Unsure about this one....

**Jive Turkey** · April 6th, 2006, 12:32 PM

Hey guys. Back in October My girlfriend and I took a trip to New York city for the weekend. I took a tonne of pictures and a few of them I'm really proud of. The weather was kinda shitty though and really overcast, so a lot of my pictures that I took during the day ended up looking really blown out and drab. I decided to try to save one of them with a little help from photoshop. I usually hate using photoshop to enhance pictures because i feel its a bit of a crutch. Anyway, I wanted to go for a kinda old fashion, vintage feel. What do you guys think? Good pic or cheap photoshop manipulation? I think I could see this one hanging on a wall in the basement or something.

Sorry about the size. I thought I could link to my photo.net account, but instead I have to use the scaled down photobucket one

**Norwin** · April 6th, 2006, 02:05 PM

That's too small to say something about the quality of the picture.

Try http://imageshack.us/ !!
Maximal size is 1024kb, that should do it.

**samsite999** · April 6th, 2006, 02:37 PM

Photo shop is a valuble tool as regards photos....Its invalube for me when i take a otherwise very nice picture but i mess up the shutter speed and it comes out a little over exposed, its nice just to be able to change the levels a little bit. As regards te photo, i think we are going to need to see a larger one, Sorry!

**Jive Turkey** · April 6th, 2006, 03:02 PM

this should be a little better:

Originally Posted by samsite999

Photo shop is a valuble tool as regards photos....Its invalube for me when i take a otherwise very nice picture but i mess up the shutter speed and it comes out a little over exposed, its nice just to be able to change the levels a little bit. As regards te photo, i think we are going to need to see a larger one, Sorry!

samsite, thats kinda my point though. If I dont nail the exposure in camera, I feel like its cheating to adjust the levels in photoshop. I just dont get the satisfaction that I do when I get a slide back and its bang on. Thats also a reason why I use slide film too. You have to be that much more accurate with your exposure, but when you get it right, the results are hard to beat.

**samsite999** · April 6th, 2006, 03:22 PM

Thats a very fair comment, if you only have one chance, make sure its spot on. I dont see it as cheeting though, there is probably no reason why as there is a histgram tool on me camera so i should get it correct every time, but as i see it thats half the benifit of digital meda, just so that you can toch up your work when it needs it. there is a line some ware when the picture you have taken is no longer the picture you have taken, but i beleve that its far far after changing levels

**Jive Turkey** · April 6th, 2006, 04:38 PM

Samsite,
I can totally see your point, and you know what? I probably didnt word my post very well. I dont think 'cheating' is the best word. At least not for minor adjustments. There are plently of techniques used in the dark room to achieve a look thats not consistent with the original negative too. I guess my problem is more with relying on adjustments after taking the shot rather than relying on skill with the camera. Regardless, its more of a personal choice for myself. I wouldnt ever accuse someone of cheating if they use photoshop a lot, I just prefer not to.

**Jive Turkey** · April 6th, 2006, 05:56 PM

But regardless of that, any comments on the picture?

**samsite999** · April 6th, 2006, 06:05 PM

can you post the orignal to see what we are looking at then, it should be intresting, over all the pictuer is a good start, the colors arent as good as they could be but that looks to be the weathers falt, the compsition is good, there is somthing catching your eye and then taking you all the way though the photo. I think a nicer day was needed and perhaps a slightly differnt angle, its a good start though!!

**Jive Turkey** · April 6th, 2006, 07:52 PM

Heres the original. Just pretty much a bad picture all together. Honestly, if I wasnt going to mess around with it on photoshop, it would never be seen again. The colours that I chose on the manipulated one were on purpose. I didnt want a crisp, vibrant picture. The colours were dreary to begin with, so I just kinda went with that. I lowered the saturation and changed the hue. I even added a little bit of grain to it. I wanted it to look almost as if it was a really old picture that had faded, giving it a little character. I love seeing old pictures of New York, so I was trying to capture the feeling a little bit, without making it just black and white. I think this way, it almost looks like an old black and white that has been colourized. Maybe I havent quite captured it the way I was hoping to though....anyway, heres the original slide: