Working with digital images

[KCIWebMaster]

I took this picture this weekend because I liked the view of the lone umbrella and chair against the ocean backdrop. I'm already planning to crop out the people on either side. I'm not very experienced with enhancing color but I thought the ocean or sky could use a little work. I have PSP 9 but haven't done much with it yet. Any tips?
http://www.travisfamilynews.com/images/Summer_2005/PICT0023.JPG

[ShutterbugGail]

That's really a lovely photo!

I'd probably try a few different ways to crop until one attracts my eye. I think a horizontol crop, would be best with beach left to the left side. But I'ld also try a verticle crop.

If it were my photo, the only thing I'd do with it is apply levels. It would make the colors pop, imho. Here's a tutorial:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/what-is-a-histogram/levels-histogram.htm

You may also want to apply an Unsharp Mask (USM), but not too much.

http://www.digicamhelp.com/learn/image-editing/image-sharpening.htm

Someone else may come along and have more ideas. If you have a moment, it would be great to see the new version of the image when you're finished editing.

We can't say this enough: when you edit, make sure you work on a copy of the original, and not the original itself.

[Mike54]

Hi KCI, here's what I did. I first opened the image in Picassa 2 (it's free) and applied a touch of "graduated tint" to pull the sky out a little, saved a copy and opened the copy in PSP 9. With PSP I applied a touch more saturation (just a little), some USM (again, just a little) then cropped for an 8x10 cloning the remnants of the girls foot out. Here's the result.

Click on the image to see a larger version (save the bandwidth  ). Remember these are compressed, resized and done pretty quickly but you get the idea.

Well, hopefully it looks like an enhancement  :-/ I'm working on my laptop at work and it's not great for graphics.

[KCIWebMaster]

I'm sorry Mike but I can't see anything in your post that looks like a picture?!  

Am I missing something?

[Mike54]

Am I missing something?

So it would appear. What happens if you click on this link?

[KCIWebMaster]

I see it now!   I'm at work now - for some reason at home I couldn't get the pictures to show (using IE or FF). I had the same problem with your other thread with the flower, I could only see the first picture.
Anyway, I love what you've done with my photo. I cropped mine pretty much the same, but haven't had great success with the sky color yet. I'll play some more tonight.

Thanks for your help Mike and Gail!

[Mike54]

Did you download Picassa 2? The gradient tint tool works a treat for things like this.

[ShutterbugGail]

Did you download Picassa 2? The gradient tint tool works a treat for things like this.

Google has really improved Picasa, haven't they? It would be perfect if I could use it to read images off CD's like I can do with Adobe Album (free edition), but it doesn't seem like I can.

[KCIWebMaster]

I'm installing it now!