which of these images do you think is better?

[cja]

As Santa was good enough to drop Adobe Photoshop Elements down the Chimney last Thusday morning, I have been looking at some of my older shots for which I used Corel Photo House 5 and trying to rework them in Adobe.

I have used auto levels and unsharp mask to change this:

[photoid=195241]


to this:




Which would the screeners prefer and how might you improve it?
Yes there are a couple of spots and a dark blue shade 3/4 the way up the page, however for the purpose of this post I am more interested in colour levels and contrast etc.

Thanks

[SWA733Captain]

Number 1 is definately better. In both of them the white is quite washed out but it's much worse in the second one. It also looks like you used a bit too much USM in the second one.

[JeffinDEN]

I prefer the first (original) to the second one. It looks fake and is way overprocessed.

Don't use "auto" anything.

[FlyingPhotog]

Don't use "auto" anything.

I second that.

[Spiffae]

don't really know much about Photoshop Elements, but I am a professional retoucher for a living, so i did a little work on your image. Not sure if you can do the same thing in Elements, as I am using PS 8.0

I did a levels adjustment on the grass in the foreground to give it a bit more definition. I then used curves to darken both the grass and the sky to make the plane "jump" out of the picture a bit more, and to more closely reflect the way a clear sky and a field of grass look to the naked eye (cameras can fool you). I corrected a greenish tone that was throughout the image, most notably in the sky. I enhanced the saturation a bit on the plane itself, emphasizing the livery. Just for laughs, I made the grass green... that is an optional step.

i didn't do any sharpening. First of all, you've got a lot of grain that would become pretty abrasive, and also, it looks like whatever camera you use puts a pretty nice unsharp mask on the image right when it saves the file. You're not going to get any sharper than you've already got.

what do you think?

[cja]

Thanks Guys and Sorry it’s taken a few days to reply to your comments and suggestions, I have been up to Scotland for Hogmanay (new years).


I think I have to agree with all of you, my instinct was that the second is over processed as Jeff says. The colours look more vivid but are a perhaps a bit over the top as is the sharpening. This was taken on winters day when the Sun never gets that high and so light was a bit of a problem preventing from getting the best focal length for the shot.

Thanks to Spiffae for your ideas, I am not sure if Elements has a curve tool and so I will have to have a more detailed look as soon as I get time. I also didn’t realise that its possible to isolate certain areas of a picture to manipulate the colours etc. but I have to say that, if you go to Manchester at this time of year you will find the grass ain't quite so green!!!

[Spiffae]

Like i said, i'm not sure if you can isolate and mask areas in photoshop elements. it's worth trying though. You might be able to make a selection, feather it, and then apply levels or curves (they do similar things).

[cja]

spiffae wrote;

Like i said, i'm not sure if you can isolate and mask areas in photoshop elements

It looks as though you can do this. I will experiment with it to see what can be done.

Thanks