Jim's workshop

[zaren]

Okay. let's see if I can get the hang of this forum system :)

Here's my first image that I received:



and my edit:



Every time I thought i was done, I saw a little something else that needed tweaking.  Does it look like I missed anything? :)

[drcode]

this one is tough to get perfect, because the original image was clearly not the highest-quality picture to begin with- I like what you did with it!

One minor suggestion I want to give: The source image has low contrast (the blacks are faded)... you adjusted for this (As I would, too) but since much of the color is is at the very darkest range of greys, it makes the final image look overly dark and the dark spots lost contrast (the detail is clearly still there, but is hard to see and would probably be invisible in a paper version)

Instead of using the "contrast" or "levels" tool in photoshop, I'd use the "curves" tool to correct for this, expanding the contrast of the darks in a targeted manner... I think the best "curve" would start flat (since the picture has no real dark spots, then take off steeply a third of the way in (to "stretch out" and darken the darker tones) and then plateau. This may give clearer detail on the shirt and the trees.