Forgot Password
Pentax Camera Forums Home
 

Reply
Show Printable Version Search this Thread
01-17-2008, 12:09 AM   #1
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
The Digital Darkroom

I think the Digital Darkroom is every bit as important today as it was when I was slopping chemicals around in my Wet Darkroom of yesteryear. It sure doesn't smell as bad! Image control is what it was all about in those days and I think that is just as important today. I see so many digital photographers that think they are done with the image after they push the shutter release.

Post your digital darkroom examples of how you recovered a so-so image and in general what steps you took.

I'll start with this image. It was taken last Oct. and I had skipped over it as not being worthy of further work. I revisited the image and after a few minutes in CS3 came up with what I think is an acceptable result. I might revisit it again to add back the foliage I lost to the vertical perspective correction. Here is the before and after ...


After converting the PEF file I did the following in CS3

Rotation - Vertical Perspective - Crop - White Point - Black Point - Gamma - Selective Saturation - Resize - Slight Sharpen

CC welcome. Looking forward to seeing more examples.


Last edited by Rickster; 01-19-2008 at 10:34 AM.
01-17-2008, 01:00 AM   #2
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
distorted_vision's Avatar

Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Moving around Australia
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 1,308
this is a fantastic idea mate.... very very good idea... nice picture by the way.. the b4 and after are certainly evident!
01-17-2008, 08:54 AM   #3
Veteran Member
clarenceclose's Avatar

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Pocatello, Idaho
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 1,506
You did this shot justice. The compo is good and the shot well worth recovery.
01-17-2008, 09:18 AM   #4
Veteran Member
jshurak's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: philadelphia
Posts: 626
Oooh I've got a great example. The original was shot with an old p & s (not pentax) at my friends wedding almost a year ago. I was struggling with the incessant auto focus for this shot. Here's the original:


After a decent amount of time in the 'digital darkroom' I was able to save the picture. The fix is nowhere near perfect, but its a huge improvement. Here's the 'fixed' photo:


If memory servers me correctly, the first step was to get rid of those red eyes. Easy enough. Next was to fix the distracting background. Gaussian blur and a little sepia tone did the trick. Although the sepia may be a bit much. Next I applied an Unsharp Mask to sharpen it up a bit. Finally I duped the subject layer and applied a very light gaussian blur and probably set it to screen for a nice soft focus touch. Seems kind of counter-intuitive right?

I plan on giving it to them on their anniversary which...yeek....is in a few days! I still need to do something about that darn flash shadow!

01-17-2008, 09:45 AM   #5
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by distorted_vision Quote
this is a fantastic idea mate.... very very good idea... nice picture by the way.. the b4 and after are certainly evident!
Thanks for the support and kind words. By the way, your graffiti art series is really GOOD WORK!

Last edited by Rickster; 01-17-2008 at 10:04 AM.
01-17-2008, 09:46 AM   #6
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by clarenceclose Quote
You did this shot justice. The compo is good and the shot well worth recovery.
Thank you Clarence. Looks like you're a neighbor! I'm in the Bear Lake area.

Last edited by Rickster; 01-17-2008 at 10:08 AM.
01-17-2008, 10:01 AM   #7
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by jshurak Quote

I plan on giving it to them on their anniversary which...yeek....is in a few days! I still need to do something about that darn flash shadow!
What PP tools do you have? In CS3 I would use the PEN tool to carefully draw a Path around your couple and then convert the path to a selection to isolate them from the background. You could then work on the shadow with a bit of cloning. Here's an example where the background was very distracting and I did the Pen - Path - Selection thing then completely got rid of the background ...


Here is the original with just resizing ...


You see I got rid of the shadow too!

01-17-2008, 05:47 PM   #8
Inactive Account




Join Date: Mar 2007
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 3,675
I shot this picture while in Mexico last year. I liked it because of the small group of people buying fruits and vegetables (who were thankfully ignoring me); the bright red door of the church; the colonial beauty of the architecture of the church and finally the deep blue sky. I disliked it for the weird angles of the church and the seemingly crooked road.

Using 'lens correction' in Photo Shop CS2 I was able to straighten the walls of the church and the angled road curb. It was a combination of both horizontal and vertical corrections that made it all come together. Now I really like the image!



New and improved image.


Last edited by J.Scott; 01-18-2008 at 04:11 AM.
01-18-2008, 10:16 AM   #9
Veteran Member
clarenceclose's Avatar

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Pocatello, Idaho
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 1,506
QuoteOriginally posted by Rickster Quote
Thank you Clarence. Looks like you're a neighbor! I'm in the Bear Lake area.
Greetings.
Have to hook up the dogsled and mush on over sometime for a hike and shoot.
Send me a pm regarding contact info.
01-18-2008, 01:17 PM   #10
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by J.Scott Quote
I shot this picture while in Mexico last year. I liked it because of the small group of people buying fruits and vegetables (who were thankfully ignoring me); the bright red door of the church; the colonial beauty of the architecture of the church and finally the deep blue sky. I disliked it for the weird angles of the church and the seemingly crooked road.

Using 'lens correction' in Photo Shop CS2 I was able to straighten the walls of the church and the angled road curb. It was a combination of both horizontal and vertical corrections that made it all come together. Now I really like the image!
Good job on the perspective correction. Great looking old church.

If at all possible I will try to leave more 'space' around images like this that I know will require perspective correction in post processing.
01-19-2008, 07:08 AM   #11
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
I want to apologize to the forum for posting this in the wrong place. I'd appreciate it if a forum moderator would move the thread to "Post Processing and Software"

Last edited by Rickster; 01-19-2008 at 07:09 AM. Reason: spelling
01-19-2008, 09:20 AM   #12
Veteran Member
-=JoN=-'s Avatar

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NYC
Posts: 999
moved...

good stuff btw...like the first one....good edits all around
01-19-2008, 10:32 AM   #13
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by -=JoN=- Quote
moved...

good stuff btw...like the first one....good edits all around
Thank you for moving the thread Jon.

Thank you for the kinds words too!
01-22-2008, 05:52 PM   #14
Veteran Member
Rickster's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Idaho - Rocky Mtns
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 580
Original Poster
Looks like moving the thread was the 'kiss of death' for it.

Come on folks, let see some more examples!
01-29-2008, 03:29 PM   #15
Veteran Member
khardur's Avatar

Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: NW Massachusetts
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 1,560
QuoteOriginally posted by Rickster Quote
Come on folks, let see some more examples!
Okay! I like the idea of this thread. I just haven't had time... (aren't we all in the same boat there?) So I'm resurrecting it for you:


top one: unretouched jpg from raw output: (infrared image taken with Hoya R72 filter, white balanced off the clouds, that was the only thing giving a reading at the time)

After converting the RAW, I converted to grayscale using Cybia's Retrograde filter. ($8, though I highly recommend their free version too, called "B&W Plus")

Then I did a little burning in the clouds, a little dodging on the foreground.
Then I wanted to kind of do a "lensbaby" effect, because I'm too damn cheap to buy one, so I feathered an elliptical selection tool (Photoshop Elements) by about 100 pixels, and put the ellipse around the tree. Finally I inversed the selection and did a radial blur, to leave a fairly clean tree with a nice blur all around.
Reply

Bookmarks
  • Submit Thread to Facebook Facebook
  • Submit Thread to Twitter Twitter
  • Submit Thread to Digg Digg
Tags - Make this thread easier to find by adding keywords to it!
cs3, darkroom, examples, image, perspective, photography, photoshop
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
People The Darkroom Steve Beswick Post Your Photos! 2 11-08-2010 11:03 PM
Darkroom.. tonyjayice Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 17 06-21-2010 09:47 AM
How dark, darkroom has to be? ytterbium Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 47 01-15-2010 09:01 AM
Help - darkroom question tranq78 Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras 26 12-04-2008 10:19 AM
digital darkroom WRB Photographic Technique 9 12-07-2006 11:03 AM



All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:09 AM. | See also: NikonForums.com, CanonForums.com part of our network of photo forums!
  • Red (Default)
  • Green
  • Gray
  • Dark
  • Dark Yellow
  • Dark Blue
  • Old Red
  • Old Green
  • Old Gray
  • Dial-Up Style
Hello! It's great to see you back on the forum! Have you considered joining the community?
register
Creating a FREE ACCOUNT takes under a minute, removes ads, and lets you post! [Dismiss]
Top