Post-processing questions ...

[blizarre]

Hi !

I'm quite new to photography (and discovered this superb forum/newletter a week ago ) and i am always amazed by what you can do with photoshop.

So i decided to try to post a picture of mine before/after. Yes I know maybe it would be better in the "before/after" section but i don't pretend to have something "new" to present .

This is the original picture :



I tried the levels/saturation techniques i make usually but it didn't made the shot better. So i get inspired by posts about layer blendings and tried this : a mix of blending color & multiply layers to enhance the foreground :



Could you give me your point of view about this shot ? Do you see anything I could do do make crystals more "appealing" ?

Thanks !

[Peach]

Maybe it's just my eyes - but I truly don't see a huge difference between the two. Maybe it's my laptop though?

[wulf]

The result is definitely on the subtle side - the bottom one is a little bluer in tone, which you can pick up by comparing a small section rather than looking at the whole thing.

Although I am normally a great fan of being subtle, I think you could afford to ramp the effect up a bit more. Also, it is definitely a candidate for sharpening; if you can get the nearest ice crystals looking sharp and shiny that will be a big improvement.

Wulf

[blizarre]

Ok !

Thanks for the advice ! I usually don't like to play to much with a photo ... but i'm here to learn and you're right, the changes were maybe 'too much' subtle.

Here is a new version ... I tried to take your advices into account .. I think the result is better now ... The sharpening is definitely necessary for the edges of the crystals...

[E-smile]

i like it now it's more blue, but to me it looks like you sharpened it too much!
it almost looks as if you have a lot of noise in the left bottom, on the crystals.

i like the angle you took it btw. those 2 other pipes on the left makes me realize what exactly i'm looking at :P

[wulf]

I don't know - I think this works well. Even at the largest size on Flickr, it doesn't look too noisy to me.

Wulf

[blizarre]

Thank you .. I really appreciate you comments
It's good to be able to have comments from peoples with more experience !

About the noise, i must admit that, well, the histogram is a bit overstretched by all my changes... I tried to desaturate this part of the picture to remove the noise but it didn't changed anything ... i think that the real noise is amplified by the smaller crystals and reflections there. It brings a 'feeling of noisiness' i'd say ...

I tried to sharpen only the crystals to see if the noise is increased, and avoid multiplying the dark part of the picture but it doesn't change much... Next time i'll know to avoir dark areas in this kind of photo.

Anyway, thank you very much !

[jiminyClickit]

blizarre, Welcome

Sometimes a little Sun in a small area will emphasize the crystals:



Use cutouts, reflectors, whatever. Experiment with the camera, less PP needed.