Woophy - Your advice please.

Forum < Workshop < Your advice please.

Author	Message
Rik Herrygers Member	# Posted: 23 May 09 11:13 Reply A few weeks ago I was in the ‘Aquarium de Barcelona’ (more explanation cfr. Image 796354) and it was allowed to take pictures without flash. (although there were a lot of people who ignored this rule and did use flash) I took a lot of pictures because I am not a diver and never saw such a beautiful waterworld. Helas returning home the quality off this pics are not so good. It is like taking a pic from inside a bus, taking pics trew a window. Cfr. this image off the shark. Has someone suggestions to sharpen this and my other images? P.S. Don’t worry Paulo I will not upload all my fishpics !
ray9 Member	# Posted: 23 May 09 11:32 Reply Hello Rick, it' s really difficult to take shots in an aquarium, I did some tries but I had a lot of trashs. the difficulty is that you have a glass in front of you and the wather which make deformations . I read that whith a polarazing filter you can avoid the reflections on the glasses and I think that you have to set up your camera with a great deph of field but also with a quick speed to have the fish sharp . To correct the shot after , if your original is in row format you can edit it and play with the cursor sharpness your could also make a try with the soft neat image which it's possible to test before buying it.
Rik Herrygers Member	# Posted: 23 May 09 12:32 Reply Thanks for your reaction Ray. I never took images with a filter before. Maybe that is a solution. Has someone of the Woophy-members experience with it? Yes (after reading the topic of Paulo Calafate) I shot my pictures in RAW-format. I did my best with Photoshop Elements 5.0 but I am not so happy with the result. Others suggestions?
catkiller Member	# Posted: 23 May 09 12:46 Reply I've got a suggestion..... GO DIVING!!!!! Only joking, it's very hard to take this kind of pictures, specially on the big tanks where sharks etc are kept as the thickness of the glass is usually extreme to hold the pressure. I don't think you will find a filter that will reduce the blurryness of this effect. It will work on smaller tanks though. Good luck
Rik Herrygers Member	# Posted: 23 May 09 12:51 Reply I would like to go diving Catkiller ... maybe you could be my instructor !? I think it is should be wonderful taking part in the life of the 'waterworld'.
Oscar_ Moderator	# Posted: 23 May 09 12:58 - Edited by: Oscar_ Reply Hi Rik, well I think we all tried these kind of picture behind glass and they are really difficult. I tried to improve this picture but it was really not easy. I did the following steps: - bring some more contrast to the picture and add some color - then I sharpened the shark 2 times and leave the water unsharpened using layers - I denoised the water and the plants, also I repeated this 2 times and I used layers to let the shark as sharp as it is in the second step. The result is a sharp shark with blurred water. Hope you like this result and I hope this is helpful to you. Greetings Oscar
Rik Herrygers Member	# Posted: 23 May 09 13:05 Reply Wow Oscar, you did a great job and a good idea the sharp the shark and blur the water. Indeed the image is already much better. You did this in photoshop I suppose? Thanks for your help Oscar !
mike_hilditch Member	# Posted: 24 May 09 00:55 Reply Hi Rik - Do hope that it is okay me having a go as well - Using Photoshop CS I did several things. First there is a lot of chromatic aberation (CA) around the edges which makes things a little unsharp - this can come either from the lens (some lenses suffer from that or it may come from refraced light (refracted fringing) caused by the glass splitting the light spectrum. So I desaturated the edges to get rid of the CA. Created a layer copy. Cut out the background from the shark. Use the posturize filter to increase the skin texture. Use USM with my favourite method of LCE (Local Contrast Enhancement) (have written about it before in the forum ( see also http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/local-c ontrast-enhancement.htm) Activate base layer and apply Reduce noise max (10) Flatten layers USM for final sharpening. Lastly small touching around edges to clean up image. Well thats one way but its a matter of taste in the end anyway. Hope this is of some use. Mike.
Rik Herrygers Member	# Posted: 24 May 09 10:40 Reply Hi Mike, off course I don't mind, on the contrary, it was the purpose off putting this on the forum so everybody could gives his ideas, tries and suggestions for me and every Woophy-member. Gi, you did a lot off work in it ! After reading what you did, all those steps, I had the feeling that in such situations/images 'the boys are seperated from the man'. I am in 1st categorie and you are clearly in the second. It is great you chare us you knowledge and experience so we (boys) can lurn from it. Thank you very much Mike !
Kolibri Member	# Posted: 24 May 09 12:44 Reply Lovely improvements By Oscar and Mike Thats what we are here for to learn from each other! Rik , Im like you hopeless at PS, apart from the basics
ray9 Member	# Posted: 24 May 09 13:26 - Edited by: ray9 Reply Here is my try with DXO V5, I had the both version in front of me and I tried all the curcors to see if it was better on my sight:
mike_hilditch Member	# Posted: 24 May 09 15:28 Reply Forgot to say that to caompare images dont forget to click on each one to get the web side up then click again to view enlarged. Good fun - thanks for the oportunity Rik - Mike
Zeeg Member	# Posted: 24 May 09 19:09 Reply I'm impressed by your mastering with PS Mike, you did a really good job.
catkiller Member	# Posted: 25 May 09 02:55 Reply mmmm Mike..... I'm impressed! I wish I could make my sharks look so PERFECT! Time to start studying photoshop......
Rik Herrygers Member	# Posted: 25 May 09 12:54 Reply @ Ray : You image is much better then mine Ray. But I have a (probably in yours eyes stupid) question 'DXO V5' is a software programma like Photoshop CSI and Photoshop elements? @Mike : No thank you Mike !
A.Miguel Oliveira Member	# Posted: 25 May 09 13:54 Reply Oops, after Mike's work, I don't dare to have a try, Rik. Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There you have it! Greetings
ray9 Member	# Posted: 25 May 09 14:07 Reply Hello Rick , the shot you showed is not the better exercice I did with DXO, the providers of this soft have studied the most famous cameras with their lens and they have created scripts dedicated to correct the main defaults like deformation on right lines and what i curently work with it , it' s to correct the deformation made when I shoot a painting: I don't shoot dirrectly a painting in front of me to avoid the windows light but I shoot slanted then whith dxo I correct the deformation by selecting the 4 angles of the frame and it correct it , you have also some extentions to reproduice the old films like kokarome , agfa and so on , but the advertisment says that it' the better in the high iso shots , here is the link to the soft advertisment: http://www.dxo.com/uk/photo I use it to convert all my raws to jpg
Nonkel Duvel Member	# Posted: 25 May 09 23:21 Reply @ Mike You're a master !