Exhibit 1
The Beauty of Enhancing a Photograph
Original Photo
Background
This picture was taken on my trip to Europe this summer for my 11th anniversary. This is a famous restaurant in the Ascher mountain in Switzerland, which is located on the edge of the cliff. My husband and I woke up very early to hike to avoid the crowd. Luckily for us, there weren’t many people around. I selected this photo because it's a beautiful shot that is cluttered by people. I figured it would be perfect to showcase the skills that we have learned.
Final Exhibit Photo
Photoshop
The first thing that I did was open the picture in camera raw to fix the exposure a little bit. I wanted the show more of the mountains in the background, so I decreased the highlights to a negative number until I could see enough without losing the morning mist on the top of the mountains. I then reduced the shadows and increased whites by a fraction. I also adjusted the temperature to have a much warmer feeling.
In photoshop, I started cleaning up around the pictures. I used the patch tool to erase minor distractions like rocks in the path close to the subject. Then I used a combination of the clone stamp tool and the patch tool to eliminate all the people in the background. My last thing was enhancing the picture by popping the colors by adjusting the vibrance and saturation while also using the curves adjustment tool to strengthen contrast.
Credits
Michael Shattuck
Revision
For this revision, I wanted to change the editing of my final picture from being light and airy to more of a moody style. I did this because I wanted to design a flyer to advertise traveling and having the picture be moody. It creates a dramatic look to it. To get to this composition, I started cleaning the background, as well as erasing people using the patch tool and the clone stamp tool for small selections. I fixed the exposure at the upper left side using camera raw. I decreased the highlights and reduced the exposure just a bit. I then erased the effects from the rest of the photo that I didn’t want to be affected. Using curves and selective color, I started adding more contrast and manipulating the colors until I got to the moody style that I wanted. As a final touch, I enhanced the photo using a layer mask and high pass to sharpen the image.
For the flyer advertisement, I went for a clean design that goes straight to the point. I contrasted the content using two different family fonts and balance it out using bold and light text. I used the principle of proximity to group time. I did this by putting the dates together in the same alignment close in proximity to each other so the viewer can get both information without having to look around the whole flyer. I also left a lot of negative space for the picture to contrast the heavy moody of the picture and make my content readable for the viewer.