Please C&C my post-process

[OICU812]

I am new to the forum as well as Photoshop Elements 12 and would appreciate a little help with some simple post processing. The photograph below was taken five years ago. It was taken with a Canon XTi using the EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens at 55.0 mm, 1/60 sec; f/5.6; ISO 400. It was unfortunately saved in JPG format only.

I have cropped slightly, touched-up lightly around the inside crease of the eye, increased contrast just a tick or two and increased saturation. I was considering going further with saturation, but I am hesitant. Please feel free to suggest or comment.

As shot:



Edited:

[Digital]

They are both nice pics. The edited version looks a little to yellow/red for my taste. I would back off the saturation a tad.
Hope this helps.
Welcome to CiC. It would help is you could give a first name, and your location (e.g. a city).

Bruce

[IzzieK]

I like the original better because the colour of the coat is more au natural. The edited version is reddish. It must be my contact lens...

[Shadowman]

Both are good, edited version is a bit sharper and shows better separation from background across the muzzle.

[Geoff F]

As Izzie mentioned, I'm seeing a faint reddish tinge with the edit.

It is sharper but I wouldn't have cropped closer as the original is quite close enough. It is starting to look a little bit 'cramped' now.

In this case, I would probably have added just a slight brightness boost using Curves, but probably selectively applied if the highlights were about to 'blow' on the white areas.

[OICU812]

Edit 2

Saturation reduced, reflections removed from eyes. Somehow, although the eyes look clearer, they seem to have lost some of the "personality" of the original. What do you think?

[Digital]

I would not have removed the reflections from the eyes. You were right they do add some personality. They are called catchlights.


Bruce

[denisemaine]

I would leave the reflections/sparkles in the eyes. They look unnatural with out them.

[ajohnw]

You could try using curves on the original but it needs very small changes. Levels are probably easier. Hope you don't mind but it's easier to show you. These were the levels setting.



What I have done is move the bright end of the output down to dim the white and then moved the bright end of the input down until the white starts to loose it's shape. Turns out that I should have left the black input where it was but the output black level is usually a good idea. I then moved the centre input slider to taste. That gave this



Then thought I had better look at your result. I had dimmed the white down but looked like you wanted more contrast in the dog so used curves. The 3 points on the line split it into 1/4's.



You will see what these points do by moving them around. The white of the dog's eye are within the 3 points. The slope is steeper between them so contrast is increased. Also by moving the black end along a bit. That gave this result.




This may give you some idea of what you can do with a shot like this with these 2 controls that most packages have.

John
-

[OICU812]

You could try using curves on the original but it needs very small changes. Levels are probably easier. Hope you don't mind but it's easier to show you. These were the levels setting.



What I have done is move the bright end of the output down to dim the white and then moved the bright end of the input down until the white starts to loose it's shape. Turns out that I should have left the black input where it was but the output black level is usually a good idea. I then moved the centre input slider to taste. That gave this



Then thought I had better look at your result. I had dimmed the white down but looked like you wanted more contrast in the dog so used curves. The 3 points on the line split it into 1/4's.



You will see what these points do by moving them around. The white of the dog's eye are within the 3 points. The slope is steeper between them so contrast is increased. Also by moving the black end along a bit. That gave this result.




This may give you some idea of what you can do with a shot like this with these 2 controls that most packages have.

John
-

I like that result a lot. Thanks. I'm going back into PSE12 and give that a try.

-Mike-
OICU812

[OICU812]

You could try using curves on the original but it needs very small changes. Levels are probably easier. Hope you don't mind but it's easier to show you. These were the levels setting.



What I have done is move the bright end of the output down to dim the white and then moved the bright end of the input down until the white starts to loose it's shape. Turns out that I should have left the black input where it was but the output black level is usually a good idea. I then moved the centre input slider to taste. That gave this



Then thought I had better look at your result. I had dimmed the white down but looked like you wanted more contrast in the dog so used curves. The 3 points on the line split it into 1/4's.



You will see what these points do by moving them around. The white of the dog's eye are within the 3 points. The slope is steeper between them so contrast is increased. Also by moving the black end along a bit. That gave this result.




This may give you some idea of what you can do with a shot like this with these 2 controls that most packages have.

John
-

I like that result a lot. Thanks. I'm going back into PSE12 and give that a try.

-Mike-
OICU812

[Geoff F]

Curves offer quite a bit of fine adjustment so you find that everybody will edit the same scene very slightly differently. But it is certainly the tool which I use most often. And once you include some layers and masks it becomes even more useful.

[wmoore]

Personally I prefer the unedited version.