1st Post Here...Best Way to Adjust this Picture?

Below you will find one of the first pics I ever took with my T2i (my first DSLR, arrived about 3 weeks ago). It's a JPEG image (I know, RAW is the way to go...didn't realize that 'til recently) and I haven't adjusted it any except for cropping it to what you see now.

It's a 'snow globe' that is in my son's room that has a fan behind the 'house' that blows fake snow around. I turned it on and lowered the shutter speed to get the action of the snow while keeping the snowman and house in focus. Unfortunately I was too lazy to get out the tripod so it didn't turn out quite as well as I was hoping.

But my sister and wife love this pic so I want to make it 'as good as it can be' for them.

I have Canon's Digital Photo Professional as well as Photoshop Elements 9 (30 day trial) to help me adjust it.

So, what should I do to make this picture as great as it can be?

Thanks for your help and I look forward to your advice.

TripleB

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dont have much comment on the image as i dont have any experience shooting snow globes.. but RAW isnt necessarily the way to go..dont get caught up in all the elitist nonsense.. just take good pictures!

besides when you put an image online, it will always be a compressed format, like JPEG, and a finished image will be a compressed format.. RAW is used for more "information" retained for processing

How did you light it? Some back lighting might illumination without the reflection.

looks like internal lighting.
I think the moving snow effect has some appeal.

I might try:
1/ from much tighter if the image is sharp enough
2/ Use editor to brighten snowman's face, which is a little dark
3/ possibly remove some of the lower twinkly bits and the pink spot on right - possibly by de-saturating or clone

I think it looks pretty cool how it is, what are you trying to "fix".

kjonnnn wrote in post #11405980
How did you light it? Some back lighting might illumination without the reflection.

The only light in the room was coming from the lightpole inside the snow globe.

Martin Dixon wrote in post #11406093
looks like internal lighting.
I think the moving snow effect has some appeal.

I might try:
1/ from much tighter if the image is sharp enough
2/ Use editor to brighten snowman's face, which is a little dark
3/ possibly remove some of the lower twinkly bits and the pink spot on right - possibly by de-saturating or clone

Thanks...I never even noticed the darkness of the snowman's face. What do you mean by 'from much tighter'? Sorry, newbie here.

Shockey wrote in post #11406111
I think it looks pretty cool how it is, what are you trying to "fix".

Thank you.

I guess the things I notice the most when looking at the picture are the pink on the right side of the globe; the need to lighten the photo enough to show a defined top edge to the globe; not sure what the little lights near the bottom of the globe are...never noticed them until right now.

Thanks for all the input so far!

TripleB

What I tried to do was brighten the inside of the globe.
Not sure what you can do with elements 9 as I used CS5. With CS5 you can open a jpeg in camera raw and use a targeted adjustment brush to brighten specific areas.

You may be-able to duplicate this by using 2 layers using the same picture. Use one layer and brighten that whole layer and then mask out the areas that are to bright

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rw2 wrote in post #11406790
What I tried to do was brighten the inside of the globe.
Not sure what you can do with elements 9 as I used CS5. With CS5 you can open a jpeg in camera raw and use a targeted adjustment brush to brighten specific areas.

You may be-able to duplicate this by using 2 layers using the same picture. Use one layer and brighten that whole layer and then mask out the areas that are to bright

That's awesome...love how you brightened the whole inside of the globe without taking away from the feel of darkness around the globe. It looks as though the snowman's face is actually glowing instead of in the dark like the original.

I'm sure hoping I can do something like that with Elements 9 because I can't afford to purchase CS5...but that is incredible.

Thank you for taking the time to do that and to explain how I might be able to do it with Elements 9.

Your time is greatly appreciated!!!

TripleB

This may work for elements.
Open the photo duplicate it twice. Use the shadows and highlights on the top layer to open up the shadows. Change the blending mode to screen on that layer to make it even lighter. Place a layer mask on that layer. Using the brush tool on the mask at an opacity of around 30% and flow rate of 50%. Have black as your foreground color and start masking out some of the areas that got to bright.

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Fascinating image made much better by Rob. I've used the local brush adjustment in CS5 ACR several times to save raw images. The light and motion inside the globe is terrific, very nice job.

BTW - raw is not elitist nonsense! It allows more adjustment - non-destructive adjustment - to a larger set of data than jpg. I liken shooting digital jpg to shooting a Polaroid - you've got an image but no negative.

TripleB wrote in post #11406414
Thanks...I never even noticed the darkness of the snowman's face. What do you mean by 'from much tighter'? Sorry, newbie here.

Sorry my typo - I was suggesting you could try a (much) tighter crop - i.e. just the interesting bit... perhaps this:

Martin Dixon wrote in post #11409429
Sorry my typo - I was suggesting you could try a (much) tighter crop - i.e. just the interesting bit... perhaps this:

I have to disagree here. I think that the 'round' of the globe in the image is a defining element of the image. Without it, it just seems like a "what is it?".

I am not too sure that Elements can do masks - But I could be wrong. IF all you want to afford at this point is Elements, then you should buy it. There are a TON of tutorials on the net about how to do things. Google 'photoshop elements 9 tutorials' and you will have enough reading for a good lone time.

Memory is cheap - I capture everything in RAW and jpg-large, then weed out from there. That way my wife can see what is in the folder on the network drive and I have a quick reference to it, as well as having a 'digital negative' (RAW) of it for further processing. With JPG, your camera is doing a LOT of decisions for you. Would you let you microwave decide how long to cook your roast?

But I digress - this is a cool shot. I would try to reshoot it with the tripod rather than trying to correct it in photoshop. Get it right (or more right) in camera.