Critiques - - My first post here

Britsdad · #1 05-23-2006, 11:02 AM

Please be gentle but honest with me: this is a wedding pic taken of my wife many moons ago (21 years) and it's always annoyed me with the red cast on it, so I've finally got round to trying to fix it. Now I'm a begginer with Photoshop CS so it's taken me a while (looking thru' loads of tutorials, and trying to follow them) I'm not sure if I am going about it the "right" way. Any advise will be appreciated.....John

Flora · #2 05-23-2006, 11:18 AM

Hi John,

welcome to RP!

I think you did a wonderful job on your wife's picture!!!!

If you'd manage to tone down the whites a bit it would be just perfect!!!

Great job!!!

philbach · #3 05-23-2006, 11:27 AM

Well I don't know how you got to the end, but it looks fine to me. The red cast is gone and her face is not as dark as in the original. So I think you did a good job. Way to go

Britsdad · #4 05-23-2006, 11:33 AM

As for toneing down the whites, I have (you shold have seen them before..lol) I found that if I toned them down any more, the background left turned "muddy", it could be the way I'm doing it, but I've tried masking off the area and it begins to look false, any advise?

Britsdad · #5 05-23-2006, 11:43 AM

You don't know how I got there....neither do I!! lol, and if I did it again, it would, no doubt, look different. But I have to admit, I do like it a lot more then the original, and it has taught me a lot about PSCS. I used to like to use Corel Photopaint, but I don't think I could have got it as good as it is now, and I'm dead chuffed....thankyou

Flora · #6 05-23-2006, 12:28 PM

Hi again,

I looked at the original again and saw exactly what you mean ... "you shold have seen them before.."

As you surely know by now, there are about a billion ways to do the same thing with PS!!!

... but for selecting luminosity, I go back to the selection method described in this Tutorial very often ...

Britsdad · #7 05-23-2006, 01:13 PM

Thanks for the link Flora, I'll take a look......did I not see a tip on this forum somewhere about "ctrl+alt+1" selecting highlights?
John.

Flora · #8 05-23-2006, 01:32 PM

Yep!! you certainly did!!

... Ctrl+Alt+~ = the overall luminosity

Ctrl+Alt+1 = Red Channel Luminosity
Ctrl+Alt+2 = Green Channel Luminosity
Ctrl+Alt+3 = Blue Channel Luminosity

Kraellin · #9 05-23-2006, 03:44 PM

woodbine,

i think you did a nice job also. but i'll offer one addtional correction you can make here that shld help a bit more. your 'after' is a bit on the high contrast and still blown out a bit. this is making the colors a bit stark and the whites a bit more dominating than they shld be.

the correction is a simple 'histogram adjustment'. normally, i might suggest curves or levels, but in this case you have a fair significant 'shift' of luminosity over to the high side. and the best tool for correcting shifts like this is the histogram adjustment filter (haf).

this filter allows you to shift the luminosity. it also allows for clipping the highs and lows and changing the overall luminosity. in your image you have a predominance of highs so you'd want to simply shift these more towards the mids and maybe clip the top range down a bit. after that you'd simply adjust the overall to suit.

and that's it. that's the only tool you need to bring this image into a less sharply contrasted image.

craig

edit: notice too that by shifting the highs to the mids you are effectively adding luminosity to her somewhat shaded face, evening it out nicely.

Britsdad · #10 05-24-2006, 10:12 AM

You mean something like this? I moved black point to 20, mid to 1.2 and left white at 255 (after some deliberation). I'm not sure wheather I like this, it maybe brightens up the tree in the background a little too much I think, however I can see your point. Thanks for the input......John

Kraellin · #11 05-24-2006, 01:44 PM

woodbine,

well, put the two attachments one over the other here on the web site and just flip back and forth and you'll easily see the differences. there's nothing wrong with contrast, but i just think yours is a bit much and the highs are still too high overall. so, even if you left the contrasts alone as a treatment and did nothing but reduce the highs, i think it would be better. notice the face, for instance. that's where it really shows.

as for the background, you can treat that independent of the main subject and darken or lighten without affecting the main subject.

craig

Britsdad · #12 05-24-2006, 02:55 PM

OH GOD!!! I can't seem to get this , when you said histogram adjustment "filter" (haf) did you mean a "filter" or levels adjustment? (sorry for being stupid, I'm quite new at PS) and yes I can see the difference between yours and mine even at low res, so it would look better at high.....John

Kraellin · #13 05-24-2006, 03:26 PM

ah, you changed your name.

the histogram adjustment is found in paint shop pro 10 in 'adjust\brightness and contrast\' menu along with histogram equalize and histogram stretch. they are filters, not adjustment layers. not sure where they are in ps but i'm sure they have them.

craig

Britsdad · #14 05-24-2006, 04:24 PM

That's why I couldn't find them, didn't notice you use paint shop pro, found midtone contrast and colour correction, but black and white clip are greyed out, will have another better look tomorrow, it's getting late here and I'm up at 5am.....
Thanks John

Britsdad · #15 05-24-2006, 04:28 PM

Oh and the name change is Dougs doing, because everyone who's on AOL was having a problem registering on the forum. If your interested look here http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/sho...d.php?p=120845