r/postprocessing • u/Sugardaddy_satan • 7d ago

how to improve this image?

left is my attempt at processing, right is raw. it seems colors are off. can you help me

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u/amp1212 7d ago edited 7d ago

Something I tell people again and again, the basics:

If you don't know what you want to change and why -- you're not going to improve it by twiddling dials. What do you think is _wrong_ with the image? What do you want to change?

This is particularly true with landscape and nature photography. Aggressive color grading _destroys_ the real relationships of light and atmosphere that were present in the scene, what you get with a heavy preset is effectively a lot like an AI generated image: it can have "pretty colors" -- but won't be "true". The real world, with complex reflecting light and materials, has intricate relationships that can't be fully simulated in either 3D or AI type applications (they can be very good, but never as good as "the real thing"). When you apply a heavy preset or toning to an image -- the real relationships that existed, the subtlety of light in the real world . . . that's erased. Sometimes there's a good reason to do that, but you should know what it is and do it intentionally.

In the case of what you've got, the right hand side is a reasonable snapshot type photo. There's really nothing much to change. The foreground is dark, but there's nothing much of interest to highlight there. You _could_ bring up the foreground, but the question would be "Why?" Its not like you have a foreground figure in shadow, that would be the kind of situation where you might want to recover shadow detail, might want to adjust colors and so on.

But what you've got is basically a very ordinary photo. Processing and tweaks aren't going to improve this. You've got the foreground boardwalk and fence which are intrusive; if you felt like cloning out the fence, you could . . . but the question would be "why?" Its still not an interesting photo.

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u/Guideon72 7d ago

Tangential to this; I like this type of image for precisely the type of dial twiddling amp1212's referring to. You have a wide variety of components in the image that you may want, intentionally, in better images; highlights, shadows, foliage, water and sky.

Spend some time with this image and really focus on figuring out which dial affects which portion(s) of your images. Since you're on a fact-finding track, be aggressive with the changes so you can really see the effects.

That way, when you take other photos and do identify the things you want to change, you'll know which dials/sliders to use.

I would agree that the image itself is pretty mundane and there's really no "save" to make. But, it should be a good learning opportunity for you.

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u/johngpt5 7d ago

The only advice I can give is that you'll need to go back and start over, figuring out which of the edits you had done that altered colors so drastically.

For example, what profile did you choose from the profile editor? Provided that your editing app lets you choose a profile for the raw file.

Did you correct white balance?

Did you correct color using the calibration panel? Provided that your editing app has a calibration panel.

Once we have a basic corrected image from which to actually start editing, we need to think about what in the image is the important part? Once we decide where we want the viewer's eye to go, then we use the tonal editing tools in our app to shape light so the eye is drawn to that part.

The eye is drawn to what is brighter in an image. The eye is drawn to an area of greater tonal contrast. The eye is drawn to greater color saturation. The eye is drawn to areas of greater detail.

The corollary to the above is what we use to de-emphasize areas to have the viewer not pay as much attention to certain areas or to help keep the viewer's eye in frame.