Very dumb noob question regarding photo editing/ehnancing

[ShepsMom]

Originally Posted by jm31828

I just recently started using Gimp, and it seems really powerful so I'm slowly learning what I can do in there. Curves and Hue/Saturation settings are something just this week I started playing with- and found some decent results, but affecting the entire picture. What I hope to do, for example in a mountain shot with farmland in the foreground, is to enhance the green of the grass and trees without adding a green tinge to the entire picture. I have been playing with it, and my understanding is that I just need to use the selection tool to select the colors or areas that I want to modify, and then let loose with the adjustments to curves, hue, contrast, etc. I'm assuming that's how everyone else does it?

Using curves/levels and other stuff is a good start. What you really need to learn is layers and masking. It's the essential part of an editing software. I'm not that familiar with GIMP but i'm assuming it offers layers and masks. It is the easiest way to adjust anything in your images. There is a little learning curve, but once you get it, it's a breeze! Using selection tool is PITA and time consuming. Start learning more powerful tools available, it's a time saver as well.
Good luck!!

[mathjak107]

they key i found to being able to fiddle without gaining noise is to get as much exposure as you can getting the histogram as far right as i can without blowing out anything crucial ....

if you dont the pictures will become noisy if you fiddle much beyond a certain point.

with the capture nx2 software no layers or masks are needed. it uses a wonderful system invented by niksoftware of color points which are adjustable circles you place on the picture and only that area is effected. they offer it for photoshop as viveza but its quite expensive compared to just buying nikon capture nx2. i highly recommend the nik color effex 3.0 filter set too. it integrates right into the nikon software as a drop down menu.

the last photo uses the nik indian summer filter which converts greens to brown... then the nik tonal contrast filter is added locally in spots and i use a brush to apply it. i then used the color points to brighten and highlight the rocks..... the nik pro-contrast filter is used after to remove any color casts i dont like....

its just alot of fun and you can do anything your creative little mind comes up with. we will usually pull a dozen or so photos from the days shooting and process them and see what we can come up with. anymore then that and it takes to much time and becomes un-fun.....
the pictures as we shoot in camera are very flat, very low saturation as we prefer to add that back in later on to taste.

[raven302]

GIMP is a great program, I use it all the time. I use this script ALOT in my images. I will generall run it and then modify the 4 layers it produces to fit my taste. I highly recommend it. The first few times you might get some strange results until you get the feel on what each layer does and adjsuting the opacities.

National Geographic Script | GIMP Plugin Registry

[jm31828]

I started playing with GIMP's fuzzy selection tool, selecting certain areas of a picture to adjust using curves as well as enhancing saturation and contrast. So far it looks amateur, but at least I'm seeing results. I have read about layers, which you can do in GIMP- but have not grasped the concept yet, so I'll keep reading on that and will try to play with it some more.

And thanks for the link for the plug-in for GIMP! I will try adding that and playing with it to see what results I get.

[jm31828]

Here is a picture I took this past weekend- the first being an essentially unedited version (though I did the quick auto color ehnahce option on it) and the 2nd being the same shot, but with certain areas selected for enhancement. I think I went overboard a bit, but what do you think- any tips on what I could have done better?

[Infamous92]

I'm below noob status, I always like taking pictures of stuff but I kinda got into photography today-ish.

This is an old pic I took back in 2007 at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, it was very stifling hot that day (over 120 heat index), anyways today I wondered how to make colors "pop" and I did a photoshop tutorial and got this:

Original (resized):


Photoshop (resized):


This was taken with a 5 megapixel Kodak camera which was pretty standard in 2007.

Does it look over done? Anything I can improve? Also how do you enhance/change different/seperate colors?

[mathjak107]

Originally Posted by jm31828

Here is a picture I took this past weekend- the first being an essentially unedited version (though I did the quick auto color ehnahce option on it) and the 2nd being the same shot, but with certain areas selected for enhancement. I think I went overboard a bit, but what do you think- any tips on what I could have done better?

Attachment 62794

Attachment 62795

i would have just darkened the green grass and maybe cropped in closer and cut out some of the grass