Double Take – Before and After

Although I’m not a huge user of Photoshop or other photo editing applications, I find myself increasingly experimenting with the capabilities of these programs.

I use Photoshop Elements 6, a pared down version of the full Adobe Photoshop set up. Even so, I don’t come close to using all of the tools that are available. Also, Elements costs a fraction of the full Photoshop price.

The photo was made with my Fuji X100, at 1/220 sec, f5.6 with ISO set at 200.

As you can see, the original image was pretty ordinary and quite bland. I wanted to spice it up by conveying a feeling of speed, movement and excitement.

Step 1: I opened the image in Elements 6 and immediately duplicated the original image so I wouldn’t loose the original if I pushed the wrong button. Who says we don’t learn from experience?

Step 2: I wanted to focus attention on the tandem bike riders, so I made a substantial crop thereby eliminating some distracting background and enlarging the image of the bikers.

Step 3: Then, I carefully used the magnetic lasso tool to select the the riders and the bikes. It actually took 3 attempts to get the selection close to what I wanted. I clicked “inverse” in the select menu to keep the bikes in focus.

Step 4: With everything but the bikes and riders now selected (that’s what “inverse” does), I went to filters/blur/motion blur and applied a modest amount of that effect.

Step 4: To further accentuate the bikes and riders I slightly darkened the background (enhance/lighting/brightness contrast)and lightened the tandem riders and bike (filters/render/lighting effects/omni). I also goosed the color saturation a little and tried (without huge success) to sharpen the face of the man on the tandem.