I've been taking pictures of lacrosse games and the games are played inside, it's a very well lit fieldhouse but in order for me to get non-blurry photos I have to take the pictures differently then usual.
I've managed to do pretty well with a combination of iphotos adjustment editor, and photoshop blending modes. But I'm wondering if anyone has some better advice because the 3rd attached image is from the most recent pictures and they turned out a bit darker than the previous, and I'm having a harder time getting them to look good.

Here are some examples of what I came up with with pictures taken a couple of weeks ago.
http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lax1dw2.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lax2ag2.jpg
They really don't look that bad I guess (the originals) but I attached the original of both of those below, and one of the new one that's causing me some problems.
thank you

the rgb space changed to AIM trinitron d65 g1 (linear gamma)
levels correction
some noise removal need like neat image or noise ninja but I 've not any at home sorry


where U can get this rgb profile: http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/techniques/index.htm

Levels. Blending mode Screen. Readjusted levels slightly and used Hue Saturation.

Photomatix Html/tone mapped (default settings)
copied background
added 1 screen layer.. adjusted opacity
merged layers
levels
imagenomic noiseware (default settings)

Hi,
I used Paint Shop Pro version XI on one of the images. The first image x is
"layers duplicate"
"blending mode dodge"
when you are on the second layer "image negative"
you get a white almost blank image
Take the slider slide it towards zero till you reach the colors you like
"layers merge visible"
"one step noise removal"
The second image xx has one added last step "adjust fill flash"
You can do the same in Paint shop Pro v9 except for the one step noise removal you'd have to remove noise by neat image or some other program.
There is only one problem I cannot post the results I've tried many times I have uploaded them on my Picasaweb albums and tried to paste the link in the url space but I still get invalid address message. I can't upload them from my computer I don't know why
The link is http://picasaweb.google.com/lutfiye.gureli/RetouchPro?authkey=pwyGFLP_RFA

Thank you guys.
I'm going to try out noise ninja, once there site comes back online.
I don't really know how much else I should say. I was going to say why i liked each one and whatnot, but I don't know if that's really how this works.
If I can get photomatix to automate a script and run it on all my pictures I'll do that. and then noise ninja.

I don't know how to get the rgb profile though, I looked on that site and couldn't find anything.

Olbaldy,

I know you explained what you did, but care to elaborate and I mean in detail for each layer or each step in depth. Sorry i am totally new to retouching and I am having a huge problem with exactly this here. I would really appreciate it.

Sorry to hijack the thread but I thought for people that are TOTAL Newbs this might help us out. If you care to PM me then that is fine too.

Thanks
ryan

Ryan, There is no need to PM.. Believe it or not the steps outlined is exactly what was done there is not much to elaborate on.. But I will try..

Photomatix HTM/tone mapped (default settings):
On my old computer I have an older version of Photomatix and it can do a HDR with one image... on my portable, which has a newer version of Photomatix it cannot make a 1 image HDR, so I go into Photoshop and copy the background layer twice and set the mode to screen on both and create a new document from each layer then change the screen mode on the two layers to Multiply and make new documents from each of those ... THEN import all these plus the original into Photomatix and create a HDR. Then tone-map and save the tone-map to import into Photoshop

copied background_added 1 screen layer.. adjusted opacity:
In Photoshop the picture was still a little dark so I lightened it by changing the mode of the top image to screen then adjusted the opacity of that layer till it looked OK to me

merged layers_levels:
merged those two layers and ran Levels on the resulting layer (I changed the levels box at the top from RGB to red>held down the Alt key>adjusted both sliders till color showed in the important areas... Repeated for the Green and Blue channels)

Imagenomic Noiseware (default settings):
Used the Imagenomic Noiseware filter at default settings to clean up the noise in the pictures..

Nuttin fancy
Hope this helps

No problem vido. I did think olbaldy's were very good. Do you happen to know what version of photomatix it was that allowed you to do hdr with one image? I wouldn't mind trying that out.
Question though, how did your 3rd image turn up so blocky when your first 2 were done so well? just a compression issue maybe?

I ended up taking a couple steps from your different posts and coming out with something quite good.
I'd post up a link but I haven't done it on any of the 3 I attached earlier so you wouldn't have anything to compare to.

but...
I started out adjusting the image in iphoto, it's basic options work very well.
And then I did noise ninja. strength = 15 smoothness = 13 contrast = 20
Auto Levels
Auto Contrast
Auto Color
Slight Brightness/Contrast
Slight Hue/Saturation
Duplicate layer (3 times)
Gaussian blur on 8 (on all 3)
change opacity to between 20 and 40
One layer on lighten
One layer on overlay
One layer on screen
done

alright...I decided my 2nd draft with your guys' help isn't as good if I don't show how it turned out, so I ran the action I made on one of the files I attached earlier.

Do you happen to know what version of Photomatix it was that allowed you to do HDR with one image? I wouldn't mind trying that out.
Question though, how did your 3rd image turn up so blocky when your first 2 were done so well? just a compression issue maybe?

Photomatix Pro 2.2.0.24 Using Automate>Batch Processing.. check HDR then at the bottom scroll to your file select it .. click OK It should process the HDR and put it into a Photomatix folder.. then just load it back into Photomatix click the HDR menu.. select tone map and play with the sliders if you want.. when done.. OK.. save wherever

The original pic was a bit darker than the others so it may have been the HDR process .. I left everything at the default so no improvement work was done on any of them besides noise reduction and this one probably had more noise

cool thank you for the heads up on how to do that. I kind of wasn't expecting the program to be for mac so that was a nice surprise.

oh ok, i understand. just seemed strange that that one was so blocky.

thanks saby, noise ninja's been working great. it's not over the top like some noise reducers I've used in the past...although it can be made to be over the top if I want that look which is nice.
thank you to albatross I hadn't thought to play with the levels