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A fun picture, but.....
May 15, 2021 22:39:46   #
srt101fan
 
A scan of a black & white film negative taken many years ago. A flawed image for sure. You might say, it’s a crappy, busy, insufficiently sharp picture not worth messing with. But for me it's a "fun" picture that I would like to edit to bring out the best and suppress the defects as much as possible. What I’m posting is a cropped TIFF scan of the negative, processed in Affinity. I’m not very competent at scanning and even less so at post-processing. The scanned/processed image is not up to the quality of a print I made in the darkroom way back when. I’d like to get better.

I’m posting this image, along with the full frame scan, hoping for discussion on a number of points. The picture is busy, with multiple "subjects”. Is it possible, with editing tools, to accentuate/de-emphasize some visual elements to highlight a prime subject? How would you crop the original? Also, we have talked on this forum about photos telling stories; would you consider this a story-telling picture? What post-processing magic would enhance the story? I am also interested in categorization of photographic subjects. How would you categorize this picture in terms of its genre - people, sports, human interest, other?

Appreciate any comments you might have….

Cropped and edited image
Cropped and edited image...
(Download)

Original full frame scan
Original full frame scan...
(Download)

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May 15, 2021 22:45:13   #
twowindsbear
 
Are you one of the racers? Or the parent of one?

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May 15, 2021 23:03:04   #
srt101fan
 
twowindsbear wrote:
Are you one of the racers? Or the parent of one?


Neither....

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May 16, 2021 01:50:40   #
couch coyote Loc: northern Illinois
 
It's a very nice storytelling shot, I like it a lot! The leaping flag waver gives personality and humor. I like your cropping choice, especially the elimination of the power pole and stop sign, which would have been distracting. I'm sure others will have suggestions for improvement, but it has personality and a slice of Americana that make it worth keeping. Good catch!

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May 16, 2021 06:43:55   #
srt101fan
 
couch coyote wrote:
It's a very nice storytelling shot, I like it a lot! The leaping flag waver gives personality and humor. I like your cropping choice, especially the elimination of the power pole and stop sign, which would have been distracting. I'm sure others will have suggestions for improvement, but it has personality and a slice of Americana that make it worth keeping. Good catch!


Thank you, couch coyote. I like your "slice of Americana" comment. You got me thinking now, do they even hold soap box derbys anymore? I'll have to google....

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May 16, 2021 07:54:22   #
R.G. Loc: Scotland
 
srt101fan wrote:
.....The picture is busy, with multiple "subjects”. Is it possible, with editing tools, to accentuate/de-emphasize some visual elements to highlight a prime subject?.... What post-processing magic would enhance the story? I am also interested in categorization of photographic subjects. How would you categorize this picture in terms of its genre - people, sports, human interest, other?.….


I hope you aren't saying "busy" in a negative way. Stripping a photo of too much context to make it less busy is a common mistake. The picture does tell a story and that aspect of it would be weakened if you took away too much. I don't know if "human activity" is a recognised category but that's how I would describe it.

As far as emphasis/de-emphasis is concerned there are some recognised techniques. To increase the attention-grabbing properties of a subject (or area) the main tools are brightness, contrast, sharpness and in the case of colour shots, saturation and tint. The effect of all of these can be summed up as adding or reducing vividness - to increase vividness you can brighten, increase contrast and add sharpness (and saturation). To de-emphasise a subject or area you can use negative adjustments (moving the sliders to the left).

When it comes to reducing brightness I always lead with a slight reduction in the highlights since they are the most eye-catching aspects. Once they are suitably subdued it should require only a moderate reduction in overall brightness.

Reducing contrast reduces vividness but you don't want to overdo it because that can result in flatness. You just want to take the edge off of a subject's vividness, not kill it completely. The same goes for de-sharpening and desaturation. Where sharpness is concerned, sometimes it's enough just to avoid adding it to any areas that you don't want to be eye-catching. But if you're using global adjustments (including sharpening) and you want to soften some subjects or areas you can add extra denoise to them, which will have the desired softening effect.

These adjustments obviously depend on making selections. Where emphasis/de-emphasis is concerned the selections usually don't have to be precise because if an area (as opposed to just a specific subject) is made more eye-catching, it will achieve the objective of drawing the eye to any subjects in that area. The same point also applies to de-emphasis. A well feathered brush is very often all that's needed to make that kind of selection, but if that isn't suitable for any reason it's not a big deal to make more specific selections. These are basic editing skills and if you can't tell when precision is needed (or not needed) you should work on acquiring that skill.

Where emphasising and de-emphasising are concerned it usually takes only subtle adjustments for the most part. A common example of that is vignetting, which can achieve the objective of focusing the viewer's attention even when it's so subtle it doesn't register on the conscious mind. If any of the above adjustments are so pronounced that the adjustments themselves grab your attention it probably means that you're overdoing it - and that applies to de-emphasis as well as emphasis. Overcooking isn't the only mistake to be made. Excess flatness, softness or weakness of colour can end up looking like a fault or a poorly corrected mistake (I'm assuming that's not a look that you'd want ).

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May 16, 2021 09:15:12   #
srt101fan
 
R.G. wrote:
I hope you aren't saying "busy" in a negative way. Stripping a photo of too much context to make it less busy is a common mistake. The picture does tell a story and that aspect of it would be weakened if you took away too much. I don't know if "human activity" is a recognised category but that's how I would describe it.

As far as emphasis/de-emphasis is concerned there are some recognised techniques. To increase the attention-grabbing properties of a subject (or area) the main tools are brightness, contrast, sharpness and in the case of colour shots, saturation and tint. The effect of all of these can be summed up as adding or reducing vividness - to increase vividness you can brighten, increase contrast and add sharpness (and saturation). To de-emphasise a subject or area you can use negative adjustments (moving the sliders to the left).

When it comes to reducing brightness I always lead with a slight reduction in the highlights since they are the most eye-catching aspects. Once they are suitably subdued it should require only a moderate reduction in overall brightness.

Reducing contrast reduces vividness but you don't want to overdo it because that can result in flatness. You just want to take the edge off of a subject's vividness, not kill it completely. The same goes for de-sharpening and desaturation. Where sharpness is concerned, sometimes it's enough just to avoid adding it to any areas that you don't want to be eye-catching. But if you're using global adjustments (including sharpening) and you want to soften some subjects or areas you can add extra denoise to them, which will have the desired softening effect.

These adjustments obviously depend on making selections. Where emphasis/de-emphasis is concerned the selections usually don't have to be precise because if an area (as opposed to just a specific subject) is made more eye-catching, it will achieve the objective of drawing the eye to any subjects in that area. The same point also applies to de-emphasis. A well feathered brush is very often all that's needed to make that kind of selection, but if that isn't suitable for any reason it's not a big deal to make more specific selections. These are basic editing skills and if you can't tell when precision is needed (or not needed) you should work on acquiring that skill.

Where emphasising and de-emphasising are concerned it usually takes only subtle adjustments for the most part. A common example of that is vignetting, which can achieve the objective of focusing the viewer's attention even when it's so subtle it doesn't register on the conscious mind. If any of the above adjustments are so pronounced that the adjustments themselves grab your attention it probably means that you're overdoing it - and that applies to de-emphasis as well as emphasis. Overcooking isn't the only mistake to be made. Excess flatness, softness or weakness of colour can end up looking like a fault or a poorly corrected mistake (I'm assuming that's not a look that you'd want ).
I hope you aren't saying "busy" in a neg... (show quote)


Thank you very much, R.G. A great tutorial to guide my practical learning and file away for reference. I find selections intimidating; you're right, I need to work at acquiring that skill...

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