need help adding a bit more life an vibrancy to this photo..

J

JohnD76

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Hi,

I shot this at about 7am on a rather drab morning in Turkey, can anyone suggest how I can add a bit more life and vibrancy to the photo?

Replacing the sky is a very daunting prospect to me at my current skill level.

I use Photoshop and have converted from Raw, tweaked the levels but that is about all I know how to do at present :(

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/JohnD76/SmallGoremeHotairBalloon0048.jpg

Many thanks,

John.
 
Hi John - this is the best I can do. There'll be some gurus along soon with better results. I had a look at the curves, saturated a bit more, some Un-sharp Mask and put a frame round it. Trouble is there's a little burnt highlight in the sky which, if anything, I've probably accentuated.

0048a.jpg


regards
 
Cheers Stephen. :) Need to start looking at USM and Curves. Also need to use the histogram more and possibly get an ND filter to prevent highlights. Is there anyother way? I take it I overexposed the image?


KenCo, what did you do to the image if you don;t mind me asking? Trying to learn how to use Photoshop, but am finding it a bit daunting and need all the help/advise I can get. How did you get the sky like that?
 
Converted your image to 16bit tiff, then opened it in photomatix, using a feature called "tone mapping" adjusted black and then white point, then strength to 75 and saved. opened in CS2 auto levels and colour adjusted curves, a bit shadow and highlight, then sharpened. Sounds longer than it actually takes.....and I bet there is someone on here that could do the same in a lot less moves....but it's just what i'm used to.
HTH.
Ken.
 
SmallGoremeHotairBalloon004.jpg


not vastly different to everybody elses.....

rotated and cropped,

gradient layer to burn clouds back in,

selective saturation boost of ballons,

sharpened twice.... once at .5% and 60px radius,

then in lightness channel at about 175% and .8px

framed and saved as 160k Jpeg.

Boom-Shanka!
 
Many thanks for everyone for replying and posting what you did to the image. I had best hit the books and help to learn more about the tools and how to use them.

Jonny, what did you do to the picture?

Thanks once again.

John.
 
Resized + Cropped
1px 50% USM
Duplicated BG layer
Desaturated
Set Duplicated/Desaturated layer to overlay @ 50%
Adjusted Levels
Used the burn tool to bring out detail in clouds
 
You mentioned ND filter. With a horizon like that a Graduated ND would be beneficial. I always carry one.

regards
 
JohnD76 said:
I take it I overexposed the image?
Click to expand...

only by about 1/2 a stop!

did you try to bring it back using exposure compensation in the raw editing stage?

you could drop the exposure and then recover some of the shadow detail within PS.

Expose for the highlights and process for the shadows (negative ansel adams theory!)
 
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