For the longest time, I had been fighting the urge to get for myself a DSLR camera with following arguments in mind: better control of image depth, higher quality resolution with RAW, wider angle, and powerful optical zoom. Those and I’d look cool lugging around a DSLR (come on, who wouldn’t?!). But then, it’s very convenient to just carry around a point and shoot camera. We fish the cam from our pocket and shoot away whenever there’s a need, a habit that became more convenient with the advent of high-megapixeled mobile phones (mine has 5Mpix).
Over the weekend, I’ve immersed myself to learning how to better post-process photos with the use of Adobe Photoshop 7. Yes, they already have CS2 and CS3 but this is the version I currently have. Later in this post, you’ll see that although outdated, Photoshop 7 still does wonders.
My objective for this post is not to show off how I can majestically compose subjects in photos nor would I want to bitch-slap readers with my new-fangled Photoshop skills. With the processed photos below, I’d like to share with fellow point-and-shoot photographers that it is still possible to greatly enhance our “inferiorly captured” photos (something I’d disagree to with my whole being) and take them to greater heights visually.
With the exception of the McFarlaine Dragon photo in the set which I took using my old 5Mpix Canon Ixus i5, everything else were taken using my Nokia N82 5Mpix camphone. Hover on the images with your mouse to show how the photos looked “before” they were processed using Photoshop. Please bear with me if the “before” images take some time to load. Please just let the mouse hover over the image until it changes.
Adjustments were done on midtones via “Image > Adjustments > Curves” in Photoshop 7. I then applied the “Luminosity Sharpening” technique by using “unsharp mask” to make lines in the image more prominent.
Here, I used the same technique I applied on the dragon image above.
This one looks tricky when in fact it isn’t. I cropped the image to center on the lion, added a new adjustment layer via “Channel Mixer.” Look at how the background greenery seemed the have the natural “fall season” feel to it.
See how the colors are more vibrant after image processing. Here, I made sharpening adjustments on the the “Lab” channel (the grey version of the image) by momentarily changing the Image mode to “Lab Color”. After the edit, I shifted back to RGB.
I also used the first technique with these cookies, which were by the way chewie, chunky, and sumptuous. Not to mention cheap. You can get them fro Bim‘s sister’s bakeshop. For orders, leave a comment and I’ll email you the details. I’m willing to stake my reputation as chef with the quality of these really delicious cookies.
Overall, I’m greatly satisfied with how I spent my weekend. Book I studied, by the way, is “The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers” by Scott Kelby. It’s available at Fully Booked for P1999. Special thanks to thegreatest.
Lastly, all images in this post are proprietary to me via copyright.
Twitter Updates
19 May 2008 at 2:53 am
You don’t liquify? Heehee.
19 May 2008 at 3:03 am
Will learn that next. Levels muna and the simpler ones, hehe.
19 May 2008 at 10:44 am
Ooh, my baby looks so much sexier! You should, like, take photos of ALL my babies. XD
19 May 2008 at 1:54 pm
WTF?! I am amazed both by the Photoshop skills and the thingy that let’s me mouse over the photo to see the “before” shot. It’s AMAZING!
19 May 2008 at 2:06 pm
Hirap i-research nyan sa net :( andaming mali-mali ang tinuturo. You can see the code by viewing the page source. Use it as you please :D Ashteeg no?
19 May 2008 at 2:07 pm
I actually intend to do that LOL.Next project, portraits :D
19 May 2008 at 5:04 pm
LEVELS and HEAL. All you need to be beautiful… LOL.
19 May 2008 at 5:52 pm
gosh gusto ko matuto mag post process.
although against sa religion ko ang pag post-process pero sana it would be nice kung marunong din ako.
19 May 2008 at 5:56 pm
Composition din uy! :D
19 May 2008 at 11:24 pm
Purist! *hmp
20 May 2008 at 8:14 am
Salamat dito! astig at madami akong natutunan!
20 May 2008 at 2:10 pm
I’m thinking of posting the before and after pics every time I publish something post-processed. I’ll let readers in on the technique, too, hopefully. Thanks man.
20 May 2008 at 11:10 pm
Nice dragon photos
20 May 2008 at 11:14 pm
But for the lion I prefer the Original shot ” before “, The rest was a great technique.
21 May 2008 at 10:24 am
Come to think of it, I like the green background better for the lion, too. :D
21 May 2008 at 11:19 am
Do you resize your photo’s to reduce KB?
21 May 2008 at 11:44 am
I reduce them to fit the width of the post section on the theme I’m currently using. I use flickr to host my photos so its file size is no factor. When flickr resizes the image, the image quality isn’t that good so I resize them from my end.
27 May 2008 at 11:34 am
hi. i guess you buy a DSLR, lol. i thought i’ll be contented with my point and shoot camera.
with DSLR, i think you can drop photoshop, as much as possible i avoid post processing, but it could only be me.
i do like some post processing techniques too, especially orton. if you want to learn more about it, here’s the link
http://distillingthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/06/ort.html
hope it would interest you :-)
27 May 2008 at 4:58 pm
Exactly my thoughts: I’d say bye bye to PS when I get a DSLR. For now, it’s skillz-building. With the image limitations of a point-and-shoot, I force myself the rigor of post-processing. Prissy me doesn’t have much of a choice but to make things more beautiful :D
29 May 2008 at 1:25 am
Hey, even with a dslr i need to post process! LOL thanks for the tips.