my mirrors are looking better and better but....

[Devon Jones]

well i have the mirror that i am talking about at home so i cant post a pic till i get there but the trees, and mountains and people are looking 100 times better (without photograv) but im still not quite getting the water and sky to look like i would like it to. it comes out way to dark does anyone else have this problem? does anyone have anything that whey do to make it look a little better? there is one other thing i have been playing with photoshop and the contrast and brightness and tone and what not could anyone explain to me what i should do when preping a pic? thanks

[onur cakir]

You can try gold method, or me its much more better than photograv.

http://www.dogcollarlabor.com/smc/

Before gold method i usually adjust "natural density" on blak&white settings.

[Dan Hintz]

The key to great photos is the realization that entire images can't always be modified as a whole... it's often better to mask portions and adjust separately form the rest of the image. In your case (and without seeing the image), it may behoove you to mask out the water and sky from the rest of the image and modify the brightness/contrast.

[Devon Jones]

Dan ok so now the question.......... is there a way that you like to mask? i know that there are a few tools. but if its the sky and its bottom is outlined by trees how do YOU mask that?


Onur i started off using the gold method which helped but not the same quality in my opinion of photograv. now i am using the epilog driver and getting far better then both but like i mentioned its just not working good with the sky or water. i am running a copy of a wolf in the woods with no sky or water and no touching up at all with every print option on the epilog driver ill post that then move on to see how to mask or use the "natural density" as you sugested

thank you i hope to post it in the next few hours

[Martin Boekers]

Devon,


I'm not sure how familiar you are with photo shop. I see your running CS3
One of the great tools is if you go to image then take the drop down to adjustment then take the next drop down to Shadow/Highlight

This is a tool allows to much more selective control of the overall shadow and high light values. This was new on the CS series.

Many times this will get you where you need to be with out extensive masking.

Give it a shot.

Marty

[Martin Boekers]

Devon,

Almost forgot!

If you go under filters take the drop down to extract.

You'll have to play with it a bit, but it can help with dropping out backgrounds from complex images.

You will have to put it on another layer from your main image but this is another cool tool in the CS series.

By having it on its own layer you can modify it an/or your original layer.

Always make sure you are working with a duplicate image so you don't inadvertantly ruin your original file.

Marty

[Devon Jones]

i just saw that in a tut online and they said to check more options. im playing with it now but cant test it out till i finish running the 6 different epilog driver test. thank you i hope i can get a little closer with that photoshop adjustment