Weekender May 30 and 31, 2026

[Dave]

I hope all are having a good weekend.

No shots from me lately that seem print-worthy, so I decided to show my process of taking a less than mediocre photo and trying to give it some hint of interest.

A) The original shot with no adjustments by me...

   

B) What I ended up with (still not very impressive, but I hope an improvement)...

   

1) First I flipped it horizontally because I wanted the tall greenish stem to act as an eye-stopper at right edge.
2) Cropping, then Content-Aware Fill to remove or minimize distracting bits in the background.
3) Some lightening of the entire area, using Brightness & Contrast and Levels adjustment layers.
4) Additional lightening here and there in an attempt to create a COI.
5) Darkening some selected areas to further define the COI.
6) Increasing color saturation in the emerging COI.
7) Sharpening of the COI.
8) Resizing image and adding simulated mat and frame
(steps 4 through 6 were revisited & tweaked, some multiple times.)

A rather laborious process only to end up with a final image that is average at best, but it was fun and I learned some things that may be helpful in the future.

[Quint]

Nice manipulation, Dave. It doesn't appear overworked.

[Dave]

Thanks Quint.

I enjoyed the challenge of turning a photo about to be deleted into something a little better.

[Man From Ironbark]

You certainly improved it, Dave.

[Dave]

Thanks MFI.

[Rich]

WoW Dave! That is an awesome improvement! Well done!

[Dave]

Thanks Rich.

Yes, quite a difference - it's amazing what Photoshop cam do. Still, the final image is average at best.

One reason that the original photo is so dark is that I'm having trouble with the LCD viewer - the automatic review on the LCD viewer doesn't so I can't tell assess w hat camera settings need to be adjusted, and I can't review images at all with that viewer.