stego (22500) 2007-01-27 23:34:29

I wanted to see how it looked with a bit more brightness on the darker part.

I did that by using a duplicated layer, clone of the original image which I mixed with the original image. Doing that in Gimp is not that complicated once you start practicing (text from the Gimp Help):
1- duplicate the layer;
2- desaturate it to B&W;
3- apply gaussian blur to the result with a large radius (the help mentions 100 or more, but I prefer to use a little bit more, sometimes only 25 or 30);
4- set the mode of the layer to 'divide' (if your intention was darken over exposed areas you should use 'multiply instead);
5- control the amount of correction by adjusting the opacity of the layer and/or the brightness and contrast of it with any of the tools that do that;
6- when you are happy with the result, you merge down both layers.

Most of the times a simpler method is almost as efective, although contrast can drop: manipulating the histogram curve: pulling up the left part brightens the darker areas and pushing down the right part darkens the lighter areas.

azuri (1598) 2006-09-30 17:42:42

I did it b&w and maked noise a bit.

jdwyer264 (1082) 2006-09-14 11:46:54

Firstly I sharpened the walls and altered the contrast to give the green in the picture more depth. Hope you like it.

greg (2835) 2006-09-12 08:27:38

Desaturated in 16-bit, and then some generous burning...

azuri (1598) 2006-02-20 16:41:30

Please, leave your comments, which version is better:)

greg (2835) 2006-02-18 10:12:37

Hi Natalia,

Actually, I liked the trees black as you had them; it was more that the mid-ground seemed to be made up of only 3 or 4 tones. I've never tried your technique before - I'm guessing that you're converting to b/w, then to duotone and then to RGB. I tried just b/w then toning, but I couldn't match yours that way. In the end, I think the original is very flat in the mid-area - maybe there's not much that can be done differently.

Anyway, here's what I did:
- convert to 16-bit (always good for b/w processing, especially if you have this limited brightness range problem)
- convert to b/w with channel mixer (80% red, 20% green). The red channel looked the best, but I thought mixing it with a little green could help to differentiate a few more levels.
- increase contrast with curves (very slight s-shape)
- crop, clone out extra bush...
- then go for duotone - unfortunately, PS-CS2 doesn't allow this to be done in 16-bit, so had to go back to 8. I used the first in the list - pantone yellow c - looks very much like yours! I put a double-kink in the yellow curve (from left-right: up then down then up again - sorry, forgot the numbers)
- convert RGB, sharpen, frame.

The result is marginally more detailed, I think - not as much as I hoped. Anyway, I hope you like it. At least, I learned something!

azuri (1598) 2006-02-18 06:10:25

to greg: i agree, that the trees are too dark, so I post this picture for more workshops.

azuri (1598) 2006-02-11 16:22:53

There is a picture before convertation to b&w and toning. I think the sepia is suit for this old city very well.

PixelTerror (87195) 2006-02-01 16:00:50

- curves tuning to add a bit of contrast
- noiseware filter to get rid of noise

Hope you like it :-)

chicken (1781) 2006-01-31 15:56:01

I used curves in Photoshop to make the white walls more neutral. I did this by selecting a "grey" point with the color picker and then corrected the blue and red value of it to be the same as the green. You could give or take more red or blue or a foto filter if you think it's too neutral now.
To finish it up I brightened the image using levels (set white point to 227) and added a touch of saturation. Finally I sharpened it a bit, exculding the sky.
I hope you like it.