Patrick Moore wrote:
> * On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:41:08PM -0500, Chuck Norcutt said:
>
>> I'm always amazed at what you can pull out of a little JPEG.
>>
>
> As am I ...
>
> I'm more amazed that he knows where to look! :)
>
> Moose: You are a master, and we thank you.
>
Thanks guys, just doin' what comes naturally.
The how is not so mysterious. Shadow/Highlight spreads compressed
highlight and/or shadow detail out over a wider area of the histogram so
our eyes can differentiate it. Then LCE, Curves, Brightness, Contrast,
Levels, etc. may redistribute the tonal values as appropriate.
For this particular one, I believe I only used Shadow/Hi, LCE and
curves, pretty simple. Fairly often, I resort to separating different
parts of an image into layers and adjusting them separately.
The "where to look' question is one I hadn't really thought out. I guess
there are overlapping answers.
I think the first thing that attracts me is a sense that a subject
doesn't look 'natural'; that if I saw it in person, it would look
different than in the image presented. In this case, everything in the
image looks weathered, with interesting color variation and the inside
of the drain shows that too. But the outside looks like it was just
painted perfect, pure, blank white. In the light of the rest of the
image, that just looks out of place. Looking closer, I saw some very
subtle hints of stamped in text in the bracket. As it turns out, there
is differential discoloration of the paint and a makers name stamped
into the bracket.
In another one I did recently, the sky in the image was undifferentiated
almost pure white, but the light on the landscape was not that of a
flat, overcast sky, too much contrast, colors too bright. So the sky one
would expect to see, if actually there,s would be blue, and if there
were clouds, they would be few and/or thin enough to let natural
sunlight through. Otherwise the landscape elements would have a
different color balance. Look, and there are some interesting cloud
details and blue sky.
The second thing that attracts my eye and itchy fingers is simply
experience. "I've found hidden detail in images like this, maybe it's
here too."
ALWAYS work in 16 bit! Sometimes, it wouldn't matter, but when it does,
you waste time backtracking - or things get weird and you give up,
thinking it can't be done..
Moose
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