What would you do

[Daniel R.]

to give this image a little more "pop"? This is the original in JPEG, also have it in RAW but pixentral doesn't allow for RAW.

I did some editing on my own but would like to know what you guys did and if our images are improvements are similar. If you could post what you did that would be wonderful. Just want to see if I'm on the right track.

This is the famous ski jump in Lillehammer.

Many thanks!

Daniel

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1EHw7GrpxtlPYih3FGHlYvszucLPD1

[Xanthus]

Daniel,

All I did was white balance your image to get the correct colors. You had a color cast. What setting on your EOS 20D are you using for white balance?

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1QPJPMpooqsh3940Q3Gnd4RirZeHkE1

It would be easy to increase the contrast a bit too, but I leave that to you.

-George

[Wayne Dreier]

Just did a quick look; here are some things that I would do if it were my photo.

1. Crop the height and width considerably. For me the focal point would be the main jump with perhaps the one on the right also. My height crop would be just above the poles on the jump structures. To me there is way to much sky (about 1/3 of the total height). Then I'd crop the right side to eliminate the light pole and the left side to get rid of most of the stands. I'd keep the woman at the bottom of the stairs.

2. Another possibility would be to do a cookie cutter shape that would allow both jumps in the photo but the shape would not be rectangular.

3. I would seriously consider removing the right jump entirely. I'm not a skier so this comment may be entirely off base. But my first reaction when I saw the right jump was that a cloth of some type of corduroy material was placed on it. If the ridges are significant to a skier looking at the photo then by all means I'd keep it. And if what I'm seeing are not ridges then you can make your own judgement as to the value of this and my other comments.

It is a great photo but to me these things would provide "pop". It's up to you if you think my interpretation of "pop" is on target.

Thanks for posting the photo. I always wondered what was under the snow!

[Wendy]

Daniel,

The image you posted is very large ... it has now reached its bandwidth for the day so I am not able to view it :(

When you upload images to Pixentral its best to save them using Save for web and resize so that the longest side is around 750 pixels. The use the quality slide to reduce the size even more until the image is about 150 to 200K.

That way there won't be any bandwidth problems :)

Wendy

[Daniel R.]

Daniel,

The image you posted is very large ... it has now reached its bandwidth for the day so I am not able to view it :(

When you upload images to Pixentral its best to save them using Save for web and resize so that the longest side is around 750 pixels. The use the quality slide to reduce the size even more until the image is about 150 to 200K.

That way there won't be any bandwidth problems :)

Wendy

Sure thing Wendy. Sorry about that. :cry:

I"ll make sure I do that the next time I post something. Thank you for the tip!

Daniel
:D

[Daniel R.]

And thank you also George and Wayne! I appreciate your ideas.

I'll have to check what I used for the White Balance on this photo. I want to say I had it on AWB but I am not 100% sure.


Again, many thanks!

Daniel

[drummermom]

I agree with Wayne -- a closer crop would definitely enhance your photo! I can't see the original, so was looking at the one with the color cast removed and posted by Xanthus.

My crop would look something like this one, though I'm not completely satisfied with this one either -- http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1Q4USoMS9LTqBbZOQAlY422bFXa I tried to crop it down to allow for the pretty sky, remove the runs on either side (distracting to me), and then I duplicated the layer, and changed the blending option to "Multiply", 75% opacity to pop the colors a bit in the logo and sky.

Keep in mind I cropped the little one, so it's smaller than you want to end up with and isn't really suitable for print, but it was just to get the point across. :)

I also tried the crop only (not the overlay) just isolating the run itself in a Portrait orientation -- that one is here: http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1msXeNUwqyCDm7x8tkwPbMEJVsuk1 If I had more time I'd crop it even more to get rid of as many of the right/left distractions as possible, but I was trying to keep the tree/sky piece of it in there too.

The cropping you do on this photo will be the best "popping" technique you have. Layer overlays might help as well..I kind of like the blend of the "multiply" at 75% for pulling out the logo and sky.
Great photo, btw...love the sky.

Karoli