get such a good selection using the quick mask tool?

Thanks,

Wendy

Awork.

The life is beautiful.

1. Colour range.
2.Hue / Saturation.
3. Match colour.
4. curves
5.Levels. ...and more regulate.

I painted it on with a fine, hard black brush (and lotsa swearing) to the fiddly areas around the leaves and the rest with a larger brush size. Then cleaned up my lines with a white brush (erases). I really didn't worry to much about precision at this stage, I just wanted to get a selection for the curves mask.

I'd almost have to agree that the green water does look the most natural in spite of being somewhat ugly. Nonetheless, I went with bluer water and included a hint of clouds in the reflection. Beyond that, concentrating on putting more emphasis on the subject herself was more rewarding.

Created a copy of the water and then used hsl adjustment to the water area. Chose a more subtle greeny blue. Levels adjustment also

Wendy I created the mask by using the Selective Color Range in Photoshop. Then I touched up some using quick mask and a brush. To make the mask did not take more than about two minutes.