There are regular discussions in the UKC Photography forum about certain photos, and what post-processing they've had, but you rarely get to see the original photo straight out of the camera. Here we are lucky enough to have 12 examples of before & after photos - both from well known and some less known photographers on UKClimbing.
This isn't a tutorial article - there aren't instructions on how to achieve the same results in your favourite graphics package, but there are many good books & tutorial websites on the subject, and there are some links to get you started at the end of this article.
Almost every photo can benefit from a quick adjustment of contrast/brightness, especially when the auto-exposure mode on the camera didn't get it quite right.
"Using Photoshop, I adjusted the Levels (mainly moved the shadow slider up) to increase the contrast and remove the greyness of the original. Then did an Unsharp mask at 350%, 0.3, 2."
Fixing highlights/shadows by Escher
"This photo of the Paron Valley in Peru is mostly in shade, with some brilliantly lit mountain peaks. I metered for the brightest parts of the scene, and then used the shadow/highlight adjustment tool in Photoshop to decrease the highlights and increase the shadows. A little sharpening with the unsharp mask, and that was it."
Slightly more work than simply changing the contrast/levels of the entire picture, some subtle adjustments to the subject of the photograph to lift it away from the background can be effective.
"Not much tweaking required on this one. I thought it was a bit 'flat', so the overall contrast is increased a tiny bit with a slight 'spotlight' effect on the climber. There a small amount of increased saturation just on the climber and after rescaling, there's some local sharpening (unsharp mask) around the climber and the crack."
Isolating the subject: focus by g taylor
It can be difficult to isolate the subject of a photograph by bluring the background without using expensive heavy lenses and/or a full-frame SLR. Compact digital cameras especially have a large depth of field, meaning that everything is in focus. However you can simulate a small depth of field using a photo editing package.
Clutter in the background of shots distracts from the subject of the photo, and it may be impractical to hide rucksacks, spectators and other clutter before taking the shot. This is very different of course from removing a spotter or a top-rope!
"On this shot of Hale Bopp, I did lots of cloning and healing brush to remove the man, shoes, boots, logos, brush...colour balance to get rid of yellow cast...levels and curves to add contrast...corners darkened to focus attention on the climber...slight cropping to remove distractions...sharpening"
Enhancing the lighting by Marek
This photo shows a combination of several post-processing techniques - removing clutter, throwing the background out of focus and playing with the colour saturation to give a muted tone without it being monochrome.
"Here I have cloned out the background clutter, blurred the background, reduced saturation by 75%, then re-introduced colour to key elements (boots, chalk bag, etc), and finally adjusted the brightness/contrast of the entire image."
A problem with all cameras is that they don't have the dynamic range of a human eye - so unless your subject is climbing in bright sunshine, you'll either get a perfectly exposed climber with an overexposed sky (blank white), or a perfectly exposed sky with an underexposed climber (black). One solution is to take 2 shots - one of the climber, and one of the background+sky, and combine them.
"Here Steve was doing the 1st ascent of La Signora Con La Falce (F8c+) in Sardinia: a huge overhang that is always in the shade. I've adjusted the brightness + saturation of Steve and the rock which was underexposed, then completely replaced the background from a shot I took a few minutes later. I also cloned out the distracting power lines from the sky, and did a final sharpen action."
Background restoration by Marek
You don't always to replace the background with a second photo. With sufficient skill, you can often 'rescue' an overexposed sky.
Expert processing: monochrome I by Si O'Conor
The striking monochrome bouldering photos of Si O'Conor are immediately recognisable, and very popular. Here he shares a few details of what he does with his "wee digi thing"...
"I often use cropping, black & white contrasting & simple de-cluttering of original photographic versions along with added depth of field, as additional refinements of each composition to draw the viewers eye onto the subject at hand, the movement & the moment; the purpose of the composition without visual distraction. It simplifies the experience & adds a greater feel of movement & direction to the subject. It should make you say 'I'm going to go there & climb that' - If it does, it's a good photo."
Expert processing: monochrome II by Ian Hill
For really dramatic results, you can make a lot of adjustments to a photo while still keeping the essence of the shot. Here Ian gives a detailed list of the changes he made to this bouldering shot.
- "crop to remove unwanted left side and some of base - concentrates attention on the action
- run noise reduction filter - removes graininess from the sensor
- select foreground rock. background rock, head, torso, arm and legs...save these as channels to enable later work
- clone out distracting bright spots and dust marks - again concentrates attention on the action
- convert to B&W - some things just look better in B&W!
- do basic levels adjustment for each selection - to get contrast basically right
- use curves adjustment for each selection to tweak to final required contrast...particularly with regard to muscle tone and making the desired focus point of the head and arm stand out, and for the rock where the hand is reaching
- "burn and dodge to create 'drama'...background rock at the base of the pic has particularly been burned to make climber stand out more
- lighten the eyes using levels - gives bite to the focal point (probably overdone in this case - oops)
- clone out distracting bits of the floor, like the mat corner and sharp rock edges - again concentrates attention on the action
- blur the background and lower leg slightly using Gaussian blur - to add some depth
- darken the edges of the pic - to concentrate the eye towards the subject
- add slight sepia tone - because I like it
- add thin black border - once again concentrates attention on the action
- finally sharpen the base image
The goal of post-processing is sometimes to create a more artistic (clearly non-real) image. Here is a heavily processed mountainscape that caused much discussion when Marek first showed it on UKClimbing, and indeed it is currently No.3 in the Top 200 photos on UKC.
"This was taken at dawn, just as the first light was starting to illuminate the summit clouds. An obvious candidate for cropping, getting rid of the shadowy foregaround and some of the sky, so as to concentrate on the line of the ridge.
"I seem to remember that there was a lot of opinion being expressed on UKC at the time about how photo's should be 'pure' so I though I'd throw in something heavily manipulated to see what the response was.
"This picture seemed ideal material for a duotone job. I used Pantone 3015 CVC to give that cold, moonlit color with a high-transparency heavily blurred layer to add some 'pre-dawn mist' and smooth the sky out a bit. The contrast was enhanced a bit around the ridge line and the whole thing was put through a noise reduction utility (Neat Image I think) to reduce the noise levels in the sky. That's it!"
Hope you found this article interesting! Please email me or post in the forum thread with any corrections, links to good books, websites, etc. and I'll update the article.
Resource links
- UKC Photography forum
- Preparing photos for the Internet article
- Post Processing Tutorials at photography-on-the.net
- Boo's post processing tutorials
- Retouching forum at dpreview.com
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