Enhancing the number (more photo retouching)

[pduggan]

Here's a long story, posted not because you'll all have photos of boats with inside-out spinnakers but because the techniques might be of interest for similar photographic problems! All numbers in the text refer to the attached JPEG.

http://www.petestack.com/forum/number.jpg
<br clear="all">


The spinnaker was inside-out, so the sail number was back-to-front (1). It was simple enough to chop out another one from a clone of the photo and flip, rotate (2) and feather it (3) before pasting it back (4). But the whole sail (as opposed to the whole photo) needed brightening, and my preferred solution (after some experimentation) turned out to be overlaying it with a copy of itself at 60% flat bleach transparency. Although the big fly survived this treatment, the sail number (5) did not (the problem compounded by both fly and number showing through the inside-out sail). Trying to correct it with the unbleached number left a hint of darker sail, so I overlaid the bleached version with another one at 30% flat stained glass transparency (6), chopped out the 'cores' of the letters and numbers (7) and feathered them (8). Here I should point out that 100% accuracy was not essential (thankfully) for this job, straight lines were good enough (much easier to edit) and it was possible to carry on tweaking the shapes (thanks to Xara's brilliant handling of bitmaps with 'arrange shapes') after cutting them out. Lastly, I tried the new number in its proper context on top of both spinnaker layers without transparency (9, top), before sticking with 30% flat bleach transparency (9, bottom) as the best match for the fly.

So was it all worth it? Considering it improved the picture and took me on a voyage of discovery through some of Xara's clever bitmap editing capabilities, I'd have to say yes. You can see the finished image at my site, or follow its genesis at the Xara Gallery (note that only the last version posted has the improvements detailed here).

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on October 23, 2001 at 19:02.]

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on October 23, 2001 at 19:26.]

[pduggan]

Here's a long story, posted not because you'll all have photos of boats with inside-out spinnakers but because the techniques might be of interest for similar photographic problems! All numbers in the text refer to the attached JPEG.

http://www.petestack.com/forum/number.jpg
<br clear="all">


The spinnaker was inside-out, so the sail number was back-to-front (1). It was simple enough to chop out another one from a clone of the photo and flip, rotate (2) and feather it (3) before pasting it back (4). But the whole sail (as opposed to the whole photo) needed brightening, and my preferred solution (after some experimentation) turned out to be overlaying it with a copy of itself at 60% flat bleach transparency. Although the big fly survived this treatment, the sail number (5) did not (the problem compounded by both fly and number showing through the inside-out sail). Trying to correct it with the unbleached number left a hint of darker sail, so I overlaid the bleached version with another one at 30% flat stained glass transparency (6), chopped out the 'cores' of the letters and numbers (7) and feathered them (8). Here I should point out that 100% accuracy was not essential (thankfully) for this job, straight lines were good enough (much easier to edit) and it was possible to carry on tweaking the shapes (thanks to Xara's brilliant handling of bitmaps with 'arrange shapes') after cutting them out. Lastly, I tried the new number in its proper context on top of both spinnaker layers without transparency (9, top), before sticking with 30% flat bleach transparency (9, bottom) as the best match for the fly.

So was it all worth it? Considering it improved the picture and took me on a voyage of discovery through some of Xara's clever bitmap editing capabilities, I'd have to say yes. You can see the finished image at my site, or follow its genesis at the Xara Gallery (note that only the last version posted has the improvements detailed here).

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on October 23, 2001 at 19:02.]

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on October 23, 2001 at 19:26.]

[pduggan]

Perhaps it's of interest to no-one but myself, but the main text above should have finished:

'before sticking with 30% flat stained glass transparency (9, bottom) as the best match for the fly.'

Sorry!

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[pduggan]

Sorry for posting to my own thread again (last time for this one!), but I suddenly had this brainwave, which was to subtract my cut-out number shapes from the bleached layer to let the original black show through. So I did, and it looks still better! But I'm really sick of this piece now (it'll be on its way soon, Gary)...

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>