"Advanced" image processing
 

Just curious if anybody knows techniques to substantially enhance images
taken under bad lighting or weather conditions. For instance if you shot
photos on an overcast, dark day, if there is a way to make these photos
shine. Would it be possible to transform an overcast sky into a nice
blue sky?

Or if you shot images under hazy conditions, with poor visibility, would
it be possible to give these images "vibrance", good contrast and
colours and if so how?
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330, E400 and E500 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/

"Advanced" image processing
 

"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
Just curious if anybody knows techniques to substantially enhance images
taken under bad lighting or weather conditions. For instance if you shot
photos on an overcast, dark day, if there is a way to make these photos
shine. Would it be possible to transform an overcast sky into a nice
blue sky?

Or if you shot images under hazy conditions, with poor visibility, would
it be possible to give these images "vibrance", good contrast and
colours and if so how?

Wow, what a question. You can replace the whole sky with Photoshop! You
can adjust the heck out of everything!

Post-processing is as big as photography, if not bigger.

"Advanced" image processing
 

In article ,
Alfred Molon wrote:

Just curious if anybody knows techniques to substantially enhance images
taken under bad lighting or weather conditions. For instance if you shot
photos on an overcast, dark day, if there is a way to make these photos
shine. Would it be possible to transform an overcast sky into a nice
blue sky?

Or if you shot images under hazy conditions, with poor visibility, would
it be possible to give these images "vibrance", good contrast and
colours and if so how?

There's a subtle line between truthful photography, artistic rendering.
Both take skill.
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely,
the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great
and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire
at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.


Reality-Is finding that perfect picture
and never looking back.

www.gregblankphoto.com

"Advanced" image processing
 

In article ,
Alfred Molon wrote:
Just curious if anybody knows techniques to substantially enhance images
taken under bad lighting or weather conditions.

There is no magic here. It is possible to improve the color and balance
on images like this, but only at the expense of reduced sharpness and
increased noise. Look at the image adjustments menu in PhotoShop.
Start by playing with the curves and levels controls.

"Advanced" image processing
 

In article ,
"Charles Schuler" wrote:

"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
Just curious if anybody knows techniques to substantially enhance images
taken under bad lighting or weather conditions. For instance if you shot
photos on an overcast, dark day, if there is a way to make these photos
shine. Would it be possible to transform an overcast sky into a nice
blue sky?

Or if you shot images under hazy conditions, with poor visibility, would
it be possible to give these images "vibrance", good contrast and
colours and if so how?

Wow, what a question. You can replace the whole sky with Photoshop! You
can adjust the heck out of everything!

Post-processing is as big as photography, if not bigger.

Not really photography at that point, more like image
molestation-bordering on rendering.

What you choose is your business, not right answers except what seems
right for the self.
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely,
the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great
and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire
at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.


Reality-Is finding that perfect picture
and never looking back.

www.gregblankphoto.com

"Advanced" image processing
 

Alfred Molon wrote:

Just curious if anybody knows techniques to substantially enhance images
taken under bad lighting or weather conditions. For instance if you shot
photos on an overcast, dark day, if there is a way to make these photos
shine. Would it be possible to transform an overcast sky into a nice
blue sky?

Or if you shot images under hazy conditions, with poor visibility, would
it be possible to give these images "vibrance", good contrast and
colours and if so how?

Sure. Just buy the CSI photo9shop plugin. ;-)

Roger

"Advanced" image processing
 

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:51:20 -0500, "Greg \"_\""
wrote:


Not really photography at that point, more like image
molestation-bordering on rendering.


I'd have to agree. One can always tug at the curves
in Photoshop to make the situation something it wasn't.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

"Advanced" image processing
 

In article ,
Raphael Bustin wrote:

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:51:20 -0500, "Greg \"_\""
wrote:


Not really photography at that point, more like image
molestation-bordering on rendering.


I'd have to agree. One can always tug at the curves
in Photoshop to make the situation something it wasn't.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

He he :)

As someone that has painted since a young age,...and considered being a
professional "artist" I laugh out loud at those feeling contrite at
*******izing two media. My thoughts then say if your going to do
something that totaly crass & disreputable why stop at photo go for some
you could make a lot more money doing....like politics or professional
hit man :)
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely,
the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great
and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire
at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.


Reality-Is finding that perfect picture
and never looking back.

www.gregblankphoto.com

"Advanced" image processing
 

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:12:32 -0500, "Greg \"_\""
wrote:


As someone that has painted since a young age,...and considered being a
professional "artist" I laugh out loud at those feeling contrite at
*******izing two media. My thoughts then say if your going to do
something that totaly crass & disreputable why stop at photo go for some
you could make a lot more money doing....like politics or professional
hit man :)


Truth be known, I haven't sufficient imagination
to be a great artist, let alone a middling one.
That's why I settled on being an engineer.

I'm also not quite smart enough and/or too lazy to lie.
Lying takes too much mental effort. Lies are like
economies, and need constant compounding.

Hence most of my photo work really is pretty
straight, simply because I don't know better
and can't imagine a suitable embellishment
for the reality.

I'm not above doing a few helpful touch-ups
here and there, though.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

"Advanced" image processing
 

My own feeling about editing images is that it's as much an
art form as photography or painting - just different. Or maybe
not so much different as combining the two. The only problem
comes in when someone pretends an edited image is not
edited.

But this topic has been argued to death in this newsgroup.

Here's some practical advice:

1. If you haven't got $600 to burn on Photoshop, there are
cheaper ones that will do what you want. The one I use
is the GIMP - a totally free, open source image editor
that does a great job.

See http://www.gimp.org

2. Simple image editing is often very easy. Sometimes
there's just one button to push to "auto-enhance" the color
of an image, or very simple controls in "curves" or "levels"
to correct contrast, haze, and other problems.

3. Sophisticated image editing is very hard. There is a
huge amount to learn and a lot of it requires hours upon
hours of trial and error learning to see what the effects
of the controls are. Experts may think nothing of putting
many hours into a single image.

Alan