DCL picture of the day Part 2

[Disneygrl36]

My favorite stage show!!!!!!!!!

 

[woj68]

 

[NowaSki]

Kevin,

I really love the pictures, but I just had to post this:

 

[Jessieknj]

For all you beer drinkers

 

[NowaSki]

Waiting for Pirate Night..

 

[quiltymom]

Kevin,

I really love the pictures, but I just had to post this:

I know - I saw this in today's paper. As an artist, I had a good groan/laugh when I read it.

 

[Sorcerer Mom]

ALICE

Great picture! Love the "Princess at Sea" sash...how did you get that?

 

[°O°Joe]

I don't know what the heck this is, but I thought it was kind of cool, so I took a picture of it.

 

[Disneynut4ever]

Kevin and Joe,

It my understanding from reading about tone mapping that you have to take the same picture two to three times at different exposures (+/- EV) in order to use the tone mapping? Is there a way to do it otherwise? I usually take about 500 pictures and I can't imagine having to take 1500 pictures instead, but I think I might if I have too. I love yall's pictures!!! Absolutely gorgeous.

Where are "Kevin and Joe's" "tone mapping" pictures posted - what page(s)? I would love to see what you are talking about.

 

[Hypermommy]

QUOTE]


And once again I have to clean the soda off of the computer monitor. When am I going to learn not to drink while I read the DIS?

 

[CastleCreations]

Waiting for Pirate Night..

What beautiful children!...my dd says..Mommy that's where we were....LOL

 

[°O°Joe]

Kevin and Joe,

It my understanding from reading about tone mapping that you have to take the same picture two to three times at different exposures (+/- EV) in order to use the tone mapping? Is there a way to do it otherwise? I usually take about 500 pictures and I can't imagine having to take 1500 pictures instead, but I think I might if I have too. I love yall's pictures!!! Absolutely gorgeous.

Sorry I missed this question. Technically, to get true high dynamic range you have to take multiple, preferably 3 or more, pictures (on a tripod) with different exposure compensations (i.e. -2, -1, 0, +1, +2) and merge them with an HDR program or if you know how to do it PhotoShop is capable from what I understand. However, a single RAW image will give you a similar effect by adjusting the exposure through your RAW image converter. Or, even adjusting the gamma of a jpeg and saving several jpeg's at different brightnesses will work okay. An example (although highly exadurated and not believable at all) is this one using a single jpeg and Dynamic-Photo HDR:

Original:

HDR (like):

A lot of people don't like the end result as it looks fake, but I think when done right (not like above) - it can save a picture, or make an othewise uninteresting picture interesting...

 

[Monte Cristo]

My over-exadurated HDR DCLPotD (Taken from the Tram at Castaway Cay):

Unbelievable. I LOVE this one. Fantastic.

 

[woj68]

I've received a lot of nice compliments from everyone about my DCL pics lately so I thought I'd post a little Photoshop tutorial that you can use to help spruce up an otherwise dull photo in just a few easy and painless steps.

OK. Here's a photo taken on CC with my DW's point and shoot (Canon SD300 for all you curious types).

As you can see nothing special, the shadows really dull the shot. But I see it's got some potential. I like the flowers and the sky but if we can just brighten it up the green a little bit I think we'd have a winner.

So let's open the image in PS. I always duplicate the background as another layer by right clicking "background" in the layers palette. I do this in case I don't like how something looks then I can just delete the layer instead of starting over from scratch.

Personally I use Photoshop CS2 but PS Elements works just the same. I know a lot of you guys have PS Elements so I'll walk you through that version. Note: my last version is Elements 3, 6 is the current edition so I'm not sure if the commands have changed so bear with me.

Anyway...let's start by lightening the shadows a bit. Go to:

Enhance
Adjust Lighting
Shadows/Highlights

Adjust the slider bars to your liking, then hit OK. This step alone usually makes a HUGE difference already in the picture. But don't stop there.

I always like to do some color enhancing as well. Go to:

Enhance
Adjust Color
Adjust Hue/Saturation

Adjust the Saturation slider to your liking again. I usually stick to around 20% or so. But that's just me. Go bananas if you want, it's your picture.

Hit OK.

That should get us to here:

Cool. That looks a whole lot better already but we're not done yet. I also like do do a little sharpening too. Go to:

Filter
Other
High Pass

Adjust the slider bar to around 2.0. The higher the pixel number the more greater the sharpening but then it starts to look over sharpened. So let's try to keep it around 2.0.

Hit OK

Now the image will appear gray. So you need to go the the pull down menu in the layers palette and set it to overlay. That will get your picture back and it should look nice and sharp.

Note: This is not a fix for out of focus pictures people! If you can't remember to push the shutter button down half-way (auto focus) before you take the picture, well shame on you!

Crop out the uninteresting parts, save the file as a JPEG and you're good to go!

LucisArt is a nice little plug-in that I like to use also. Here's my final version with the LucisArt filter applied.

Alrighty then! That's it. I hope this helped.

Any questions you guys can PM and I'll try to walk you through. K?

Have fun.

 

[Luv2Travel]

Kevin - you ROCK!!
Thank you for taking the time to post all of that.
Now can you tell me how to bookmark this one post so I can find it later?

ETA: never mind - I think I might have figured that one out for myself.

 

[carole88]

Your pictures are truly beautiful. Thank you for posting the tutorial.

 

[mickeyluv]

I love coming to this thread because I so look forward to Kevin's pictures. They are absolutley the most amazing pictures I think I have ever seen!!! Now are you for hire? Joking...I know we can't do that on these boards! But I do wish I could do some of my pictures like that . To Kevin... for posting all of your pictures for our enjoyment!

 

[Pooh_Girl]

I've received a lot of nice compliments from everyone about my DCL pics lately so I thought I'd post a little Photoshop tutorial that you can use to help spruce up an otherwise dull photo in just a few easy and painless steps.

OK. Here's a photo taken on CC with my DW's point and shoot (Canon SD300 for all you curious types).

As you can see nothing special, the shadows really dull the shot. But I see it's got some potential. I like the flowers and the sky but if we can just brighten it up the green a little bit I think we'd have a winner.

So let's open the image in PS. I always duplicate the background as another layer by right clicking "background" in the layers palette. I do this in case I don't like how something looks then I can just delete the layer instead of starting over from scratch.

Personally I use Photoshop CS2 but PS Elements works just the same. I know a lot of you guys have PS Elements so I'll walk you through that version. Note: my last version is Elements 3, 6 is the current edition so I'm not sure if the commands have changed so bear with me.

Anyway...let's start by lightening the shadows a bit. Go to:

Enhance
Adjust Lighting
Shadows/Highlights

Adjust the slider bars to your liking, then hit OK. This step alone usually makes a HUGE difference already in the picture. But don't stop there.

I always like to do some color enhancing as well. Go to:

Enhance
Adjust Color
Adjust Hue/Saturation

Adjust the Saturation slider to your liking again. I usually stick to around 20% or so. But that's just me. Go bananas if you want, it's your picture.

Hit OK.

That should get us to here:

Cool. That looks a whole lot better already but we're not done yet. I also like do do a little sharpening too. Go to:

Filter
Other
High Pass

Adjust the slider bar to around 2.0. The higher the pixel number the more greater the sharpening but then it starts to look over sharpened. So let's try to keep it around 2.0.

Hit OK

Now the image will appear gray. So you need to go the the pull down menu in the layers palette and set it to overlay. That will get your picture back and it should look nice and sharp.

Note: This is not a fix for out of focus pictures people! If you can't remember to push the shutter button down half-way (auto focus) before you take the picture, well shame on you!

Crop out the uninteresting parts, save the file as a JPEG and you're good to go!

LucisArt is a nice little plug-in that I like to use also. Here's my final version with the LucisArt filter applied.

Alrighty then! That's it. I hope this helped.

Any questions you guys can PM and I'll try to walk you through. K?

Have fun.

This is really great advice for PhotoShop. I'll be trying this one this weekend!!!!!! Thanks so much for the tips to try to make us all better photographers!!!!!!

 

[DMMarla07860]

Disney Wonder September 2007
Last night in Wavebands

 

[tinkerone]

lets not forget ojoe. i think it is kevin and ojoe who keep me coming back! love all the rest of the photos to. great thread.