Post Advice

[Michael Phillippe]

I just returned from a few days in Montana fishing with my son. Caught some really nice fish on Skawala’s and Western March Brown’s on the Bitterroot – in the snow!

Anyways, I wanted to get some input from you guys. What would you do in Photoshop to improve this? (All you pros ignore the composition!)

Thanks,

Mike

[John Bennett]

You can punch it up a bit and there are some more advanced things to can do to keep the viewers eyes where you want them but technically speaking theres zero wrong with it.

Exposure is spot on.

Artistically, theres a million things that might be changed most of which are subjective. From lowering the perspective to framing tighter and removng some of the distractions, and or narrower DoF etc. The possible list is quite long, none of which are right or wrong. Its a persons taste that decides those things.

[kendal larson]

You can punch it up a bit and there are some more advanced things to can do to keep the viewers eyes where you want them but technically speaking theres zero wrong with it.

Exposure is spot on.

Artistically, theres a million things that might be changed most of which are subjective. From lowering the perspective to framing tighter and removng some of the distractions, and or narrower DoF etc. The possible list is quite long, none of which are right or wrong. Its a persons taste that decides those things.

I’ve got nothing to add that John didn’t already say, and say well.   🙂

On a completely unrelated note; I was hired today to spend a week up in Montana shooting fly fishing in August.

Also – I have no less than a dozen deep sea charter captains that have offered to bring me aboard to shoot their trips this summer.

It’s been a killer day for me.  🙂

Sorry to derail the thread – your (glorious) Montana experience was so close to home I had to share.   heh

Oh – and – another aside; if you can, read the story of Lewis and Clark on the Bitterroot. Fascinating bit of American history that!

Kendal

[anonymous]

Michael- great image in the

[John Bennett]

Grats Kendal.

I found out this afternoon I’d won the grand prize in a National Geogrpahic contest. 3 Glorious days tripping in Alqonquin Park with an award winning Nature photographer workshop and a ton of camping equipment.
http://photoclub.canadiangeographic.ca/cg/Contests/moose/default.aspx
After last weekend’s cover, new lens etc this is continuing the roll.

So seeing as how news comes in threes.

Who else got good news recently?

[John Bennett]

Michael heres 2 quick and dirties to give you a visual. Both were done in Photoshop. The first with very basic adjustments, if you have PS you can do them easily. The second using some more advanced sotware.

Either way, as I said the photo is technically sound…No need to spend time on it. In all I spent maybe 5 minutes on both making very subtle adjustments.

First thing I did was check your histogram. Doing so revealed some minor clipping in the highlights. Namely in the sky and the white seat. I could have spent time trying to fix that, but for simplicities sake I just bought the histogram back a hair.

Second thing I did was to warm the picture a hair

Third thng I did was selectively increase the saturation on the fish only a bit

Fourth thing I did was give it some “pop” with a simple, very slight S curve.

Next up and instead I globally
1) I warmed it a hair
2) I gave it some pop by replicating a polarising filter
3) Added a little contrast
4) cropped it something approaching vertical framing more for visual reference (removing some distractions)

Any of those ajustments you could ramp up to taste or not..The photo is good as is.

[kendal larson]

Grats Kendal.

I found out this afternoon I’d won the grand prize in a National Geogrpahic contest. 3 Glorious days tripping in Alqonquin Park with an award winning Nature photographer workshop and a ton of camping equipment.
http://photoclub.canadiangeographic.ca/cg/Contests/moose/default.aspx
After last weekend’s cover, new lens etc this is continuing the roll.

So seeing as how news comes in threes.

Who else got good news recently?

Hey hey!

[John Bennett]

Nah not so good or glamorous. Just fill out an entry form and forget about it, becase no one ever wins these things 🙂

I’d forgotten about it, but remember now, I thought wow
Alqonquin Park one of my favorite places on earth.
3 day trip into the interior shooting Moose
Workshop with Pro.

What the hey I’ll throw my name in hat
🙂

[Michael Phillippe]

John,

Thanks for the advice and the examples. I’ll spend the next week or so learning to duplicate what you did. I didn’t notice that the sky was overcast in this shot until now. The day was alternating sunshine and snow squalls coming off the Bitterroots.

Mike

[John Bennett]

Michael, your welcome.
If you have photoshop (CS2,3 or 4 ) what I did is very easy, you could do it in 2 minutes. Mainly it was a small effort to bring out (emphasise) the fish a tad more.

With regards to the sky. I wouldn’t sweat it. It doesnt detract from the image and the fact of the matter is your image has data present right across the spectrum. From 0 to 255 (dynamic range), any attempt to hold back the sky at image capture would have resulted in clipped shadows. Most notably in the sweater (theres already some in the neck area). Of the two, capturing the detail in the sweater is far more important in this case. Have a look at your histogram, exposure is pretty much spot on and any deviation what so ever would have compounded the shadows areas, at which point PS work would have been required vs not.

[kendal larson]

Nah not so good or glamorous. Just fill out an entry form and forget about it, becase no one ever wins these things 🙂

I’d forgotten about it, but remember now, I thought wow
Alqonquin Park one of my favorite places on earth.
3 day trip into the interior shooting Moose
Workshop with Pro.

What the hey I’ll throw my name in hat
🙂

Lucky dog!

[Author]

Posts