Net Fishing

[FrankMi]

I was down by the Lake Wylie Dam watching several fishermen when a fellow showed up with a net. He was fascinating to watch so I snapped a few hand held shots. Unfortunately he only made three casts and although he caught a number of fish, he threw them all back and went on to fish with a pole and line like the others.

When I looked at the images later, I liked a number of the shots but they all had one missing element. They each failed to tell the complete story of what was happening. I didn't want to post an entire series of images so I thought I would take a chance on doing a GIF cinematograph. I'm sure it won't satisfy the purest in the group but some of you may enjoy this form of photography. I put on my flack shorts so feel free to fire away with your comments and criticisms!



Image updated after reading Richard's suggestion. Toned down the white bucket in the lower left hand corner.

[Donald]

WOW ........ as they say! How d'ya do that?

An excellent series of images in their own right. #5 in the sequence is super .. they all are.

This purist approves!

[bishopsmead]

Like it . . . . .

[rpcrowe]

I like this series! Perhaps cropping out the bucket in the lower left might improve it just a tad. The white keeps attracting my eye...

BTW: I have tried to throw this type of net and ended up in a mess of tangles. Of course I have very little physical coordination, I have problems chewing gum and walking at the same time.

[Loose Canon]

Flak shorts Frank???

Get any chafing from that Kevlar? Never mind. I don't really want to know!

I like your animation, though I think most of those would stand alone anyway.

[FrankMi]

How d'ya do that?

Thank you Donald! My goal was to treat each shot as a keeper.

1. The eight shots were loaded as layers in Photoshop CS5.

2. The images were then aligned (Edit/Auto-Align Layers) so that the rocks were in exactly the same spot in each image.

3. Created a new layer called Background by merging the first image with the others to clone out the fisherman.

4. Used the Clone Tool to blend the different ripple positions into a smooth background where the fisherman stood and eliminate his shadow on the rocks as that would change for each image. Now a had a clean background.

5. Using the clean background set to 30% opacity so that I could see the fisherman in the first image. I merged just the fisherman, his shadow, and the net back into the clean background using a Layer Mask. Set the background Opacity back to 100% and by using Ctl/Alt/Shift/E I could make a new layer that contained the merged elements. In this way, no pixels were harmed in the making of the first completed image. I could then delete the Background's Layer Mask so that the Background was available for the next image. This step was repeated for all eight images.

6. Now that I had an identical background for all eight shots, I did my normal post-processing capture sharpening, contrast adjustment, and minor burning of some over exposed areas, mainly the skin tones and grey shirt for each of the eight images.

7. Reduced the image size to 800 pixels wide and did the export sharpening so that the final file size wasn't excessively large.

8. In Windows/Animation, I set the mode to Convert to Frame Animation and used Make Frames from Layers to create the filmstrip. Here I also set the display time to 1 second per frame except for the first which I set to 2 seconds (and with the latest update, the last is set to 1.5 seconds). The Looping option was set to Forever.

9. In the File menu, Save for Web and Devices, I set the File Format to GIF and clicked Save.

Owing to much experimentation and false starts for learning a logical sequence, it took many hours over the best part of a week but I could probably repeat the sequence above now in a couple of hours.

Hope this helps!

[FrankMi]

Thank you George, Richard, and Terry! It was a fun learning exercise.

Perhaps cropping out the bucket in the lower left might improve it just a tad. The white keeps attracting my eye...

Originally I left the bucket in to help tell the story, then, in the midst of everything else, simply forgot about it. I wonder if it would be better to remove it or just tone it down to the point where it doesn't catch the eye?

OK. I've tried it with the bucket toned down. I may try cropping a bit later and if I do I may gain enough image space to raise the image width a bit so it will be easier to see in the light box.

[Shadowman]

I like it.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Frank,

Great result, worth the effort and many thanks for telling us how.

Can't think of anything I can suggest to help, just sat here in awe mate!
Well done.

Cheers,

[Squidgy]

Frank, am I right in thinking that this could be done with any series of "different" pictures like a kind of slide-show type of thing just by using windows animation? It's brilliant!!!

[JPS]

Frank,
I like what you have done here; but if you had told me beforehand what you were working on, I probably would have said this was not for me. However your full explanation of your workflow and the end result have certainly impressed me. I think I might well have a go myself.

Well done; you get 3 smiles as I like it so much.

[FrankMi]

Thank you all for the kind comments! I wasn't expecting such a positive reaction. LOL!

Frank, am I right in thinking that this could be done with any series of "different" pictures like a kind of slide-show type of thing just by using windows animation? It's brilliant!!!

Yes, Nigel. I don't see why you couldn't do something like this for a short slide show but recall that the finished GIF can get to be quite large very quickly as all of the images are in a single file!

Just to be clear, it's the Animation selection in the Windows menu of CS5 and not something available in 'Windows' as we might normally think when we see Windows and Animation together. Sorry, didn't mean to confuse the issue!

[SpiderBob]

Great work Frank, I just sat here and watched it over and over. And the learning just continues on today.

[FrankMi]

Great work Frank, I just sat here and watched it over and over. And the learning just continues on today.

Thanks for the encouragement, Bob!

Any time a photographer can get the viewer to look at their image for more than a few seconds, it is an accomplishment!

[Pappadi]

Great work.Thanks for detailing your post work.
I have read though of layer alignment etc in the hdr technique, this gif animation possibility never occurred to my mind. Thank you for motivating for experimentation.

[dave keeley]

Super sequence of images, I really like the shots where the cast net is in mid air.. reckon they would make great b&w conversion

[CNelson]

Way cool!

Chuck

[Crovean]

I was down by the Lake Wylie Dam watching several fishermen when a fellow showed up with a net. He was fascinating to watch so I snapped a few hand held shots. Unfortunately he only made three casts and although he caught a number of fish, he threw them all back and went on to fish with a pole and line like the others.

When I looked at the images later, I liked a number of the shots but they all had one missing element. They each failed to tell the complete story of what was happening. I didn't want to post an entire series of images so I thought I would take a chance on doing a GIF cinematograph. I'm sure it won't satisfy the purest in the group but some of you may enjoy this form of photography. I put on my flack shorts so feel free to fire away with your comments and criticisms!



Image updated after reading Richard's suggestion. Toned down the white bucket in the lower left hand corner.

Can i make my prints move like this? Lol. Just kidding

[jeeperman]

Nice work Frank. Well done from start to finish

[Frankie]

Wow! That's really cool. I'm impressed!