How can i make this better?

Lynton

Lynton

awkward customer
Suspended / Banned
Messages
10,606
Name
Lynton (yes really!)
Edit My Images
No
First of all, all my photoshop knowledge is self taught or looked up on here or the wider www.

Was up at North Norfolk today and found an old wrecked boat that I thought might make something interesting.

This first image is the JPEG file as recorded to the camera (only mod is resizing)

blakeneyboatjpeg.jpg


As you can see the Sky is a tad bland! Fortunately though I always shoot RAW + Jpeg, which I believe gives a far better foundation for image enhancement later.

After a bit of playing around (and I guess it's far from perfect) this is where I currently am.

blakeneyboat800.jpg


This is what I did to get there......

Opened the RAW image twice - changing one for sky and one for everything else.

Stacked in one image in photoshop and by creating a layer mask, got rid of the dull sky to bring through the one created below.

Had my first play at dodging and burning in the sky to highlight it even more.

Flattened and saved.


Any tips / ideas from seasoned photoshop users and raw beginneers as well, as to different methods to produce better results / different ways of doing things?

Many thanks.



Lynton
 
Mark - yeah it does - however as mentioned I am pretty crap at some stuff in photoshop such as dodging and burning, so looking for ways / tips to do it better and therefore make it look more natural.


Have a shedload of ND filters, though not with me today alas!
 
Thats not a bad job when you consider there is no colour in the sky to start with. You may want to have a look at this forum as they just deal with retouching. May have some interesting things.
 
It seems as though it was quite a grey overcast day?
Masking off the sky and tweaking the shadows / highlights less than 2 minutes
and you get this as a starting point any use?
Nothing else done but to bring out the boat you could always try selective colour

copy_blakeneyboatjpeg.jpg
 
With this much contrast in a scene I'd really like to start with two exposures, one for the sky and one for the foreground. Since you're trying to get the best out of what you've got I would suggest doing your dodging and burning with a very low opacity brush. As it is I can see some very clear brush marks. I'd also be inclined to desaturate your sky a bit. Such heavy processing tends to send the coulours a bit funny. In your edited version the sky's reflection in the puddle is brighter than the sky itself. it could do with darkening too.
 
Have you thought about monocolour? with a bit of noise/grain?
blakeneyboat800.jpg
 
Does this work? (sorry for nicking your sky, Ki user :D)

 
Some great takes on it there so far - thanks all for your help....

MAtt - good point about the slap dash dodging and burning. Yeah less opacity and more subtlety needed.

Bobkent - love the subtlety of a couple of monor changes that really works as well.

Onikami - how do you get the knackered ripped and repaired look? I am assuming an additional texture layer?
 
nah. i use photoscape. non of this complicated layers nonsense. bang bang. photoscape does it in one go.
 
would happily put the RAW somewhere for anyone to have a play, but don't know of where i can host a 14Mb RAW file for nada!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top