dadcowell Loc: Myrtle Beach SC

I made a critical error in selecting the venue for my beach pictures. The beach was very crowded, so I posed the wedding party under a pier. The good news is that I got some good shade on a very very bright day with the sun high. The bad news is that I don't think it captures the beach. Nothing I can do about that now, but I'd like to fix the other big problem and that is the blown out sand beach behind the wedding party in virtually all of the beach photos.

Any suggestions? I'm using PSE and Adobe Camera Raw.

Bill

Attached file:
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bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

I darkened the sand a bit and removed the blue barrels. Im not happy with how it turned out but at least I gave it a try.Im sure there are a LOT of people here than can help you

dadcowell Loc: Myrtle Beach SC

Thanks bdk,

Definitely looks better.

Did you change colors in order to darken the sand? Did you select it first?

Did you clone out the barrels?

Bill

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bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Did you happen to shoot in RAW format? If you did, darkening the sand would be the easy part. Open Camera Raw and drag down the highlights, you would recover all the detail.

BDK did a good job, and yes, it does look like the barrels were cloned out. If you want the sand whiter, you can easily do that with the highlight slider, just drag to where you are happy. You wouldn't even really need to select it. (unless it negatively effects the dress, which it could)

If you didn't shoot in raw (there are a number of ways to do this, but my down and dirty way would be:)
1. duplicate the layer twice.
Turn off original layer ...eyeball (to save that layer in case you booger anything up)

Top most layer, make an exposure adjustment, only to make the sand itself look like you want it. Doesn't matter what the people look like. Just concentrate on the sand. Even going a little darker than you think would be fine, because you can adjust it later using the opacity slider for the layer.

If you don't already have one, make a layer mask. Activate the mask, and go to edit/fill, and fill it with black. Your photo should now look exactly like the original.

With the layer mask still selected, paint with a white paint brush over the sand area. If you make a mistake, you can paint black over the bad parts to bring them back. With this method, I would not worry about being too perfect, close is good enough.

Once you get the sand darker, go up to the opacity slider, and slide it down a bit until the sand is the color, texture you want.

It literally should take less than a couple of minutes after you've done it a few times.

I prefer to shoot in raw, so I can just mess with the highlight slider, and maybe mask the dress off in lightroom. Of course, I spend a lot of time in Lightroom, processing raw images that I wouldn't have to spend if I shot in jpeg, so there are trade offs.

bk

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

I would be happy to take a shot at it, but can't use the RAW file you've up-loaded. If you'd like to upload a good JPG I'll have at it.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Yeah, one drawback of this site. The original raw needs to be emailed, or sent via dropbox if it is too large. UHH doesn't play nice with raw files.

By the way, I've always called it RAW, but got yelled at by several of the grammar Nazis we have prowling around in other sections. Now, I type it raw. I much prefer it as RAW. I'm SO CONFUSED

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

I don't much care what the "grammar Nazis" think. "raw" is for meat eaters . . . "RAW" is the acceptable name of a particular kind of digital file. Let them rant . . they have so little to occupy their minds these days.

dadcowell Loc: Myrtle Beach SC

I did shoot in raw or "RAW".

Attached is the jpeg file.

Bill

dadcowell Loc: Myrtle Beach SC

Them me try this again.

Thought I attached a file but could not see it.

Bill

(Download)

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

Here's my shot at it. Hope you can use it . . .

(Download)


(Download)

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Part of the reason I started this section, was because I was tired of being beat up by the grammar police, or the wedding photographer haters who would actually post things like "real photographers, not wedding photographers" and other things like that.

Most couldn't begin to know how to balance light in an outdoor wedding, or be able to get photos inside the church when the official says "absolutely no flash", yet, they felt superior.

Those of us that are more artistic don't get too wrapped up in grammar, yet there are those trolls in other sections that just wait to attack those of us who don't read a Thesaurus as a hobby.

I may just go back to typing RAW, after finally getting used to raw. Not sure why I let people bug me so much.

dadcowell Loc: Myrtle Beach SC

Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner weddingguy.

Anyway, thanks for the renditions. Very nice.

Where are those scenes?

It looks like you used a filter like Topaz Remask.

Thanks for the great work.

Bill

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

You are correct about Topaz Remask. The background made it difficult even for Remask.
The scenes are taken at Osoyoos Lake in British Columbia's Okanogan Valley in Canada.

They might look better against a background that is not so busy, but on anything but a beach I think the feet would all have to cropped away.

I can try something else for you since I have saved the cutouts and can easily now just add a different background . . . if you know what other background you would like to see. Let me know. Perhaps you have one taken at the wedding . . .

jaysnave Loc: Central Ohio

Nice job Wedding Guy. That is what I was thinking needs to be done, get them out of that pier setting. Suggestion though, Bill can you take a sunset picture of Myrtle Beach (no people)? I am sure the couple would like this picture, but the background is obviously not Myrtle Beach. Myrtle is the low country, no mountains.

jaysnave Loc: Central Ohio

This is Myrtle Beach just to give you an idea if you want to go this direction. The wedding party is covering up a really bad picture of me while on vacation there 2 years ago. I used WG's enhanced version.