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These Macro Shots & Photoshop?

Superman

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Joined
29 Jan 2008
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Cheltenham
I know these have been posted on the Festival of Fishkeeping thread, but I am very pleased with some of the photos below using my macro lenses.

However, I would like suggestions of how to edit them in Photoshop as example for the CRS shrimp one just to leave the shrimp red and white and the rest being grey scale.
2932355934_9da4b013cf.jpg

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2932468096_a644c77e75.jpg
 
clark, love these photos. great composition too.

i think all they need is a slight adjusment with the curves tool. to adjust contrast a little. a slight re-crop might help to get rid od distracting parts of the image e.g the white bit in the shrimp photo. just play around with different crops. try to remember the rule of thirds when cropping.

this is just a slight curves adjustment and a crop to get rid of the dark bit bottom left corner. 30 second job.shame about the blue in the background. theres loads of potential in these shots though ;)

you could crop even more to get that bubble more in the rule of thirds sweet spot. just play around.


8493e0bf.jpg
 
not something im into but....

a109c31e.jpg


create 2 layers of the same image, desaturate the top image and then use the eraser tool on the bits you want colour. not sure if its right, but it works.
 
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mainly all you need to change is contrast. its personal taste realy. i like quite contrasty images. but just experiment.
 
Superman said:
However, I would like suggestions of how to edit them in Photoshop as example for the CRS shrimp one just to leave the shrimp red and white and the rest being grey scale.
2932355934_9da4b013cf.jpg
Depends a bit on what version of Photoshop you're using.
saintly said:
create 2 layers of the same image, desaturate the top image and then use the eraser tool on the bits you want colour. not sure if its right, but it works.
saintly's suggestion is the easy way, but your control over light, contrast, shadows and higlight is limited when using Desaturate in PS.
A fairly easy and fun way is to have two layers of the original image, as saintly suggested.

Make the top layer "invisible" by clikcing the small eye icon next to it in the Layers window.

Between the two layers you add a "Channel mixer" adjustment layer. Give it a name and click OK.

Tick the Monochrome box in the lower left corner. Play around with the sliders until you get an image you like, but the sum of all three channels should be 100, to preserve the original luminosity. You can get a really cool shadow or contrast effect if you move one of the sliders into the negative numbers. Your image might turn black at first, but just move one of the other sliders more to the right.

If you are using PS CS3 it's even easier. Instead of adding an adjustment layer, you go into "Image > Adjustments > Black & White" and play around with the sliders until you're satisfied.

Make the top layer visible again and click the "Add layer mask" button (or "Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All"). Note you now have what appears squares on the same layer in the Layers window.

Click the right one (the layer mask) and select the Brush Tool (B). The colour palette changes to black and white. The areas of the layer mask you paint black will become transparent, revealing the underlying B&W layer.

Paint around the shrimp. Don't worry if you paint over the shrimp, just swap to the white colour and paint over the areas "deleted" and they will return. If you select a brush with blurry edges you will get a soft transition between the areas that are visible and the ones that aren't.

When you're done "cutting" out the shrimp, you can try applying a couple of filters. In the example below I just gave the saturation a bit of oomph
ColourPopShrimp.jpg

The rock could really use some tweaking to bring out more structure, but I'm at work and couldn't spend more than five minutes doing this :)
Have fun!
 
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