Let's help each other

I've spent a lot of time browsing the images on POE in the hope of geaning tips to help me improve my own images, and as you may have noticed I have asked for comments on my images which might help me to improve my work.  Expert opinion not necessary anything welcome! The two most common problems I experience and also notice many other contributers experience are crooked horizons and burnt out uninteresting skys. As far as leveling horizons is concerned I have discovered that this is easy to do in almost any imaging software from free downloads to the latest Photoshop. I now have version CS3 but still have a lot to learn. With regard to the "sky" problem any suggestions would be welcome. For anyone looking for an easy to use free piece of image editing software I found PICASA very easy use before I got my new stuff. Just type PICASA into your search engine to find the website and download the latest free version.

Happy snapping.

Hi Sally---you mentioned 2 problems above. The tilted horizon is easly corrected in 2 ways, but when opening an image in CS3, use  Ctrl + J to duplicate the image---plus I always check the Levels with Image > Adjustments>Levels.

But for your horizon, Edit>Transform>Rotate then using the handles on the sides, rotate the image until its straight---or also maybe add View>Show> Grid which will give you a horizonatal reference to work to.

Alternately, right click the Eye Dropper tool and select the Measure tool from the flyout options. Drag it along a horizontal part of your image, which of course, is slightly out. Then---Image>Rotate Canvas>Arbitrary> click OK on dialogue box that has come up. The image will now correct the horizon. In both cases, the image will need to be cropped, as its ended up at a slight angle.

Your second problem--the sky has washed out i.e. over exposed due to a number of reasons. perhaps the dynamic range is too wide for the camera, and Jason's suggestion of using a Grey Grad---and metering in Manual prior to fitting it--is lessening the dynamic range into something the camera can handle.

If shot in Raw, you can start to bring back the washed out sky. with the image opened in Raw, tap the letter O on keyboard. The washed out areas will now show up as red and using the Recovery slider ( perhaps with Exposure and Brightness too) can start to bring out the over-exposed sky to something as i actually was. Tapping U will show under-exposed areas as blue.

In Raw, you can convert the image twice, first converting it with the landscape as you want it, ignoring the sky. Save as a Jpeg, then go back and adjust the Raw image for the sky, ignoring the land which will become under exposed, and save as a Jpeg.

Opening  both jpegs on CS3, you want to combine the correctly exposed land with the correctly exposed sky images. Using the Move tool, drag the correctly exposed sky image into the other image. Now, with the Eraser tool, start to erase the under-exposed landscape to reveal the correctly exposed one underneath, and when you're done, you should now be looking at the best parts of both images together. Click the Create a New Layer icon on the Layers box on the right; flatten the image and the File> Save as...  give it a new name, and your done. Your properly exposed landscape is now combined with your properly exposed sky by doing this double conversion.

Sally---If you want to learn a bit more about CS3, I can recommend London photographer Martin Evening's book , 700 pages worth, Adobe Photoshop CS3 For Photographers, which includes a tutorial CD as well.

http://www.martinevening.com/

Thanks Paul, on the ball as usual. Since I have discovered Raw images and Lightroom and Photoshop I am awed by the possibilities they open up although nothing else gives the thrill of getting it right first time. Please, if you have any other suggestions to help us beginners why not post some suggestions.

Love the Avatar by the way. Beautiful smiling eyes; I'll bet the little girls loved you, but do tell were there any teeth behind those firmly compressed lips?

OK Sally---at your request as couple of things you're bound to come across---

1) your cropping an image but just want to trim a slight amount off. but, when the crop tool gets very close to the edge of the image, it jumps---almost like being magnetic, to the very edge, and stops you from trimming a bit off. To stop it jumping and keep it very close to he edge, hold dow the Ctrl key while doing so, and it'll stay where you put it rather than it's jmping to the edge.

2) You have an old faded photo you want to restore to something more like the original from years ago. After scanning it and bring it into PS, duplicate the image ---Ctrl + J---then on the Layers palette, there's a drop down that says Normal---for the Blend Mode its refering to. From the dropdown menu on it, select Multiply, and the image---with any luck---will start to regaining the lost contrast etc. and start to look more as it was originally.

I think I did have my teeth in those days of yore, thanks !