Post Processing #2 - Straightening & Cropping

OK, this one is pretty simple but it has to be done to my image, so what the heck.

My image isn't very straight. It seems that I always tilt to the right when I freehand with the wide angle. I'll have to work on that.

You have been busy, thanks for sharing.

We want more! We want more!
*banging mouse on computer desk while shouting the above*

Well, what do you want? It can be quite difficult to come up with a tutorial, and/or a whole smorgasbord of "make this picture look good." It can be overwhelming - to do and learn. Even these 3 very simple tutorials took me an entire night.

Do you have a specific thing? (Or anybody for that matter!)

Give me/us some specific things: How do I clone this telephone pole out of my picture? My picture is too blue. I don't know how to sharpen this image! How do I get rid of red-eye? How do I get that "soft glow" for my portraits?

Sometimes it's easier to learn with specific questions. And it's certainly easier to answer them! Post an image an ask a specific question and you'll get overwhelmed with answers here.

See PP #3 pls.

I have a suggestion.

remember my photo of a girl a the carnival. 4walls suggested that I make the background black and white to enhance the girl. I did this using the history brush but I am missing the last 5% or so. If You look at the sample 4walls posted You can see that the thin hairs on the girls left side are black and white too. My question is how to make it look good with details like that. The attempt I have made on those hairs look terrible, it is so obvious that I have edited it. I hope You understand what I mean.

I could be wrong here, but......

Be careful - If you set levels by sliding the white and black markers to the extreme edges of the histogram, don't forget that by cropping the picture, the histogram could well have altered.

As long as you set the levels after the crop, you'll be ok.

Erm, out on a limb here......

Hair is always a pain. I personally end up just giving up on it when it's too tough like that. About the only think to do is to zoom *way* in and use a 1-pixel brush to do the work. Very painstaking.

That's a very good point. It's not a bad idea to crop first, or at least rough crop.

as long as there is some level of contrast between the hair and the background, the knockout (or whatever its called) filter in CS works quite well or at least as the starting point for then cleaning up.

How do I use that?

I think he's talking about the Extract filter.

Filter... Extract. You get a brush circle. Draw over the edges where the hair meets the background. The Extract tool tries to figure out the contrast edges and then extracts the "inside".

Original