How I make my images * POP *

[bustak]

I had a couple of requests* asking to show what I do in photoshop to make my images pop.

After I open the image, I do a command-L or dig in the menus to Levels:



As you may notice the arrows to the way right & left have no info above it.


That means the image doesn't have a lot of shadow & highlight information, making the image to appear flat.

So you drag the left arrow (the shadows) more to the right & the right arrow (the highlights) more to the left.


I usually play around with the middle arrow, which represents the midtones of the image. I like the colors to be rather deep, so I usually drag it to the right, crushing the mid tones a bit.

Then after that I go in to Filter & go down to Sharpen & apply the Sharpen filter:


For some reason I couldn't take a screen capture of myself on the actual Sharpen filter.

That's pretty much what I do in photoshop to make my images pop.

Here's the original image:


& here's the color corrected image using the process above:


This was taken w/ CMn's camera. His Sony produces flatter images than my Canon, so that's why I used it in my example. It's a good photo, just needed to be tweaked.

The above technique can vary from image to image, some images are PERFECT out of camera, while others need the shadows crushed, or the midtones opened up. The best thing is to experiment w/ different photos you've taken.

Hope this helps!

* https://teakdoor.com/northern-thailand-forum/26289-a-pleasant-tuesday-afternoon-w-cmn-2.html

[DrB0b]

Great stuff, bustak. Lots more, please.

[ChiangMai noon]

^
thanks so much for taking the time with that bustak.


I'll give it a go myself in a bit and post my failures.

[cimboc]

Part 1 I hope what will we be learning next

I better find some decent photo's to play around with, you make it look so easy.

Bustak your a true LEGEND, cheers mate.

[ChiangMai noon]

well that was easy when you are shown how.

it took all of 2 minutes to follow bustak's excellent tip and I got this from it.

didn't notice a huge difference after i clicked the sharpen function though.

[ChiangMai noon]

It's a bit more colourful than yours.

is it too bright?

great tip though.

I'm off for a bit of a play.

[Little Chuchok]

^The only thing that you could make 'pop' is a ewe.

[ChiangMai noon]

^
did you see that pic I posted.

buffoon.

[Little Chuchok]

^yes I did.

bounder.

[ChiangMai noon]

did i not make it pop, but good??

[bustak]

It's a bit more colourful than yours.

You can go under - Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation - & knock the saturation down a bit.

[Little Chuchok]

^^You couldn't 'pop' gum ffs!

[ChiangMai noon]

before....



after..

[ChiangMai noon]

^
oooh fukk.

overpopped that one.

[ChiangMai noon]

poppp.

[cimboc]

First attempt (anyone notice the difference?) ... this is fun

[ChiangMai noon]

^
nice first pop cimboc.

[ChiangMai noon]

before



after

[bustak]

Keep an eye on the photo while adjusting the levels, remember the whole point of doing this is to enhance the appearance of the image.

So if the image looks a lot better, even though according to the levels you should change it more, stop, don't over correct the image.

Another thing to be mindful of, is this process throws away pixels, so you could loose some detail you wanted to keep.

Just look @ the whole photo, don't get hyper focused on one part of the image.

Here's some good info on the histrogram: Histograms for Photography

[ChiangMai noon]

even though according to the levels you should change it more, stop, don't over correct the image.

how do you tell from the levels?

[bustak]

even though according to the levels you should change it more, stop, don't over correct the image.

how do you tell from the levels?

when you go in to levels you're going to adjust the histogram. The histogram is the mountain looking graph in the image below showing where the data of an image is store:


According to the leaf histogram, not a lot of data is stored in the shadows, & even less in the highlights. A lot of the information is stored in the middle of the image. Actually this isn't a horrible image, I've seen images that are beyond repair & the histogram really reflect it.

Right now I'm @ an internet cafe, so I can't illustrate that point.

I hope that makes sense.

[ChiangMai noon]

I can see that the histogram is empty on the left and the right hand sides, but don't know how far that means you have to move them according to the histogram.

[bustak]

I can see that the histogram is empty on the left and the right hand sides, but don't know how far that means you have to move them according to the histogram.

Ah, good question. Notice the original histogram:


I then grabbed the left & right arrows & dragged them to a spot where there is some information:


So I usually drag them to the beggining of the pixal information for either the shadow or highlights.

But as I said before, look @ the image while you're doing this, you might like how the image looks without adjusting/dragging it too much.

I hope this makes sense.

[ChiangMai noon]

^
it does thanks.

[Texpat]

If I wanted to pop my pop, but didn't want to pop my pop's pop, what toggle do I trip?