The Weekly Photo Challenge prompt, started with the idea of telling a story using an object. Mine tells the story of a very busy weekend:
This is a chalk bag that was a gift to my youngest rock climber who had a birthday recently. This past weekend a party was held in her honor at the rock climbing gym where we climb.
I will show the original photo at the bottom, but I was interested in taking a pretty standard photo and editing it in Camera Raw, which is something that I am reading about in conjunction with the Photoshop class I am taking. The textbook for my class is Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers by Martin Evening which I am finding to be a really good resource.
So, I opened the original photo in Camera Raw and in the Basic settings made the following changes:
- Increased the temperature
- Increased the exposure
- Increased the contrast
- Decreased the highlights
- Increased the shadows
- Decreased the whites
- Decreased the blacks
- Increased the clarity
- Increased the vibrance
I made all these changes using the various sliders and just adjusting until I created an image that I liked.
To make the border, I opened the image in Photoshop. I cropped the image and then made a rectangular selection to the interior of the crop that would eventually make my new border. Then I made a mask on that layer. Then I went to Select-Refine Mask- and I increased the radius slider. That creates the ragged border. From there I made a layer underneath and filled it with the brown color.
Here is the original, so you can see what I started with:
Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Do you use Camera Raw? I am finding it to be a pretty powerful editing tool, helpful before I even get started in Photoshop.
Cheers!
That’s a cute bag 🙂 Sadly, I don’t have a dslr otherwise I could answer your question 😦
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What are you shooting your images with? One of the ways Camera Raw misrepresents itself is in it’s name; you can edit jpegs in Camera Raw. The bag is cute, luckily my little rock climber thinks so too 🙂
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I use my trusty 16.2 MP Sony cybershot and on occasion, my Samsung Galaxy S3 🙂 for the really bad shots I can’t recover I edit them with effects lol 🙂
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Yes, we’ll always have effects 🙂
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Hey what a remarkable difference your changes made. Nice work!
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Thanks, I did intentionally shoot the image under less than fabulous lighting conditions because that happens a lot in real life. I was curious to see what the program was really capable of.
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I definitely prefer the photoshopped one for its brightness.
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Thanks 🙂
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My preference is definitely the top ‘altered’ photo. Colours and clarity way better in my humble opinion.
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Yes, the difference in the clarity I found pretty striking.
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I shoot in RAW and use Photoshop Lightroom to post process the images. There is so much you can do with RAW files in Lightroom.
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Are you also using Lightroom as a way to catalogue your images? I currently use Aperture.
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Yes, so far I have photos cataloged back to 2004. One of these days I’ll get around to 2003 and before. 🙂
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I spent a good part of this past summer organizing my photos, it is a lot of housework!
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My family spent many many, years rock climbing. Not only a lovely photo but brings back fabulous memories.
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Oh cool! we are pretty new to the sport, but it has been popular with everyone in the family 🙂
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It is good for the body and mind and fun besides. It turned into 15 years of clinging to cliffs in my case 🙂
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It is pretty awesome. It’s also helping a bit with my fear of heights 🙂
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Oh definitely! Climbing is sometimes used in the treatment of phobias around heights.
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I didn’t actually know that. I just started because everyone else in the family was going 🙂
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Wow! What an improvement. The colors really pop here (in the top photo). Great work, Amy.
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Thanks, I was happy with the results. I took the photo under less than ideal conditions just to test what Camera Raw could do.
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I like what you did. I only use Lightroom which give me all those functions, except creating borders.
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I don’t have Lightroom, do you use it to also catalogue your images? I am currently using Aperture for that.
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I shoot raw and jpeg. Everything goes into LR. Jpegs also go into iPhoto as a kind of quick cataloging tool. I’m always open to suggestions for improvement.
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That sounds like a good way to do it, right now I have both my jpegs and raw in Aperture. I’m always curious to hear how other people handle it.
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I am very tempted by the book – it really is time I got to grips with Raw – thanks for the reference and inspiration.
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I am really enjoying the book, something I might not have ever said about a book of this sort. It was a bit pricy, but so far to me, worth the price tag. It is Chapter 3 that is dedicated to Camera Raw. I haven’t gotten past that chapter yet, so I can’t tell you honestly if I am going to find the rest of the book this helpful, but I am hopeful.
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The modified one is definitely warmer and has nicer colors…The modified one made me want to buy the bag. 🙂
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That’s quite a compliment 🙂
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What a cute bag, Amy. Happy birthday to your daughter. Your edit really makes the bag come alive. 🙂
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Thanks, she really loves it as well 🙂
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Like the new look to your blog 🙂
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Thanks for saying so 🙂
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