King & Queen Buildings

I attempted everything I could possibly think of for cleaning up this

shot, and I cannot seem to get it right. I think it could be a cool

shot, but I cannot get it clear. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

I know I keep having the same problems with shots, so I am beginning

to wonder if I should continue pursuing photography. You guys have to

be tired of the same problems. Sorry.

Lisa: Other than being a bit cyan/blue It's not too bad. What is it that's bothering you about the image?

Fred, I cannot seem to get the cyan/blue adjusted correctly in this shot, and I think it really takes away from the top, white architectural structures of the King & Queen buildings. The sky was very clear the day I took this shot, and the cloud in the actual print is extremely bright like it appeared looking at it. Also, I don't know why I have vertical streaks in the post. The print doesn't. I also was hoping that I could get the picture a little more sharp. I know this is the first shot I have taken of this type, but I don't know what I should try to work on with these type shots. I don't know...maybe I am trying too hard, although I just happened to be in a place where it was convenient to take some shots of the buildings without any pressure. I have been trying for months to find a good place to go and shoot this since it is along the interstate. So, I am at a loss for what I should do.

Hi Lisa,

 

to reduce the cyan in the image you can increase the green value about + 18 % of the red-channel using the channel-mixer. Now if you want to "pop-up" the colors you can do the following:

- duplicate the layer

- press "ctrl-U" and

. increase the hue a bit (e.g. +5)

. increase the saturation slightly (+20)

. increase the lightness too (+10)

. => press OK

- now use "filter/noise/median" (r=2 pixels)

- gaussian blur (r=2 pixels)

- change the "blending mode" from normal to color

 

Now, you can reduce both layers to one and you're done. :-)

 

Hope this helps!

 

P.S.: How did you scan the image (resolution)? I'm wondering about the tiny vertical red stripes. To me, it looks like oversaturation noise from the scanner's CCD/CMOS sensor.

Angel: Thanks for the step-by-step instructions. I will have to see if I can get them to work for me.

 

As for the scanning of this picture, I did not scan this shot. I took it straight from the Kodak CD. I guess that is why it bothers me so much. The vertical lines are not on the print, or any of the prints I have saved to my computer from the disc. I don't know what to say about that.

 

Again, thanks for your suggestions.

Lisa: This was on a CD? I can't figure out what the streaking is coming from. Photo.net would not cause that but it could worsen it.

 

As to the suggestion. Angel is referring to using Photoshop. I didn't think you had PS. Actually, I would just use "Curves" to correct it but there is some sort of problem as Angel describes with the vertical stripes. If you do have PS I could tell you the simplest way to correct color casts is to use "Curves" as this image has lots of supposedly neutral areas to refer to. Those would be the concrete and asphalt in the foreground which are almost always pretty much neutral in color. I took a reading in the darker asphalt and got Red =185, Green = 217, Blue = 220. If the the area of the image you're checking were a neutral gray then all the numbers would be the same. For example Red = 217, Green = 217, Blue = 217. The reading I got tells me that the image is quite a bit too cyan and a little too blue. There are some other problems here that hinder total correction so I haven't made a correction to a duplicate and displayed it. Also, working with these low resolution images from the internet is rather fruitless at best. If you want to email me a reasonable size version image (not more than 1-2mb in size) I will correct it and tell you what I did to it or if there is anything can be done. If you're on a dialup this may be too big to send so just let me know what you'd like to do.

Lisa,

THis is what happened to your picture. THe streaks are there because they are on the negative that the Kodak people scanned. If you were able to look close enough you could see them. WHen they process your film they run it through a bunch of chemicals. Also, the film moves through the macine on small rollers that carry it from one location to the next. What happened was that your film was still wet while on the rollers and the lines you see are the imprint of these rollers on the negative. Essentially what happened was that the part that the rollers touched were either exposed to chemicals longer or shorter than the rest off the negative. Sometimes this is so bad that i appears on the print, sometimes not. I have had this same problem at Walgreens photo labs as well as the local semi-pro lab here in town. To be honest, I've never had this problem at any Wal-mart i've ever been to. Those roller marks really bother me, especially since i mostly scan negatives now. Imagine ho horrible it would have been if you were using slide film and didn't have a print that hid the marks. It's unfortunate, but sometimes the people handling your film and photos don't care about the art as much as we do. If i were in your shoes, and Im not, I would go someplace that takes a bit more care in what they do. The other option is to develop the film yourself which might be fun and interesting.

 

Hope that helps,

Tony

It's roller contamination alright! I would change to someone else for your processing. Anthony has more experience with this than I do. I always went to the professional labs for anything important and I never saw this effect until now. You could go back and raise Cain with them but they'll just give you a new roll of film or deny there's anything wrong.

Fred: I have sent the original image to you so that you can help me figure out what I am doing wrong. Besides having my film developed by the wrong people, I don't know what else to do. I also sent it to Tony. I thought he might want to see what he could do with the shot. Again, thanks.

Lisa, you may be giving yourself a bit of a hard time here uneccessarily. This is nice shot! the color of the buildings is interesting, good form, shape, nice reflection going on in the smaller building in the center too. You can feel good about this one. It immediately got my attention. These are very interesting landmarks, go shoot more photos of these lovely sky scrapers to share with us.

Thanks Regina. I have been wanting to shoot these buildings for quite some time, but I never could think of a good place to shoot from. These buildings are right on the interstate, and I didn't really want to have to set up in the emergency lane to get shots. This shot was actually taken from the parking deck at my orthopaedic doctor's office building. I was leaving and I just happened to notice what a good view you actually could get from the parking deck. I would like to shoot this at night, as well, because the white structures on the tops of the building look awesome when they illuminate the night sky. I will be getting some more shots of these buildings, and hopefully some others. Again, thanks for your comment.

I cannot fault Angel's excellent suggestion for improving this shot. But you can also get rid of the color cast by touching the white part of the towers with the white eyedropper on the levels control. The result will not be quite as good as with Angel's technique, but it's a lot easier to figure out.

 

I agree with all who said that this is a really good image. It's worth the extra work to fix it up.

I will be looking forward to the nightime shot of this. Like the others have said, it is not a bad image at all. I like it and I think Michael has given you an easy fix for the color cast.