OMG just discovered postprocessing

[Chudilo]

I am relatively good with Photoshop, But I was mostly using it for image creation for websites and such. I've also tried correcting color balance and brightness/contrast on my "important" photos a number of times.

Recently I got the 350XT and was wondering why images were less "pretty" then everything I've previously done on my good old Sony DSC-s75.

Yes the detail is much better and the colors are more smooth but they still looked kinda bland on the XT. Thanks to this forum I finally see that's it's all in the post processing (camera or software). Now I see how the pros do it.

This is my very first attept at Post processing. I'm sure I'll get better with time ... This already has a major WOW factor to it .

Someone's got to make a sticky about this. I shot the following photo in Central Park in NYC on an overcast day, third day after I got the camera with everything on auto.
http://www.gaylweb.com/albums/spring/images/spring%20054.jpg
Today I discovered Unsharpen mask in Photoshop and my image became THIS.
WOW.

http://www.shopwhitelotus.com/images/spring20054a.jpg

Someone's got to make a full post processing guide and make that a sticky. I'm willing to answer questions of what I did. Ask away.

[neil_r]

I am relatively good with Photoshop, ...........Today I discovered Unsharpen mask in Photoshop
I cant reconcile your first scentence with your later one?

N

[KnobCreek]

Wow, that is quite a bit of an improvement! I've got CS2 currently, but haven't gotten my feet wet as of yet on post processing. I guess I need some sort of tutorial as well.

[felix21685]

what settings did you use for your unsharp mask?

[Chudilo]

Also I've only read the post about this at work. So I only has a scaled version of my image in JPG format to work with.

The Unsharpen mask settings are :
Amount 153%
Radius 74.7pixels
Threshhold: 0 levels

[Tom W]

It looks more like a levels or contrast adjustment to me, rather than sharpening.

You'd better re-check those settings - that radius seems very large.

[Chudilo]

You have both the source and the result image .. try it yourself !

[jobber73]

You have both the source and the result image .. try it yourself !

Took less than 2 minutes. I don't think it's too bad. :)

[Tom W]

You have both the source and the result image .. try it yourself !

Just did - unexpected result similar to yours, though I'd normally not use anything that extreme in sharpening.

[CyberPet]

Image - Adjustments - Auto color... one second and you get pretty darn close to reality. Spend a minute and you have a killer image!

[Tom W]

Image - Adjustments - Auto color... one second and you get pretty darn close to reality. Spend a minute and you have a killer image!

I did get a lot different results using auto adjustments, with some modest sharpening. Seems that while the posted second image looks good, there is a lot of detail in the flower petals that has disappeared.

[blue_max]

The real advantage comes when you shoot raw. You have a lot more data there than you need, so can decide which bits to lose. With this jpg, you can only do so much because the data just isn't there.

My attempt - just as I was curious.

Graham

[tim]

Couple of things:
- You need to learn to use exposure compensation. When you have a scene that's very light, like the white flowers, you need to jack exposure compensation up to +1 or +1.5. Use your histogram to work out how much. With dark scenes you'll need to reduce the EC. There's a book called "understanding exposure" that you might like to read.
- If you get the exposure wrong, like in your top photo, use levels in photoshop to brighten it.
- Radius of 74.7 pixels? I've never heard of anyone using more than 10 pixels before!

[mkh]

Post processing is one of th emany things I still have left to conquer.

Your second image sure looks better than the first.

[ron chappel]

It looks more like a levels or contrast adjustment to me, rather than sharpening.

You'd better re-check those settings - that radius seems very large.

If no one else has mentioned it yet-
There was a tutorial on luminous landscape on this,it uses the USM function with very odd settings to do a kind of contrast enhancement.
I haven't personally tried it myself because i'm currently getting outstanding results using the more normal methods

[Tom W]

If no one else has mentioned it yet-
There was a tutorial on luminous landscape on this,it uses the USM function with very odd settings to do a kind of contrast enhancement.
I haven't personally tried it myself because i'm currently getting outstanding results using the more normal methods


Didn't know that about the LL article - thanks, Ron. The result was unexpected, as I said, but it was definately an improvement in contrast. I'm with you - I've been working with more traditional (can anything digital be traditional?) methods of contrast adjustment, saturation, and sharpening.

[Bob_A]

Took less than 2 minutes. I don't think it's too bad. :)

I really like this result Jobber73. I could come close, but can't get the richness of color that you were able to achieve. Also, I think you got the sharpening just about right. Can you lead us through what you did? When I use levels I end up sith a few areas that are too bright and some that are too dark ... so I'm wondering if you did any burning or dodging.

By the way, for sharpening I tried 150%, radius=0.3, threshold=0 and it looked pretty good. Using 300%, 0.2, 0 gives about the same result.


Bob

[Hellashot]

What you did is what everyone here does, nothing special. Welcome to the post processing required world of dSLRs.

[xmetal2001@earthlink.net]

Just for fun, I gave it a shot

[Chudilo]

xmetal2001 yours is better, but like I said this was my first attempt at this.

[CyberDyneSystems]

USM with large radius = Localized contrast adjustment...

There are stickies regarding such post processing tricks here in the Post processing forum ;)