Request for post-processing help

[alex24]

I've got a shot that I feel may benefit some from PP, but I'm a total novice when it comes to doing this with proper software. I've tried the trial of photoshop and it's incredible, and since I'm a student I may well invest in it for the future as the price isn't horrific.

Anyway, to the point, can anyone give me some tips/help in enhancing the linked image please? It seems pretty good to me, but there's some lens flare that may distract and the colours aren't as vivid as I'd like. It's being printed (probably via an online poster printing service) with the view to being framed. I'm not sure if changing contrast or anything beyond that will benefit the shot?

Shot was taken on a Panasonic FZ38 if you're interested, dead impressed with that camera.

One more point, is a calibrated monitor essential to get this right? Since it's going to the printers and not my own is that a waste of time or not? I have no means to currently calibrate mine, and colour reproduction on it isn't top notch anyway (Samsung SM226BW) as it's a few year old TN panel.

Sorry for the bombardment of information, if you've made it this far, thanks, and thanks in advance for any assistance! I know there's a lot of really talented people on this forum, so sorry if I'm pitching a bit low.

Link to image (9 megapixels, over 4MB!):
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/1228/p1030527k.jpg

 

[alex24]

Cheers guys, it was at a beach called Summerleaze in Bude, Cornwall.

 

[alex24]

ok, I did a few takes, came up with this as an alternate colour scheme. I wasn't sure about cropping making an actual impact to the quality of the image. If anything it made the lens flare in the middle look a bit odd... So I didn't crop it. Horizon is level though!

re-processed

Edit: Image was too big for comfortable viewing in forum! (Also for some reason Skydrive has down-scaled it to 1600x900)

I agree and think that the composition of the image is fine, certainly as good as I could hope for, and I don't want to crop much, perhaps to correct the very slight angle on the horizon.

I really like the recolouring, certainly a nice take on the shot, but I was looking to keep the oranges and browns to go with the room it was intended for, but in another the blues would work well too. Not sure if it's just the laptop screen I'm on, but the contrast seems quite high, I've lost a lot of detail on the darker areas, be that intentional or not. Great effort though, not exactly what I was going for, perhaps I should have been more clear! Thanks though, I'll keep that if you don't mind!

My amature attempt at giving it that "tone balanced" look - prolly over done the smoothing a bit:

http://aten-hosted.com/images/test212.jpg

Comparing it to the original I think I prefer the sharper look. Some areas such as the clouds can give a nice effect when balanced and smoothed a little, but I certainly prefer the original since you're probably right that it's a little too smooth. I have no idea what the difference in a print would be though, perhaps it'd be better! Hard to say as I have little to no experience doing such things. Thanks for the effort chap.

Any other good programs for doing this sort of thing with Windows except photoshop? I think we can agree almost all the free ones are quite limited.

 

[alex24]

They look great guys, thanks for the ideas and assistance. My internet is currently down so I'm posting on my phone, so I'll have to give some proper feedback later. I appreciate your efforts, thank you.

 

[alex24]

Had a quick play, poor cloning effort on the flare though.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_YuHJFANHapY/TC21LUNb08I/AAAAAAAAAak/5nmOfmmAC94/s800/AlexHull24.jpg/IMG][/URL]

Cooling ND grad from the top, warming from the bottom. Needs noise removal as I over sharpened somewhere along the way![/QUOTE]

Looks good, I imagine my end result won't be much different, I've got a bit more time to try and remove the lens flare with some more care.

[quote="n1blo, post: 16866627"]Hi, I'm on the wrong PC to do anything just now. But try Picasa? It's limited, granted, but you can still use a few of its features for this shot and its completely free.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, I'll take a look. I imagine it'd be good for a quick touch up, but this is being framed so I want to do a half decent job within my ability of course!

[quote="Janesy B, post: 16866872"]I used to use Photoscape when working on JPEGs. You could always download the Lightroom 3 trial, its easy to get to grips with.[/QUOTE]

I'll check them out, thanks.

 

[alex24]

here's a less contrasty one for you

Thanks, again, I like this interpretation a lot.

Had a quick play, poor cloning effort on the flare though.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_YuHJFANHapY/TC21LUNb08I/AAAAAAAAAak/5nmOfmmAC94/s800/AlexHull24.jpg/IMG][/URL]

Cooling ND grad from the top, warming from the bottom. Needs noise removal as I over sharpened somewhere along the way![/QUOTE]

Very vibrant! Looks good on the screen, does it dull down a bit when it's printed do you think? The cooling and warming works very nicely, what software did you use, and exactly what sort of process is that? I think I could use that technique.

[quote="Rroff, post: 16868899"]Yeah theres some areas the blurring works well but other areas that you need the sharper look, I could adjust the mask a bit but would take more time.

The original image is pretty good overall it just could do with a slight touch of luma correction and some cleaning up of the noise/scatter from the CCD/sensor (which will show up poorly on print). A little color correction wouldn't go amiss but isn't essential.[/QUOTE]

I agree, and I'm not asking someone to do [I]all[/I] the work! The original isn't bad, though as in the OP, I think you're right it needs a little work. What software can I use to reduce the noise? Would using a simple option in photoshop or similar suffice, or is there a better accepted process to do this? I wish I'd set it to take in RAW instead of JPEG as I think that'd result in a better quality shot for print, but what's done is done.

Thanks to everyone who's assisted so far.

 

[alex24]

@Rroff - Thanks, will give that a go. I'm downloading the CS5 trial as I speak.

@p0ss3s3d - Looks nice in B&W, though the bottom could be cropped as there's a large area of just black (on my monitor at least) that's fairly uninteresting. I do want a splash of orange on this one though, mainly to enhance the sunset.

@Rojin - Indeed, that's certainly interesting to look at and is a nice effect. As said I'm downloading CS5 atm so I can have a play around.

@twoblacklines - Very different approach to most of the others here, not exactly the direction I'd like, but it's an interesting take non the less. The area where the lens flare was isn't perfect, the shadow seems distorted. Compare it to the shot famas uploaded below.

@famas - Very nice, probably my favourite so far. You've done the best job on removing the flare too. I can see there's quite a few tweaks but the overall effect is subtle and pleasing. The only thing I'd do differently is make it a little less yellow as I wanted to keep the orange, personal preference really, it looks great like that. I did contemplate adding myself to the list for the calibrator that goes around, but it seems to have died down, and I'm not even sure how much longer I'll have this monitor anyway since it's developed a fault (with the buttons!) and is in warranty. Can I ask how you removed the lens flare so well? Was it just patience or did a certain method make it easy to get right?

Thanks again to everyone, some really great interpretations on the same shot, shows just what PP can do.

 

[alex24]

I think that's the closest to how I imagined it would look after PP, almost exactly what I had in mind.

Just finished installing photoshop and lightroom trials, so I'm going to have a play around and see what I can do, then I'll upload it here to see what you think!

Much appreciated chaps.

 

[alex24]

Okay, I've tried to remove the lens flare and preserve the shadow as best as I can for now, and I've tweaked the colour, saturation, vibrance, reduced noise and a few other things to produce this post processed version. You'll also noticed I added a colour gradient to the top of the image to bring in some nice contrasting purples and blues with the predominant orange. I think it's pretty much what I'm aiming for, and I like to think I've taken inspiration from almost everyone who's offered their own interpretation here, so thanks guys.

I'd appreciate any constructive criticism or comments, so fire away, though I think I've spent long enough tweaking it now that making any major changes would be a waste of my time. I'm pretty happy with it after all.

Post Processed:

Link to fullsize version

Original:

 

[alex24]

Yeah, the purple is nice, but I do have a version without that, preserving the original (more or less) colours you can see in the sky. All I have to do now is decide which one to print, and where. I think I might seek out a printing shop so I can confirm it's looking good on screen before it's printed. Did buy a frame today though, should make a nice gift.

 

[alex24]

Little update, I changed it a tiny bit (made it all a bit lighter) and it's been sent to photobox to print. We'll see how good it comes out on Thursday IIRC.