Help with underwater pic PLEASE!!! – 100_4425.jpg (0/1)

in article ,
wrote on 01/02/2005 7:34
AM:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo.

Nothing was attached.

Um! I would get a longer arm for your flash and re shoot them. try reading some book on underwater photography before your next dive. PhotoShop is not a good way of sorting bad technique.
MOP

wrote in message

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image. Looking for any actions/filters/techniques to clean these up. I already have a great underwater action that works PERFECT for salt water but doesn’t do it for this series. I know you all love a challenge so please give it a shot and let me know how you did it so I can do the other 150 shots PLEASE!!! Thanks in advance!!!

-Pat

wrote:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image. Looking for any actions/filters/techniques to clean these up. I already have a great underwater action that works PERFECT for salt water but doesn’t do it for this series. I know you all love a challenge so please give it a shot and let me know how you did it so I can do the other 150 shots PLEASE!!! Thanks in advance!!!

-Pat

Most usenet servers DON’T allow you to attach binary (images etc) to posts… :/

—

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

wrote:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image. Looking for any actions/filters/techniques to clean these up. I already have a great underwater action that works PERFECT for salt water but doesn’t do it for this series. I know you all love a challenge so please give it a shot and let me know how you did it so I can do the other 150 shots PLEASE!!! Thanks in advance!!!

Hi Pat,

Try putting the image up on a server such as snapfish.com or ofoto.com. Or email me a copy and I’ll give it a home for a few weeks. Then some of us can take a shot at improving it.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

wrote:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image. Looking for any
actions/filters/techniques to clean these up. I already have a great underwater action that
works PERFECT for salt water but doesn’t do it for this series. I know you all love a challenge so please give it a shot and let me know how you did it so I can do the other 150 shots PLEASE!!! Thanks in advance!!!

Pat’s images are temporarily available here:

http://geigy.2y.net/tmp/PatUnderwaterPix/index.html

Interesting images, and I have a couple of ideas how to clean them up in Lab mode. Those of you who like a good challenge will not be disappointed! —

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

wrote:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image.

———————————————————— ——- Pat’s images are temporarily available here:

http://geigy.2y.net/tmp/PatUnderwaterPix/index.html

Interesting images, and I have a couple of ideas how to clean them up in Lab mode. Those of you who like a good challenge will not be disappointed!

Mike Russell
———————————————————— ——

Sorry Mike we couldn’t get rid of the bubbles so we had to cheat

http://www.micromountain.com/example_files/ex_files_pages/un derwaterfake.htm

—
www.micromountain.com

"broga" wrote in message

wrote:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image.

———————————————————— ——- Pat’s images are temporarily available here:

http://geigy.2y.net/tmp/PatUnderwaterPix/index.html

Interesting images, and I have a couple of ideas how to clean them up in

Lab

mode. Those of you who like a good challenge will not be disappointed!
Mike Russell
———————————————————— ——
Sorry Mike we couldn’t get rid of the bubbles so we had to cheat

http://www.micromountain.com/example_files/ex_files_pages/un derwaterfake.htm

—
www.micromountain.com

Yikes! What a challenge. Here’s my attempt on the "easiest" one:

http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

Peadge 🙂

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!

How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to clean them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

-Pat

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 15:43:59 -0800, "Peadge"
wrote:

"broga" wrote in message

wrote:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image.

———————————————————— ——- Pat’s images are temporarily available here:

http://geigy.2y.net/tmp/PatUnderwaterPix/index.html

Interesting images, and I have a couple of ideas how to clean them up in

Lab

mode. Those of you who like a good challenge will not be disappointed!
Mike Russell
———————————————————— ——
Sorry Mike we couldn’t get rid of the bubbles so we had to cheat

http://www.micromountain.com/example_files/ex_files_pages/un derwaterfake.htm

—
www.micromountain.com

Yikes! What a challenge. Here’s my attempt on the "easiest" one:
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

Peadge 🙂

Thanks Pat! I used Photoshop 7.01.

First, I copied the image to a new layer (CTRL+J). This is something I always do just to have a copy of the original for comparison or in case I mess up too badly on the copy!

Then I made a heavily feathered (20 pixels and very rough) selection around the diver using the Lasso Tool. I then copied this into a new layer too (CTRL+J).

Then I went back to the previous layer and Selected Inverse (SHFT+CTRL+I) to select everything BUT the diver.

I went to Filter > Noise > Median and used my "up" arrow key to increase the move the radius up until it looked good–around 18 to 22 pixels. This alone made the greatest difference.

Then, with the same selection, I went to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and set it to about 1.8% Uniform.
Then I went to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and set it to 7 pixels – Zoom – Good. this gave a slight streaky look, sort of how light looks filtering though water anyway.

Then to give it a little bit of distortion, I went to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple and set both values to 3. Hardly noticeable but that’s OK.

Then I grabbed the Eraser Tool (soft edges, 54 pixels in size set to an opacity of about 50 or 60%) and began erasing over the coral/rocks on the left. Repeated passes would erase a little bit more without leaving visible "lines."

This looked pretty good. Now all I needed to do was "fix" the bubbles in front of the diver. I created a new layer and grabbed the Brush Tool. I double-clicked on the Foreground Color and used the resulting Eye Dropper to select a color from the front of the diver, a sort of dark purple. In the new layer, with my brush set to 4% opacity and 65% flow, I began painting over some of the bubbles to reduce their contrast. Just a little bit though. I didn’t want to make it look cartoony, just reduce the contrast between the debris and the diver’s suit.

The last step was to select the feathered diver layer and use the Burn Tool set to Shadows and 3% , using a 65 pixel soft brush to burn in some of the diver’s suit, hair and fins.

That was about it, I think. I linked the altered layers and placed them into a layer set and turned off the "eye" to compare my work to the original. It looked a lot better!

I think what may work better in the future in water like this, is to have the flash mounted on an extender of some sort to place it further away from the lens. I bet a lot of the "noise" was from stuff within the first foot from the camera.

Peadge 🙂

wrote in message

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!
How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to clean them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

-Pat

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 15:43:59 -0800, "Peadge"
wrote:

Yikes! What a challenge. Here’s my attempt on the "easiest" one:
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

Peadge 🙂

While you’re at it you should have thrown in a shark, ready to bite his head off. That would have given him a great fish story!

"Peadge" wrote in message

Thanks Pat! I used Photoshop 7.01.

First, I copied the image to a new layer (CTRL+J). This is something I always do just to have a copy of the original for comparison or in case I mess up too badly on the copy!

Then I made a heavily feathered (20 pixels and very rough) selection

around

the diver using the Lasso Tool. I then copied this into a new layer too (CTRL+J).

Then I went back to the previous layer and Selected Inverse (SHFT+CTRL+I)

to

select everything BUT the diver.

I went to Filter > Noise > Median and used my "up" arrow key to increase

the

move the radius up until it looked good–around 18 to 22 pixels. This

alone

made the greatest difference.

Then, with the same selection, I went to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and

set

it to about 1.8% Uniform.
Then I went to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and set it to 7 pixels – Zoom – Good. this gave a slight streaky look, sort of how light looks filtering though water anyway.

Then to give it a little bit of distortion, I went to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple and set both values to 3. Hardly noticeable but that’s OK.
Then I grabbed the Eraser Tool (soft edges, 54 pixels in size set to an opacity of about 50 or 60%) and began erasing over the coral/rocks on the left. Repeated passes would erase a little bit more without leaving

visible

"lines."

This looked pretty good. Now all I needed to do was "fix" the bubbles in front of the diver. I created a new layer and grabbed the Brush Tool. I double-clicked on the Foreground Color and used the resulting Eye Dropper

to

select a color from the front of the diver, a sort of dark purple. In the new layer, with my brush set to 4% opacity and 65% flow, I began painting over some of the bubbles to reduce their contrast. Just a little bit

though.

I didn’t want to make it look cartoony, just reduce the contrast between

the

debris and the diver’s suit.

The last step was to select the feathered diver layer and use the Burn

Tool

set to Shadows and 3% , using a 65 pixel soft brush to burn in some of the diver’s suit, hair and fins.

That was about it, I think. I linked the altered layers and placed them

into

a layer set and turned off the "eye" to compare my work to the original.

It

looked a lot better!

I think what may work better in the future in water like this, is to have the flash mounted on an extender of some sort to place it further away

from

the lens. I bet a lot of the "noise" was from stuff within the first foot from the camera.

Peadge 🙂

wrote in message

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!
How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to clean them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

-Pat

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 15:43:59 -0800, "Peadge"
wrote:

Yikes! What a challenge. Here’s my attempt on the "easiest" one:
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

Peadge 🙂

Hey pleadge, are those fresh water goldfish in the background?

"Peadge" wrote in message

Thanks Pat! I used Photoshop 7.01.

First, I copied the image to a new layer (CTRL+J). This is something I always do just to have a copy of the original for comparison or in case I mess up too badly on the copy!

Then I made a heavily feathered (20 pixels and very rough) selection

around

the diver using the Lasso Tool. I then copied this into a new layer too (CTRL+J).

Then I went back to the previous layer and Selected Inverse (SHFT+CTRL+I)

to

select everything BUT the diver.

I went to Filter > Noise > Median and used my "up" arrow key to increase

the

move the radius up until it looked good–around 18 to 22 pixels. This

alone

made the greatest difference.

Then, with the same selection, I went to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and

set

it to about 1.8% Uniform.
Then I went to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and set it to 7 pixels – Zoom – Good. this gave a slight streaky look, sort of how light looks filtering though water anyway.

Then to give it a little bit of distortion, I went to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple and set both values to 3. Hardly noticeable but that’s OK.
Then I grabbed the Eraser Tool (soft edges, 54 pixels in size set to an opacity of about 50 or 60%) and began erasing over the coral/rocks on the left. Repeated passes would erase a little bit more without leaving

visible

"lines."

This looked pretty good. Now all I needed to do was "fix" the bubbles in front of the diver. I created a new layer and grabbed the Brush Tool. I double-clicked on the Foreground Color and used the resulting Eye Dropper

to

select a color from the front of the diver, a sort of dark purple. In the new layer, with my brush set to 4% opacity and 65% flow, I began painting over some of the bubbles to reduce their contrast. Just a little bit

though.

I didn’t want to make it look cartoony, just reduce the contrast between

the

debris and the diver’s suit.

The last step was to select the feathered diver layer and use the Burn

Tool

set to Shadows and 3% , using a 65 pixel soft brush to burn in some of the diver’s suit, hair and fins.

That was about it, I think. I linked the altered layers and placed them

into

a layer set and turned off the "eye" to compare my work to the original.

It

looked a lot better!

I think what may work better in the future in water like this, is to have the flash mounted on an extender of some sort to place it further away

from

the lens. I bet a lot of the "noise" was from stuff within the first foot from the camera.

Peadge 🙂

wrote in message

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!
How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to clean them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

-Pat

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 15:43:59 -0800, "Peadge"
wrote:

Yikes! What a challenge. Here’s my attempt on the "easiest" one:
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

Peadge 🙂

"Scruff" wrote in message

While you’re at it you should have thrown in a shark, ready to bite his

head

off. That would have given him a great fish story!

Dids you follow the link to the one with the shark?

Peadge 🙂

"Scruff" wrote in message

Hey pleadge, are those fresh water goldfish in the background?

No. They’re those little Pepperidge Farm Goldfish that go great in tomato soup.

Nice and cheesy!

Peadge 😀

"Scruff" wrote in message

Hey pleadge, are those fresh water goldfish in the background?

I think you’ve mixed up your links and are accusing Peadge unjustly. He did what was asked and obviously put a lot of time, expertise and effort into improving the original.
This is the link to his improved version
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

We just gave up and went down the pub. Which is why there’s goldfish in the background.of our link
http://www.micromountain.com/example_files/ex_files_pages/un derwaterfake.htm

To be fair we did clearly label it as a fake.

And yes we did think of a shark but we’ve only got goldfish in our fish tank —
www.micromountain.com

Ahhh! Now Scruff’s comments make sense!

Peadge 🙂

"broga" wrote in message

"Scruff" wrote in message

Hey pleadge, are those fresh water goldfish in the background?

I think you’ve mixed up your links and are accusing Peadge unjustly. He did what was asked and obviously put a lot of time, expertise and

effort

into improving the original.
This is the link to his improved version
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

Hey, I was just joking. I think they look great!

"broga" wrote in message

"Scruff" wrote in message

Hey pleadge, are those fresh water goldfish in the background?

I think you’ve mixed up your links and are accusing Peadge unjustly. He did what was asked and obviously put a lot of time, expertise and

effort

into improving the original.
This is the link to his improved version
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

We just gave up and went down the pub. Which is why there’s goldfish in

the

background.of our link

http://www.micromountain.com/example_files/ex_files_pages/un derwaterfake.htm

To be fair we did clearly label it as a fake.

And yes we did think of a shark but we’ve only got goldfish in our fish

tank

—
www.micromountain.com

Broga,
Pleadge is doing a great job on this stuff. You may consider this though; the reflection of the sediment and other things from the flash really does add depth to the picture, as well as capturing the realism of being underwater.

"broga" wrote in message

"Scruff" wrote in message

Hey pleadge, are those fresh water goldfish in the background?

I think you’ve mixed up your links and are accusing Peadge unjustly. He did what was asked and obviously put a lot of time, expertise and

effort

into improving the original.
This is the link to his improved version
http://tinyurl.com/4m9as

We just gave up and went down the pub. Which is why there’s goldfish in

the

background.of our link

http://www.micromountain.com/example_files/ex_files_pages/un derwaterfake.htm

To be fair we did clearly label it as a fake.

And yes we did think of a shark but we’ve only got goldfish in our fish

tank

—
www.micromountain.com

wrote:

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!
How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to

clean

them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

Try this. A little less work than Peadge’s solution, and might be good enough for your intentions, especially with 140 pics to do.

http://www.areddy.net/misc/dive1.jpg

and the PSD

http://www.areddy.net/misc/dive1.psd

Very simple to do: I drew a lasso around the diver freehand, staying a bit away from the edge (or what looked to be the edge). Then I did a "feather" on the selection. I think it was about 20-25 pixels. Then I created a layer mask based on this selection, allowing the background to show through. Then I blurred this layer with Gaussian blur. I then threw in a levels adjustment layer to tweak it a bit.

Probably not the best result you could get, but IMO the most distracting portions of the image are reduced greatly, and may work fine for your volume.

Scruff wrote:

Broga,
Pleadge is doing a great job on this stuff. You may consider this

though;

the reflection of the sediment and other things from the flash really

does

add depth to the picture, as well as capturing the realism of being underwater.

I think he’s right however on the fact that if the flash wasn’t on the camera you wouldn’t be lighting up the close stuff.

I think ideally you’d have an external lighting source instead of a flash anyway.

That’s very good, also. Between you and pleadge, he has some good stuff!

wrote in message

wrote:

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!
How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to

clean

them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

Try this. A little less work than Peadge’s solution, and might be good enough for your intentions, especially with 140 pics to do.
http://www.areddy.net/misc/dive1.jpg

and the PSD

http://www.areddy.net/misc/dive1.psd

Very simple to do: I drew a lasso around the diver freehand, staying a bit away from the edge (or what looked to be the edge). Then I did a "feather" on the selection. I think it was about 20-25 pixels. Then I created a layer mask based on this selection, allowing the background to show through. Then I blurred this layer with Gaussian blur. I then threw in a levels adjustment layer to tweak it a bit.

Probably not the best result you could get, but IMO the most distracting portions of the image are reduced greatly, and may work fine for your volume.

wrote in message

wrote:

These are my messed up dive photos. You did GREAT work!!!!!!
How did you do this? What techniques/products? I would love to

clean

them all up like this one. I have over 140!

Thanks ina dvance for any help you can give me.

Try this. A little less work than Peadge’s solution, and might be good enough for your intentions, especially with 140 pics to do.
http://www.areddy.net/misc/dive1.jpg

and the PSD

http://www.areddy.net/misc/dive1.psd

Very simple to do: I drew a lasso around the diver freehand, staying a bit away from the edge (or what looked to be the edge). Then I did a "feather" on the selection. I think it was about 20-25 pixels. Then I created a layer mask based on this selection, allowing the background to show through. Then I blurred this layer with Gaussian blur. I then threw in a levels adjustment layer to tweak it a bit.

Probably not the best result you could get, but IMO the most distracting portions of the image are reduced greatly, and may work fine for your volume.

This is almost the same result I got in my first couple of steps—except I used the Median Filter while you used Gaussian Blur. Everything I did beyond that was probably past the point of diminishing returns. However, letting the coral show through could still add bit more depth to the "fix."

Nice job, Larry! Some of the other pictures look much more formidable though.

Peadge 🙂

This is almost the same result I got in my first couple of

steps—except I

used the Median Filter while you used Gaussian Blur. Everything I did

beyond

that was probably past the point of diminishing returns. However,

letting

the coral show through could still add bit more depth to the "fix."
Nice job, Larry! Some of the other pictures look much more

formidable

though.

Yeah, I took the easy one 😉

"1000%" <1000%@HotPOPS.Com> wrote in message news:BDFD5D5D.14E16F%1000%@HotPOPS.Com…

in article ,
wrote on 01/02/2005
7:34
AM:

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo.

Nothing was attached.

wrote in message

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image. Looking for any actions/filters/techniques to clean these up. I already have a great underwater action that works PERFECT for salt water but doesn’t do it for this series. I know you all love a challenge so please give it a shot and let me know how you did it so I can do the other 150 shots PLEASE!!! Thanks in advance!!!

-Pat

Hi Pat,

I’m an avid amateur underwater photographer and I found the best way was using the clone tool. I pick the
largest "clear" area available then clone it to enlarge the area getting rid of the most spots I can get. I repeat
this in each color scheme until the pictures looks good. If you go to my underwater pictures gallery, I’ve
put an example on the bottom row:
http://www.randallgamby.com/creature-index2.html

First is the corrected picture of a loggerhead turtle, the second is the original (including the dive master that
insisted on hanging on to him). Hopefully you’ll think the corrected one came out much better.

Also, just as other’s have suggested, a strobe arm on your camera with an external strobe will eliminate
this problem in the future (take it from me, it was worth the cost compared to the after-shot manipulation time).

Thanks,
Randy

It looks fine but I still think the original captures the underwater feeling.
Sometimes it’s better to leave a subpar pic alone, than to make it look less real than it should.

"scubaran" wrote in message

wrote in message

Please give a shot to correcting this attached photo. It was taken New Year’s Day at Devil’s Den, FL at 30ft of the fresh water spring. Most of the digital pics I took underwater I took have a bad flash relection off the particulite in the water that made bad "bubbles" which distorted the image. Looking for any actions/filters/techniques to clean these up. I already have a great underwater action that works PERFECT for salt water but doesn’t do it for this series. I know you all love a challenge so please give it a shot and let me know how you did it so I can do the other 150 shots PLEASE!!! Thanks in advance!!!

-Pat

Hi Pat,

I’m an avid amateur underwater photographer and I found the best way was using the clone tool. I pick the
largest "clear" area available then clone it to enlarge the area getting

rid

of the most spots I can get. I repeat
this in each color scheme until the pictures looks good. If you go to my underwater pictures gallery, I’ve
put an example on the bottom row:
http://www.randallgamby.com/creature-index2.html

First is the corrected picture of a loggerhead turtle, the second is the original (including the dive master that
insisted on hanging on to him). Hopefully you’ll think the corrected one came out much better.

Also, just as other’s have suggested, a strobe arm on your camera with an external strobe will eliminate
this problem in the future (take it from me, it was worth the cost

compared

to the after-shot manipulation time).

Thanks,
Randy