Inkfish' test image clean-up!

Original:
http://cichlidcircus.com/011904cc105.jpg

Cleaned up:
http://aquatic-photography.com/pics/fish.jpg

Steps:
In photoshop 7, clean up levels, curves. Levels to adjust to natural colors. curves to adjust highs/lows to get images to stand out. The curve should look like a slanted S.

In photoshop 7, sharpen a little. Usually I will sharpen one step at a time until it goes bad, then backtrack one. That should be the most sharp without being distorted.

In photoshop 7, use the blur tool, with a small head, to take out the little dots and other BIG noise items, blend with the background.

In Neat Image, clean up noise.

[inkfish86]

WOW! [smilie=bowdown.gif]

[ccplim]

How does the curve function actually works? I had some problem understanding that. Currently, i am only using level and hue/saturation (which doesn't really help much).

[inkfish86]

I've been tryin' the curve tool some, but not much success yet.

Would someone that knows what they're doing mind telling me if my steps seem like I am working in the right direction? It makes the photos look better, but I don't want to be practicing the wrong steps!

Thanks so much.

I usually select the area that I want, paste it into a new window, change the selection tool from rectangle to oval (or vice versa), to get the best selected area. First I sharpen edges and I make changes to the fish body/face, then inverse this selection and work on the surrounding area. Then I run the auto levels, auto contrast and auto color, if these are too aggressive, I'll undo, and adjust these levels manually.

Then I work on the noise, blur, and despeckle filters.

I did figure out along the way that if you are working on your selected area, the background changes will affect the background of your selected area (obviously) but... I found that if I make a note of this setting, once I inverse, I can change the background settings to similar levels, so that I can't see the oval/rectangle once I'm done.

I would really like to see someone post about the curve tool though, the rest of them are pretty cool (and I am continuing to practice, though haven't been posting them as of yet). It is nice that the preview allows you to change and view the results, but the curve tool escapes me.

This weekend, I have a WHOLE bunch of pictures that I plan on practicing on, and there may be one or two worth posting.