Photo Touch-Up: I Feel Dirty

Posted in Photography by Cujo
February 4th, 2007 - 4:4 PM

So I’ve finally did it. And I feel dirty, very dirty. Almost as dirty as if I spent the last week at Studio 10 (local gentleman’s club if you will — and definitely not like the ones portrayed in the movies — or so I’ve been told).

If you saw my last post with the picture of the fireworks there’s a secret I must divulge — I touched up the picture. The shot seemed nice and I liked it but there was remnants of the previous fireworks all around with little smoke trails. After looking at the picture and at the time not being happy with any of my fireworks shots I decided to see if I could clean it up.

This was a first for me. I’m stubborn (or lazy) and do not like touching my shots, I display them as I take them. Anybody can bring a picture into Photoshop and make it look good but how many people can simply take a good picture, this is what I aim for.

So below I display the photo as I posted it. If you hover your mouse over it (and if I did this right) you will see the original photo. The touched up one could use some work but it was more of an experiment. I spent about an hour on it and if it’s for a simple display I still think it is somewhat of a time waster. I could possibly see if you want to enter into competitions and the like that photo manipulation might be needed. But then is it really photographer or is it now digital art?

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3 Responses to “Photo Touch-Up: I Feel Dirty”

  1. B. O'Toole Says:
    February 4th, 2007 at 11:07 pm

    Hey Curt. Good job, but I much prefer the original over the touched-up version. I can’t really describe it, but the smoke trails don’t really do much for me. It’s good to see you playing around in Photoshop though.

    I use photoshop on almost all my photos, but only to enhance what’s already there. I typically use level, curve and hue/saturation adjustment layers to get the photo looking like how I originally saw it, and then usually some slight sharpening. For some photos, I may take out the clone tool and erase some background people or annoying background items. But everybody’s got a different view on the subject. Later!

  2. Cujo Says:
    February 4th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    I think you misinterpreted my image Brian. The one you see before the hover is the touch up. The hover with the smoke trails is the original.

  3. B O'Toole Says:
    February 5th, 2007 at 9:12 am

    Ahh crap… I’m an idiot. I should stop commenting on things after 8 hour road trips in snow storms and being over tired. In that case, I like what you did to clean up the image. I can now understand your dilema over the photoshop thing. In this case, like what you did, and I think I would have done the same. You shouldn’t feel so dirty :)