I need a tutor....

[jagphoto]

I did my first photo shoot in RAW. I have the book by Scott Kelby for PS Elements 4, BUT I am still having a hard time. I was nervous for my first shoot and the sun was bright. I would pay someone to help me a little with my processing. Let me know if anyone is interested. I live in NW Houston. I know I have the shots I need, they just need tweaking.

Thanks,
Lisa

[RandySmith]

Lisa,

Although there might be somebody here willing to earn some money, there are also lots of friendly people here that will help you (and me) learn too ! Can you narrow down your favorite 3 or 4 pictures ? Then if you can post those here, you might get some suggestions on doing the editing yourself. I'm not a photoshop guru by any means, but if I can help I'll throw in my two cents.

Randy

[Huck]

Originally Posted by jagphoto

I have the book by Scott Kelby for PS Elements 4,

Not to change the subject, but how do you like this book - I am looking for a good PS Elements 4 book.

[jagphoto]

Originally Posted by photohuck

Not to change the subject, but how do you like this book - I am looking for a good PS Elements 4 book.

I love the book, it's just I am a complete beginner and would like a little more help with PS.

[jagphoto]

Of course it's not as clear as I have it, but yes the shadows and sun are there.
Any ideas on making this a little better. I am not using the actual picture, but the lighting is the same. In this one I know the grandpa has his eyes closed.

[Gabby498]

Jag, This may or may not be better in your estimation

1] I cleaned up the horizon line and some of the dark areas of the background on the right by cloning just to make the background more neutral. I ran the soften brush along the edge of the background to catch any jaggies I might have made.

2] In levels I darkened the image very slightly and in levels output reduced the white output to slightly reduce contrast.

3] I slightly uped the saturation—not sure that helped but it did make it a little richer.

4] Cloned where possible to get rid of as many of the bright areas in the foreground as I could. On the right corner I used the burn brush on a duplicate layer to reduce the brightness.

I tried to do what I thought I could to reduce the importance of both the background and the foreground without going overboard.

[jagphoto]

Originally Posted by Gabby498

Jag, This may or may not be better in your estimation

1] I cleaned up the horizon line and some of the dark areas of the background on the right by cloning just to make the background more neutral. I ran the soften brush along the edge of the background to catch any jaggies I might have made.

2] In levels I darkened the image very slightly and in levels output reduced the white output to slightly reduce contrast.

3] I slightly uped the saturation—not sure that helped but it did make it a little richer.

4] Cloned where possible to get rid of as many of the bright areas in the foreground as I could. On the right corner I used the burn brush on a duplicate layer to reduce the brightness.

I tried to do what I thought I could to reduce the importance of both the background and the foreground without going overboard.

Thank you so much! I am going to follow those guidlines and try to change the other photo. I will post later.

Lisa

[RandySmith]

Here's my attempt and what I did to get it to this point. I know that there are some halo's around some of the folks here, but I just did this to illustrate a way to maybe rescue the image. With more time, alot more could be done, however, I'm preparing for a trip and can't spend alot more time with this. I hope my explanation below will encourage you to try some things. I know that elements isn't as powerful as CS2 (that's what I used) but it's my understanding you can do alot of similar editing in that program too.

First, I did a levels adjustment to bring out the whites and blacks a little better, I selected
a white point on the grandmothers shirt. I chose a dark shadow area for the black point. I then
raised the whole amount slightly just to bring up the levels.

Second, I copied the layer and then lowered the levels to darken the background slightly. I
then used a shadow-mask to paint the darkened area that I wanted a little darker.

Third, I found an image that I shot this week at a baseball game where I had some trees on
the horizon. I selected an area and feathered it to approx 25 pixels.

I pasted the trees in the background and deleted the white background from your image using magic eraser.

I placed the trees in a layer above your image and lowered the intensity of that layer so I could
see the underlying outline of the young man standing behind grandpa. I erased around his head on
the top layer.

Finally, I flattened the layers and then copied again and performed a lens blur. I used shadow
mask again to apply a slight blur to the background.

I then applied some strokes and increased the background size to give the illusion of a frame.

Sorry I'm not provided every key-stroke I did, I tend to play as I go and can only remember in generalities what I did.

Hope this helps you get some ideas and inputs from some other folks here at TPF ! !
Randy

[gpbusa316]

Originally Posted by jagphoto

Of course it's not as clear as I have it, but yes the shadows and sun are there.
Any ideas on making this a little better. I am not using the actual picture, but the lighting is the same. In this one I know the grandpa has his eyes closed.

What exactly are you trying to make "a little better"? Everyone looks at things differently, so it would help to know what you would like changed or improved?

Also, is it possible for you post a file (the original maybe?) that hasn't already been heavily compressed? I started to do a few basic tweaks to this one... but even slight photoshop processing on this small 8bit jpeg, makes it look worse than the original.

[chilidogg]

I'm not real familar with Elements as I'm using CS2 but I would export my RAW image twice to mimick a bracketed exposure. Save one image where the background is exposed properly and save another where the people are properly exposed. Then layer them in Photoshop and use layer masking to reveal the underlying portions you want to show. Set your brush to a low opacity and bring it out a little at a time. Also, check out Popular Photography's How-To section.
http://www.popphoto.com/default.asp?section_id=4

[chilidogg]

PS. In the future, set your exposure on camera for the background(highlights) and pump up the flash or use a reflector for the foreground.

[chilidogg]

Here's my take on doing it like I was saying, but without the RAW...

[jagphoto]

Thank you sooo much everyone. I am sitting down right now to play with it a little more. I hope I get this right.