Follow up weekly comp.#82: Bicycles

Hi all,
I started this topic as a request from Keith Grant, who asked me to give him some advice regarding his entrie and my comments given in the Bicycle competition. Specially about this part:
For reference sake the first picture is the original one as entered in the competition by Keith.



Below this text is the first edited one. The only thing what was done is:
Copy layer----->Blend mode soft light---->opacity 60%-------> Flatten layer. This is usually a good starting point, to see what is needed to improve the picture a bit. It gives a bit punch to the overall picture.



Finally you can see the result if some dodging and burning is done to the picture. This in conjunction with levels and changing the gamma (mid tone) slider and using blend mode soft light again.



This is what I have done:
#1: Duplicate layer
#2:Open levels and pull the gamma slider (middle one) back to 0,85%
This gives a bit more punch to the mid tones.
#3:Create a new layer and select the burn tool. Select a fairly big and soft brush (200-700)px and set exposure at 2%
Now starting with the highlights burn in the areas you want to burn in a bit. Next turn to the mid tones and do the same. Finally work on the shadows.

The trick is to burn/dodge very gradually at very low exposure levels.
PS defaults are 50 %. That is waaaaay to high !
Personally I always work my way from highlights to shadows. No holy grail or something, just my personal choice.

Finally I duplicate the layer again and select blend mode soft light again. This time I use it at a opacity of 20% ( just to give it a very small boost. Than flatten and save.

Well Keith, I hope this helps a bit, in your search for fine tuning some monochrome pictures. For the other readers........Don't see all the above
as The Holly Grail! It's just one man's opinion on how to improve a picture. Feel free to join in, or have a go with it yourself.

Martin.

Very interesting. Thank you for the information.

Suggestion to mods... how about having a "Digital editing" section (I was about the suggest "Photoshop" but then that cuts out GIMP, Silkypix etc. users). We have had lots of useful posts on editing photos but they are a bit scattered!

Martin, thank you for the tutorial The greater range of tones makes it a much stronger image, as you suggested. When the kids allow , I'll try my hand with Elements to see how much of this effect I can duplicate.

Many thanks!

Keith

I just had a play with "Silver Efex Pro" which is a photoshop plugin for b&w conversion. It wont allow as much control as manual adjustment but I like the fact that I can instantly preview any effect.

I reduced the brightness & contrast & increased what they call "structure" which I think is local contrast (where edges occur).

It may be too dark for some, but I think it helps the play of light on the shinier stones at the top of the wall & adds to the gritiness of texture on the lower wall.

[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/keithsbike.jpg[/IMG]

RR, wow - what a difference! Certainly a grittier, less peaceful, perspective on Oxford!

Cheers!

Martin

I hope you can help me.

You apply the high pass filter at full size - true?

If you then reduced the image size would apply sharpening again and if so unsharp mask or another high pass?

Also applying a filter is sort of destructive in that once applied to a layer you can't unapply it - true?

Thanks

Mike

Hi Mike,
I haven't used any Highpass filter to the used pictures above ,
But yes....I do use it, sometimes.

High pass sharpening is only used by me in the following circumstances.

#1: Mostly full size, but sometimes I mask off areas for local sharpening
#2: I only sharpen at the end for web or print purposes only.
#3: I always keep the unsharpened original as backup

Normally I use a photoshop plug-in called Photokit sharpener.
This does a wonderful job in capture, web or print sharpening.

But for some pictures ( plastered walls with nice detail) I prefer highpass. Most of the time at a opacity around 60 - 85%

HIH,
Martin.

edit: typo

I'm sorry Martin I didn't reread your post but your advice is very welcome!

So the workflow is much the same as unsharp mask then and apply it as required for the purposes required.

Having tried it instead of USM it does seem to be a little more controllable and I hadn't thought of localised sharpening and I hope I never need to!

Mike