vgal
02-23-2007, 02:58 PM
I'm sure this can't be a unique situation, so I'm starting this thread to see just how people improve their older pictures over time, especially after reading over the DPS forums and blog.
I've been shooting semi-seriously since September with a Pentax K1000 and a Nikon Coolpix 5600. For Christmas, I gave myself a Pentax K100D, and I'd like to think that by the time I got that, my shooting style has gotten better.
I went back and looked over some pictures I'd taken on a shoot back in October with my Coolpix, and realized that while I thought they were pretty great when I'd taken them... there were some issues that required some help, and some processing to be done to make 'em pop. I submit to you, the readers of the DPS forum... the first before-and-afters of my old pictures!
Before
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehchix0r/271471467/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/271471467_89ba1e7030.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="higgins gardens 2" /></a>
Beautiful garden, but I held the camera crooked, didn't frame it too well, and the colors were less vibrant than I'd remembered.
After
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehchix0r/398771305/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/146/398771305_5d1a800d4b.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="Dreamy Higgins Garden" /></a>
Steps I took to get here:
Crop with perspective! Using the Crop tool in Photoshop, I made sure the "Perspective" option on the toolbar was checked. I selected the entire image, and dragged the corners of the bounding box so that the sides of the box were parallel to the parts of the photo that were supposed to be squared off (like the roof of the building and the pillars), then, cropped.
With the perspective fixed, I made a square crop of the picture (using the full height of the original), placing the doorway in the middle of the horizontal axis.
Duplicated the photo layer. Gaussian blurred the top layer (the dupe) 15 pixels and set the opacity to 40%.
Went back to the original photo layer underneath, and using Hue/Saturation, bumped the saturation to +20 to better match what I remembered from that day.
I definitely feel the square crop is much stronger than the original framing, and I love the dreamy effect, especially since this is a beautiful garden hidden away at a tech school, so it feels kind of other-worldly in the midst of the square brick buildings.
I started a set on my flickr of Before and After (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehchix0r/sets/72157594550923783/) pictures, which I expect to keep adding to as I have time.
Thanks for reading! I welcome any feedback, and would love to see how other people go back and fix their beginner mistakes digitally.
I wonder if this would make a good assignment in the future... taking a photo from a beginning shoot, and applying what we've learned to make it stronger.
I've been shooting semi-seriously since September with a Pentax K1000 and a Nikon Coolpix 5600. For Christmas, I gave myself a Pentax K100D, and I'd like to think that by the time I got that, my shooting style has gotten better.
I went back and looked over some pictures I'd taken on a shoot back in October with my Coolpix, and realized that while I thought they were pretty great when I'd taken them... there were some issues that required some help, and some processing to be done to make 'em pop. I submit to you, the readers of the DPS forum... the first before-and-afters of my old pictures!
Before
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehchix0r/271471467/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/271471467_89ba1e7030.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="higgins gardens 2" /></a>
Beautiful garden, but I held the camera crooked, didn't frame it too well, and the colors were less vibrant than I'd remembered.
After
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehchix0r/398771305/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/146/398771305_5d1a800d4b.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="Dreamy Higgins Garden" /></a>
Steps I took to get here:
Crop with perspective! Using the Crop tool in Photoshop, I made sure the "Perspective" option on the toolbar was checked. I selected the entire image, and dragged the corners of the bounding box so that the sides of the box were parallel to the parts of the photo that were supposed to be squared off (like the roof of the building and the pillars), then, cropped.
With the perspective fixed, I made a square crop of the picture (using the full height of the original), placing the doorway in the middle of the horizontal axis.
Duplicated the photo layer. Gaussian blurred the top layer (the dupe) 15 pixels and set the opacity to 40%.
Went back to the original photo layer underneath, and using Hue/Saturation, bumped the saturation to +20 to better match what I remembered from that day.
I definitely feel the square crop is much stronger than the original framing, and I love the dreamy effect, especially since this is a beautiful garden hidden away at a tech school, so it feels kind of other-worldly in the midst of the square brick buildings.
I started a set on my flickr of Before and After (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehchix0r/sets/72157594550923783/) pictures, which I expect to keep adding to as I have time.
Thanks for reading! I welcome any feedback, and would love to see how other people go back and fix their beginner mistakes digitally.
I wonder if this would make a good assignment in the future... taking a photo from a beginning shoot, and applying what we've learned to make it stronger.