More underwater pop!?

[superted]

Literally the last shot of a holiday taken in Spain last year. It's of my 2 year old daughter who spent the whole of the holiday in the villa pool !

I love this photo, but feel it's a bit blue and lacking some pop (I'd love to enlarge it for pride and place on my office wall) I've tried various (basic) post-processing settings, but would appreciate some real guidence to give it the pop and colour it needs before 'going to press'. The above shot is the original, no crops or tweaks.

I only have the JPG, as it was taken on my compact (with underwatrer housing) and not my DSLR, so no RAW unfortunately. I have Adobe Lightroom 2.7 and Photoshop CS4, but I'm a real (but keen) amateur at both, so baby steps please

Any other constructive criticism much appreciated too.

Many thanks
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Canon Powershot A640
f 4.0
1/640

[ovechcka]

Cute baby!

I played a bit with this photo in photoshop. I went into levels. On the right you will see three droppers. The left dropper is black. I pointed at a black in the photo (her pupil). The picture turned really dark. Then I took the right dropper, white. I pointed it at the really bright bubble on the rim of her hat. Better. Then the middle dropper. I pointed that at the whites of the eyes, the right eye (her left). And thw colour popped! I tweaked the main sliders a bit as well to make it more light and bring out the midtones. Have fun!

[mseigafuse]

I did the same thing as ovechcka, if you need more details on how to then try this thread -

Levels: Getting the Professional 'Pop'

I can see why you like the shot so much, your daughter is adorable

[irishmuth]

What a great capture!

In addition to a levels adjustment, some increased vibrancy and sharpness give it a boost as well.

[RLucas]

Opened in Gimp. Did a zone adjustment.(white/black point adjustment that can be fine tuned), Duplicated layer, changed mode to screen, desaturated, and reduced opacity to about 50%. Merged and sharpened. I like water toned darker, and skin more neutral. That's just my taste. I will take it down if you wish.
This is a wonderful shot!

[irishmuth]

Wow. Luke did a really great job on the skin tone. Much better than mine.

[superted]

Wow, levels, that's cool. Really made a difference when used in conjunction to my tweaks. Many thanks all of you!

Taking everything here on board, and having learned a bit more about levels from the link in mseigafuse post, I've applied levels on top of my 'standard' tweaks to get this new result. (Thoughts?)

I first edited in Lightroom by doing the following:

Exposure +0.2 to brighten it up a little
Recovery +40 to reveal more detail in the bubbles, particularly at the 'surface' by her hat
Contrast +57 Gave it some punch, but darkened the overall image
Brightness +14 Lifted it back up a smidge, following the contrast
Clarity + 100 Too much ?
Hue +50 aqua to remove some of the blue

I then applied levels exactly as in ovechcka's post, and slid the middle slide left a little to lighten slightly, it was a little warm, so back in lightroom I dropped the temperature -5 to cool it down a jot and.... well chuffed

Thanks again, I've learnt lots doing this, much appreciated!

[MMinno]

I guess I too took the liberty of just adjusting it myself, and also used levels.

I also used the yellow Photo Filter to neutralize the blue cast on her face, and then played with the Levels sliders. I dodged her entire face, and then extra dodged the whites of her eyes to bring out her features better. Then, I took the Lasso tool with a feather of 90px, and drew around her. I selected the inverse and made the water cast darker (again, using the Levels sliders), and then selected the inverse again and brightened her face just a bit more. After a few tweaks of vibrance, saturation, and another additional yellow Photo Filter, here you have it. I hope you enjoy it, and she's a cutie!

cutebaby.jpg

(Sorry if the thumb doesn't work. I don't quite get how to do it.)

[hmcgrael]

The blue tint doesn't bother me at all actually..I feel it's an underwater look..lol..Anywhoo, Imo, I would sharpen her face a bit and add some brightness..I think it would help bring more focus to her..and less on the water in front of her, maybe even help with the blue tint also. Awesome shot nonetheless..great capture, she will love this photo of herself one day!

I too went ahead and tried some stuff..I used unsharp mask to bring out the details in her face and bubbles more..used the lasso tool to draw around her shirt and brighten it..I also used a glow on it as well (I upped the contrast and lowered the brightness a bit)..Hope this helps in any way.. Thanks for sharing such a great shot!

[RLucas]

All these edits look really nice! I like MMino's because of the darker water, and the skin tone is fantastic!