Cropped and Improved Flat Creek Golf Course

[MikeFairbanks]

This is a little crop I made of a bigger picture I posted earlier.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q295/thepirannah/GolfCourse10.jpg

[Gary McDuffie]

I'm no expert, but I would toss it into PS, bring up levels adjust, select the blue channel, and try turning down the middle slider to knock some of that strong blue tint out of it. Otherwise, looks good, much nicer crop.

[kirkt]

Here's a shot. it's too blue and soft. I used Lab, curves and a high pass to compensate, trying to keep some reasonable facsimile of the original's saturation, which I assumed you like. Bottom image is a slight variation on the top edit.

Kirk

[Gary McDuffie]

Well, I tried what I indicated in my earlier post, and wasn't really satisfied with what I came up with. It made it better, but wasn't able to eliminate the blue back in those darker areas in the background, behind the golf carts. I'm not a real expert with PS, even though I've used it for many years. I'm still learning daily. As for what you've done above, I see a general drop in saturation and contrast, but no real cleanup of the blue if you add that saturation back in. I am sure someone more experienced in good editing could jump right into it and clean it up, but I'm in over my head right now with it. :o

Crying uncle! :) Hopefully, some of the real experts can jump in and give it a go.

[mattograph]

I went back and looked at the original picture, and I think your problem started with the tone mapping. The effect is a little too rich for the photo to start.

You might try going back to Photomatix, tweak the strength and smoothing to get a more subltle color corrected look. Then come back to photoshop, and do a little dodging to bring the detail up in the trees in the back (I assume thats why you went HDR.)

[MikeFairbanks]

I agree about the blue, but not about the soft. I wanted it soft.

I'll work on it some more. I don't want it to look like a photograph. I want it to look more illustrated/painted.

[mattograph]

If its a painted effect you like, then you're biggest challenge is going to be the burned out turf in the foreground. The more this begins to look like an illustration, the more that is going to become a distraction.

Heat up the clone brush, ma -- I'm goin' in! :)

[MikeFairbanks]

Good point about the turf.

Thanks