I want to print this picture and have it framed for my grandmother... but due to the mist and the angle of the sun it's kinda dark and the colors aren't that vivid. I have Vista Home Premium on my laptop and XP on my desktop. I don't know anything about editing pics. I'd just like to brighten it up a little. If you'd be willing to do it I'll e-mail you the original, or I'd appreciate some help doing it myself. - Thanks

12/29/2007 4:38:54 PM

That's amazing.

Your picture just convinced me to go kayaking.


















Wish I was a graphics whiz so I could help you, tho.

12/29/2007 4:41:39 PM

I give lessons at very reasonable rates if you're in western NC.

12/29/2007 4:56:49 PM

Just a quick use of the three photo tools my picture editor has. I have no idea how that would hold up to printing scrutiny though.

12/29/2007 4:59:07 PM

You might want to host the original somewhere other than TWW, because TWW re-encodes it making it lose some quality.

12/29/2007 5:07:03 PM

Where would be a good place to do that? Does Google do that? Can you still hot link it to tdub?

12/29/2007 5:28:13 PM

http://picasaweb.google.com

12/29/2007 5:38:09 PM

I doubt it's going to get better than that. Needed more sunlight to begin with


Just wait for the right time of day and redo the picture.

[Edited on December 29, 2007 at 5:41 PM. Reason : .]

12/29/2007 5:40:43 PM

I wasn't really thinking about the lighting when we were tying to pull it off.

It'll probably be well up into Spring before there will be significant sunlight in the Tellico Gorge.

12/29/2007 6:46:22 PM

thats my 5min's worth... im sure there are much better photo editors on here...

12/29/2007 7:28:13 PM

I really appreciate you guys trying but it looks like skokiaan hit the nail on the head.

12/29/2007 7:45:59 PM

I'd assume captured in jpeg? Although, it would be nice to get a raw file to photo process it. You'd be surprised of what you can do with raw, even if the picture is horrible.

12/30/2007 7:37:04 AM

I just have it in the jpeg that came off the camera. I don't know another way of doing it.

12/30/2007 7:21:47 PM

Test: The is from the google host.



Fuck, how do I get it to show up big?

[Edited on December 30, 2007 at 9:22 PM. Reason : test]

12/30/2007 9:20:44 PM

test

12/30/2007 9:23:53 PM

test

12/30/2007 9:24:38 PM

i hope you have both the original and the edited one at 300+ dpi or else it's going to print like shit

those displayed on this page are at screen, 72 dpi and not very large in dimension, either

[Edited on December 30, 2007 at 9:50 PM. Reason : *]

12/30/2007 9:49:38 PM

I would try manually darkening the trees/sunlight you can see, then brightening the whole thing. Otherwise it seems like the already bright areas are going to be the first to look retarded when you brighten everything.

12/30/2007 9:53:02 PM

you can always use genuine fractals to up the res.

12/30/2007 10:09:37 PM

^Of course! Why didn't I think of that?

I have no idea what that means.

12/30/2007 10:17:58 PM

upload the original to photobucket or tinypic and I can take a look

12/30/2007 11:26:46 PM

What you think?


It's a bit hard to edit since its in low light and has low contrast as is, but I'd assume the mist would contribute to the washed out look. I think I'll go back and try to add more detail in the rocks since I sort of lost it.

[Edited on December 30, 2007 at 11:30 PM. Reason : ]

12/30/2007 11:29:17 PM

WOW

12/30/2007 11:31:36 PM

very good job.

12/30/2007 11:51:03 PM

ok refreshed the picture. Added back more details in the shadow areas. C&C please.

12/30/2007 11:53:11 PM

it might look better with less detail on the rocks and trees, looks like there's a couple of places in the water on the waterfall that could use a little more

still awesome though

[Edited on December 30, 2007 at 11:56 PM. Reason : maybe make it look like the kayak and a little water is the only thing really in focus]

12/30/2007 11:55:16 PM

If you ever apply for a job that requires photoshop skillz you should include that in your portfolio!

12/31/2007 12:25:57 AM

I do graphic design at my marketing job and I just recently started my own photography business. Not to mention I do work at the Technician and provide a host of photo service for other businesses. I'm writing exactly what I did with the picture, it took about 60 mins to do. So yeah, a bit of post processing.


The picture was in jpeg so I really can't change the color temp easily. However this is what I did with the picture.

I compiled four separate pictures from the original.

1st picture is to have the properly exposed tree line and try to color balance at daylight, but I suspect the actual time of day is late afternoon so it could be why the color is a bit off. I increased the exposure by about .15, ran it through noise ninja and have it as the top layer. Increased the contrast, color vibrance and burned the mid tones and shadows by hand at 6% intervals to the desired effect. I dodged some of the lighted areas on the leaves to give them a little more pop. I used feathered at 10px and deleted the water and foreground. The edge of the water I used the replace color tool using a sampled shadowed area of the tree line to seamlessly transition the tree line layer to the rest of the picture.

2nd picture was to properly expose the water by increasing the exposure by about .3 or so and setting the white balance to the water. I set this as the background layer. However, by doing this, this made the rest of the picture abnormally green, but that doesn't matter since I'm layering. I used the dodge tool to brighten up the midtones and highlights of some areas of the water then used the burn tool to darken the shadows of the rock directly behind the water. I also darken some of the midtones in those areas. I also selected the guy in the kayak using a 2px feather then changed the levels to bring up the red and lower the blue and green by a bit. I also increased the contrast a bit then used the burn tool around the kayak the separate it from the water a bit more. I also burned his jacket and head where the shadows are slightly. I do all burning and dodging by had and between 6-25% intervals.

The 3rd and 4th picture is for the same spot, the foreground/rocks. One picture I lowered the exposure by about .3 stop and set that as lower of the two. Then the other picture I bumped the exposure by about 1.75 stop, ran it through noise ninja and set it as the higher layer. Both the 3rd and 4th pictures are between the 1st and 2nd picture. I increased the contrast and removed the blue tint with levels to both. I feathered at 10px and deleted the water and tree line to both.

The rock still had a large variance in color with some ports being a little redder and others being a little greener even after leveling. I sampled a section of the rock that was a proper grey using the eyedropper tool, then selected the color replace and sampled one of the areas that were tinted, and then colored the whole rock area. I only did this with the 3rd picture and left the 3rd layer alone.

The 4th picture, I set that layer to about 55% transparent then used the erase tool at around 10-50% and erased the really highlighted areas in both the darken water line and in the rocks. I tried to leave the midtones in place and erased the dark areas to give more contrast by hand.

This is how I split the picture up. Layered as followed:
1 Top
4
3
2 Bottom



[Edited on December 31, 2007 at 1:19 AM. Reason : ]

12/31/2007 12:54:42 AM

How much does beardawg owe you for an hour of work?

12/31/2007 1:46:33 AM

nothing, just wanted to see if I could do it.

12/31/2007 1:52:45 AM

That's awesome. 10/10

Way cooler than I'd hoped.

12/31/2007 2:33:24 AM

this is why i LOVE photoshop. i don't know if i could have done anything as nice as jbaz, but i'm pretty pleased with what i can do in general.

12/31/2007 2:44:02 AM

Funny enough, I saw that technique in a magazine for editing black and white pictures, but I was skimming through it and didn't read the article. Just saw the pictures and did my own thing. I may know quite a bit, but I'm still learning and playing around with everything.

12/31/2007 2:48:27 AM

If anyone wants to try to estimate the height of the drop the boat is 8 ft. even. When I hit the water the leading edge of my helmet actually cut my forehead. I figure ~25 ft.

12/31/2007 2:51:35 AM

^^playing around is great on PS. i do that now that i'm home, taking a break. just open a pic and start messing around.

12/31/2007 3:03:08 AM

there's some new sophisticated software out there today of where it can give you a reading on the size and distance of an object from just pictures. All you need to know is one give measurement of the same object in the pictures and it can calculate the distance of other set points. Another program can take multiple pictures and graph a 3D image from the set without the user doing anything.

12/31/2007 3:09:43 AM

Quote :

"there's some new sophisticated software out there today of where it can give you a reading on the size and distance of an object from just pictures."

That type of software is not new or sophisticated (fairly simple math involved-- it'd be new if someone taught a computer to estimate object sizes on its own, based on context, and pluck out all the "objects" in a picture). It's been around for at least 20 years now, since computers were able to process graphics.

12/31/2007 4:52:59 AM

the software I speak of will interpolate object sizes with one fixed measurement, say if you knew that the kayak was exactly 8ft, given that picture was taken at different angles, it could approximate the size of the rock ledge the tree in the background and such.

12/31/2007 5:41:51 AM

^That particular piece of software might be new, but....

12/31/2007 2:27:52 PM

Fire beardawg, cause he's obviously fucking nuts

(or has nuts of steel)

12/31/2007 2:56:55 PM

how'd you get the picture to separate cleanly?

12/31/2007 3:03:34 PM

?

1/1/2008 3:21:52 AM