Post processing help, please!

[Blaze]

OK Photoshop/editing gurus...I'm in need of some assistance. Back in April I posted some pheasant pics of 2 roosters fighting in SD, and I would like to learn how to do some post-processing on these shots to bring out more of the color, brighten them up, and crop them appropriately. The ultimate plan is to clean them up enough to have the sequence printed and framed for my office at home. Can anyone offer some suggestions on where to start?

Saturation?

Sharpness?

Contrast?

Brightness?

Here's one of the pics:

The old thread is here: Fight Club - SD style

Thanks in advance,

Blaze

[buzzsaw]

Thats going to be a tough picture to make better in PS. The details are too shadowed, you can lighten those area's, but I assume you'll have very little detail. You have the bird on the left with "blown out" tail feathers... almost impossible to fix this... and you have grass in front of the rooster on the right which you can clone out. It's a cool picture Blaze, but I'm not sure you can do a ton with it in PS.

[Dbl]

e-mail me a copy of the original I'll take a stab at it, but as buzz says its going to be tough. I will send it back with what I did to it and you can try out some of those settings on the rest.

[email protected]

[Blaze]

Dbl - you have mail. Thanks!

[IFallsRon]

Start by reducing the Cyan in Levels.

You can avoid making the blown out feathers worse by selecting that area (magic wand will work) and inverse the selection. You may want to feather the selection a couple pixels.

After making additional changes in Levels or Curves, invert the selection and adjust the blown out area a bit to bring out the detail.

If you have a series of photos that have similiar editing needs, keep track or your numbers so you can apply the same to keep a consistent look.

[Tofishem]

This is right off the internet but is always better with the original. A little hard with dark shadows on the birds.

[Dbl]

You've got mail back Blaze, sorry for the delay today.