[Kiparisas]

Hello, fellow pentaxians, I am not a professional photographer and a newbie in this forum. Though I always had some questions about the post-processing. One of the pictures that I always wondered about is the one I added below. I took it by chance, while walking in the early morning by the pier in Greece. When zoomed-in, you could see a man with a fishing-line attached to a match. However, when the photo is zoomed out, all you can see is a man holding a match, and a fishing line is not visible. Is there a way to make the fishing-line more visible without too much re-doing the original picture itself and without adding something that was not there in the first place? I have tried to move various sliders back and forth, though I did not get the expected result. I was hoping you could share your insights on the post-processing.
And of course, at the same time I wanted to share with you the picture that I got by chance and that surprised me in a very pleasant way. The paused moment and the unusual fishing method seems really mesmerizing to me.

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[ramseybuckeye]

Hopefully youm are working with a raw file, you'll have a lot better chance if you do. The easiest thing to try in my opinion would be increasing contrast. After that I would try some individual color sliders, but what ever you are doing, watch the rest of the photo too. To make it more visible you may have to sacrifice color, although black and white may actually be better than color with this photo.

[photoptimist]

Nice picture!

To improve this with post processing, you'd have to somehow select the pixels of the fishing line for very selective enhancement. No image-wide change is going to have pleasant results.

But another solution is to do what photographers have been doing since the beginning of the art form: return to the place of this intriguing subject matter and photograph it under different/better lighting conditions. These conditions might help strengthen the contrast between water and line either by making the water much brighter than the line or by reflecting sun off the line to make the line brighter than the water. Or, a much tighter shot would enlarge the fishing line to make it more visible.

Note: because the fishing line is nearly perpendicular to the water surface, a polarizing filter might help if the fishing line is shiny. With the polarizer turned one way, the filter would tend to darken the water but brighten the line. Turned 90°, it would tend to brighten the water and darken the line.

A studio or commercial photographer would solve this issue by manipulating the subject. They might work with the man (or hire a model to be the fisherman) and then replace the invisible fishing line with a thicker black thread.

[MossyRocks]

I would look into a tool like RawTherapee as it has a couple of options in it for bringing out the fishing line. The 2 that come to mind is in the sharpness/contrast tab and with the contrast by levels section and the other is in the advanced tab in the wavelet contrast section. In the contrast/sharpness tab and contrast by levels I would probably play around with upping the slider for level 2. In the advanced tab in the wavelet contrast section I would probably substantally up the slider for level 2 or 3 to bring out the fishing line.

Other than that I would probably play around with curves upping the water and dropping the fishing line to try and bring out the detail.

This a very nice picture with a lot of potential.

[Apet-Sure]

I used to be an avid fisherman. What can you catch with a match?

[photoptimist]

I used to be an avid fisherman. What can you catch with a match?

A Pipefish looking for a light?

[ramseybuckeye]

I used to be an avid fisherman. What can you catch with a match?

I kind of think that says I just wanted to get out of the house.

[Apet-Sure]

A Pipefish looking for a light?

In my 20s I used to smoke a pipe, but only when I was fishing.

[ramseybuckeye]

In my 20s I used to smoke a pipe, but only when I was fishing.

I knew a guy who smoked herring

[Simon K]

I used to be an avid fisherman. What can you catch with a match?

A rhyme

[StarTroop]

Assuming you have the Raw file, you may be able to accentuate the fishing line by using a different demosaicing algorithm. The algorithm currently being used may be diminishing whatever data may have been captured if it thinks the fishing line is some sort of unwanted artifact.


I don't know what software you use, but RawTherapee is a free raw processor that allows you to pick from a large selection of demosaicing methods, some of which are better for keeping certain types of details vs cleaning up artifacts. The default method used is AMaZE, but I prefer RCD+VNG4. You'll have to tinker with the various options and settings to see which method offers the best balance of retaining detail while diminishing moire, false colours, noise, and other artifacts.

[Apet-Sure]

A rhyme

There once was a man named Kevin
Who stayed up late past eleven
Without enough sleep
His thoughts weren't deep
So next day he couldn't do rhymes

[Kiparisas]

I am grateful for the suggestions and tips about the initial photo, they were really helpful. I am going check out the RawTherape - until now I always used Photoshop, but I am happy to try something new as well, so thank you for those who suggested it. I am also very glad for the Photoptimist's answer - you mentioned some additional information that I would not have thought about myself. Your insights were very interesting to me, thank you. And indeed, it's still a mystery, what the guy is actually doing with a match and a fishing line in the photo...

[Apet-Sure]

Hmmm...... You can use heat to melt the fishing line to form a little ball at the end to prevent a knot from coming untied?

[Kiparisas]

Hmmm...... You can use heat to melt the fishing line to form a little ball at the end to prevent a knot from coming untied?

Maybe, though it seems the fishing line is wrapped around the tip of the match and no heat is being used. Maybe it's some kind of a fishing technique or an indicator that the fish got into some kind of a trap, which is underwater. But it's just a guess, actually I have no idea...