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
).