In September of 1998 I took this picture with my old point and shoot film camera:
As you can see, this sunset was nothing short of spectacular. The picture isn't great because I carefully planned the composition or waited for the perfect moment of lighting. Honestly, all I did was push the shutter button. And yet, I reaped the rewards of county fair 4-H ribbons, state fair exhibition and 4-H ribbons, and exhibition in the Iowa State Fair Cultural Building. However, I took this picture when I was 11, and I've learned some things since then that I think will make this picture better. There are some obvious issues, and there are some less obvious issues (like fading from hanging on my bedroom wall for years). I hope you can use these instructions to perhaps revamp one of your old photos (film or digital).
After I removed the picture from its mat board frame and scanned it into my computer, I opened it in Photoshop CS3.
Step 1: Adjust Levels [Image>Adjustments>Levels]
-Shadows slider moved right to 27 which made blacks blacker and helped reverse the fading of the print
-Highlights slider moved left to 233 which brightened the yellow hues
-Midtones slider kept at 1 to preserve the integrity of the photo, but I discovered that moving the slider to the right made the sky much more dramatic and red
Step 2: Adjust Color Balance [Image>Adjustments>Color Balance]
I had a lot of freedom to play around with these sunset colors by using Photo Filters or Color Balance, and I experimented for a while but didn't make a drastic change.
-Make sure the box, Preserve Luminosity, is checked
-For the midtones, I did +9 to red, +54 to blue, -12 to magenta
-For the shadows, I only did +10 to blue
These changes resulted in darker, more fiery clouds with more contrast, and increasing the blues really brought out the unusual purple hues:
Step 3: Rotate and Crop
It's important that if your photo needs to be rotated or leveled that you do that before you crop. If you try to crop, then rotate, you may lose more of the composition than you want. I'd never noticed it before, but I realized I needed to rotate counter clockwise just a smidgen. [Image>Rotate Canvas>Arbitrary]
I didn't want to lose too much of the sky in my crop, but I wanted to eliminate some of the silhouetted images on the ground and the power line in the top right of the picture. When photographers compose or crop a picture, we usually think about the Rule of Thirds. If you want to learn more about this click here: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds
To help me visualize the thirds in my photo, I placed some ruler guides over it creating 9 equally-sized boxes. (To use ruler guides, just click and drag them from the rulers on the top and left of the canvas. When you're done, drag them back or hide them by using [Ctrl][;]) Cropping can be used to better apply the Rule of Thirds to photos and to remove elements in the photo you don't like--but feel free to break the rule. It does say, Picture Making and Rule Breaking at the top of the page! Just know why you're breaking the rules when you do.
I decided to crop out the power line, as well as the object on the far left of the horizon, and the power pole on the right--which also took care of the reflecting 911 sign. By doing this, the barn--which is not the focal point but a point of reference (the sky is the focus)--moved into the lower right intersection of thirds:
Step 4: Remove Imperfections
Because this was an original print that I scanned, there are some scratches, specs and dust particles--PLUS THAT BIG UGLY DATE! These are relatively simple fixes. You can use the clone stamp tool or the paintbrush to fix small things such as these. I could have even used the clone stamp to get rid of the power line. In this case, it was easiest to sweep a big black paintbrush over the bottom to get rid of the date, etc. Then I zoomed in on areas of the sky, carefully cloning a nearby area to replace scratches and specs.
Step 5: Soften
I was still bothered by some graininess in the sky, so I used the blur tool to soften and smooth select areas.
Step 6: Optional Burnt Edges
I like the look of burnt edges or vignetting on most photos, which slightly darkens the edge. I think it provides a finished, professional look, but that's just my personal preference.
Those are some basic instructions for ya. I'm really glad I finally got around to scanning and editing this photo and now I love it even more!
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Happy Halloween everyone! Tomorrow is the first day of November, and I'm starting to notice that fall is slipping away. Earlier this week, October 26, I was on my way home from work and a quick grocery stop in Norwalk (suburb south of Des Moines) and I noticed that although it had been dreary and overcast nearly all day, we were in for a breathtaking sunset. I did not have my SLR with me, but I had my HTC Evo which has a decent 8 mp camera. I knew I only had ten minutes or so to find a clear place to shoot a photo from where I could actually see the horizon before the sun would set.
Now, here's where the normal person who's not obsessed with landscape photography would say, "forget it" and go on home after a long day, make dinner for her husband and get on with her life. Here's what I did: drove frantically westward, dodging "road closed" signs and deer trying to get away from the trees and houses to a hill with a view. Come on--this was possibly the sunset of the year! (At least for me since I live in the middle of the city in an apartment with two measly windows and often can only see the sky directly above me)
Alas, instead of finding a place to shoot the sunset, I found myself at Walnut Woods State Park (probably the main reason there were so many trees in my way) where I decided to drive in and scout some fall colors. It was getting dark quickly now. I found one tree at its peak color and took this photo:
Because of the low light and the fact that I used my phone camera, the quality of the picture is not that great. When I get a photo that I like but lacks quality in some areas, I take the opportunity to get more creative with it. After minor editing in camera raw (which is already present in the above photo) including lens vignetting, I applied a level 6 posterize effect in Photoshop:
I think the using the posterize effect here brings more attention to the brilliant colors of the leaves, and less to the lack of sharpness of the overall image. It also adds a more interesting texture.
It absolutely KILLED me that I didn't see that sunset, let alone get a picture of it. I'm just not used to these restrictions that come with city life when I grew up on a hill in the country where I could see for miles in any direction. Three days later God blessed us with another gorgeous sunset. A reminder that the creator of the sun and painter of the skies is always good. I chose to simply enjoy it while I sat at a stop light by the airport, and I got this photo from my phone:
I actually kind of like the composition here with the headlights and the stoplights. I left the color alone here but bumped up the vibrance and contrast in camera raw while decreasing the clarity a bit. I also cropped out a bit from the top and the sides:
"From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised." Psalm 113:3
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