Miniature horse and trainer

[Jim A]

What do you think of the sharpness of this please? Also all others comments gratefully received. I took lots of shots but this did not have buildings behind. Worth trying to fix the sky?




https://flic.kr/p/K7e9C3

[Manfred M]

It's a fair small sized image, so it's hard to make an absolute call on sharpness, but overall your subject seems to be sharp and the background drops off quite nicely.

As for "fixing" the sky, the overall look and feel of the sky matches the lighting in your image, including the what the textures are displayed, so everything looks "right". I'm not quite sure as to how you are thinking of changing that.

[rpcrowe]

I did a 10-second redo on this image:

1. Lightly applied the Camera RAW haze filter globally
2. Selected the sky with a NIK Viveza control point and lowered the exposure a TAD
I am sure that if a person worked on this image, it could be tweaked a bit more but, I think that the results for the amount of work put into it are quite decent. What do you think???

[Geoff F]

The horse is perfectly sharp but its handler is slightly out of focus, at least her head. So I assume the focus depth was fairly shallow.

I would definitely leave the sky alone. It looks fine now and nicely merges into the background. It can be so easy to ruin a decent image by making too many 'improvements'.

[Shadowman]

agree with Geoff on sharpness.

[Jim A]

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions, guys. Here is an updated image which I have dehazed, increased contrast by 7%, increased saturation by 3%, all in Affinity Photo.

I think that the dehazing has had the most affect. Using Flickr as for this update might well give a better result too (instead of
Tinypic).






https://www.flickr.com/photos/161777...posted-public/

[Stagecoach]

Jim,

A practice I often use on an image regarding 'sharpness appearance' is to selectively increase sharpening on a couple of prominent areas.

For example on this picture I would boost sharpening in comparison to the rest on the eye area and perhaps one buckle/bit area.

[Jim A]

Many thanks, Grahame, I had not envisaged that. Will do, much appreciated .........!!

[Geoff F]

I often do the selected area sharpening trick the other way around in seascapes where small waves/ripples need less sharpening otherwise the sea looks too 'harsh'.

Sharpen on a duplicate layer then add a Reveal All mask and gently paint over any problem areas with a low opacity (black) brush to selectively reduce the sharpen effect.

And many of my insect/flower images have a selection placed around the subject, with a slightly feathered edge, then sharpened on just the selection. As an addition, I frequently invert the selection after sharpening and add some noise reduction to just the background areas.

[Jim A]

Here we are Grahame - I have selectively sharpened the horse's eye and the middle part of the harness, which shows about the middle of the horse in this image. Does improve things IMHO - thanks!


Geoff - I have taken note of your valuable advice - thanks!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/161777...posted-public/

[skitterbug]

Hi Jim - You've definitely improved the photo from your first effort to this last one! Looks good!

I am amused by the expression of the trainer and the miniature horse. Neither of them look very happy! <lol> Must have been work for both of them that day!

[Cantab]

Jim, the final version really works well!

As Sandy has suggested, the horse and trainer look like they're both very focussed on the work at hand.

[retiredPhil]

Interesting that your editing sharpened the trainer. In the original, the trainer is slightly blurred.