Photoshopping

Vanquish-Storm

Vanquish-Storm

Vanquish-Storm

Soldato
Joined
22 Apr 2009
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Hi guys,

Can you just give me a little critique on this shop ive done. (one of my first proper ones!) Let me know what ive done right, what ive done wrong. What you would do differantly.

Original:
6078109748_d32c6c497e_b.jpg


Shopped:
6077574103_fabeb4f988_b.jpg
 
All IMO - I don't trust my Macbook's screen 100% for pics

The first two things that strike me in the 'shopped one is the pink colour cast (particularly in the brickwork/stonework) and the sky looks over-exposed - mostly near the middle of the pic. While I don't use PS (I use Lightroom instead), the pink colour cast comes from wrong white balance so I'd play around with that a bit to make it look more natural.

With the sky, I think you may have increase the exposure in which case try using fill light instead. That should help lift the foreground without nearly blowing out the sky. Or use a mask and pull the sky back a bit.
 
With the brickwork do you mean the wall leading up to the entrance?

I did go a bit OTT with the sky, the day was complete overcast and i was hoping for a complete blue sky (Disney fairytailish look to it)

Is lightroom better than PS?

Thanks for the comments :)

Keep them coming guys
 
To start - everyone has their own opinion and style but this is mine:

It's good that you've brightened it slightly but it's at the expense of some other details.

First off I'd perhaps try and crop slightly to focus the eyes more on the intended subject although the bush really isn't helping!

The sky is a little overexposed now, and now comes with a weird patchwork from over saturating the blues although I like that you've tried to add some blue tones. I would have slightly brightened it but not considerably.

I don't really like the pink tone that's been added generally, it now blends your subject more when perhaps it should be more contrasting instead. I would selectively increase the vibrance of the tower as subject, not make the entire image have a pink tone.

By bringing back some shadows you've massively oversaturated some greens on the left. Try to use different layers and/or masks when processing to avoid overdoing processing and/or changing parts of the photo not intended; you generally get so much more control!

Here is a very very quick outcome of the above tips.
 
It was the brickwork on the castle itself that gave it away. It's not too-pink, but it's off enough to think it looks a little un-natural.

With an overcast day, if there's a bit of definition in the clouds (interesting shapes, contrast) then I'd have gone the other way and gone for a very contrasty, dark and mysterious look (although looking at the original - it was a flat overcast day in which case there's not much you can do).

Lightroom vs. PS is a debate in itself. They are two distinct applications with some overlap. Lightroom is primarily a workflow-centric editor (and very capable editor too). But PS allows so much more control and has more features than you can shake a stick at. However, getting the best out of PS is a sharp learning experience.

Some people use Lightroom entirely, some use PS entirely while others manage their pics in Lightroom but take the odd shot to PS to finish (they integrate rather well). Give Lightroom a bash and see how you find it. If you're relatively new to photo editing, you may find Lightroom more accessible to start with.
 
As others have stated already, there is now a red colour cast, which is also contributing to noise. Did you boost the colours with a saturation adjustment layer, or a vibrance layer ? Did you play around with levels/curves at all ? What techniques did you use in general ?

The image looks a little bit oversharpened for my tastes too, but this could be exacerbated by jpeg compression ( but there are controls in PS on how to sharpen for downsizing images to web ).

If the overcast sky really troubles you, you could always "cut" away the rest of the image and replace a blue sky from another image you have.

Finally, Lightroom is easier to grasp & use than PS. But, PS is far more powerful ... just is a very steep learning curve. Personally, I use both ... Lightroom to import and manage files, make quick edits but photos I want to process more elaborately I will take to PS.
 
I need a bit of practise, so here's a quick jobby on the basis of Ice Globes advice using GIMP 2.6.
Any good? (tried to keep the overcast day look but with extra pop)

6078109748d32c6c497ebc.jpg


1. Cropped for the castle.
2. Separated out sky into own layer and boosted lightness/blues + wavelet de-noise.
3. Added a screen layer for extra brightness (~40% transparency)
4. Added shadow recovery layer.
5. Increased local contrast (went ott here, could scale back or the opposite way and soften?)
6. Added layer to increase sharpness/brightness on the castles midtones (even more ott)
7. Reduced foreground temp to make castle pop but keeping the overcast day look. (basic layer gradient mask used)
 
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