Lightroom/Photoshop Question

[JJudge951]

I am still newer to the whole photography world, and just trying to get some better results from my photos.

Below are 2 photos from our old camera from our honeymoon last year in St. John USVI. Unfortunately I am pretty certain I was not shooting RAW at the time, as i can only find JPEGs from this trip. There was an entire hike where unbeknownst to us the lens had a nice smudge almost directly in the middle of every image.

I am going to be getting the LR/PS CC monthly package within the next few days, and my question is whether or not it is possible, and how difficult it will be, to fix or edit out as much as possible that smudge? I will obviously be a novice with LR/PS, but I am hoping that even at that level this will be possible for me.

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/140228579@N03/26473826833/in/album-72157668532225105/" title="P1016275"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7760/26473826833_129c7fbfc2_c.jpg" width="800" height="451" alt="P1016275"></a>

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/140228579@N03/26803228770/in/album-72157668532225105/" title="P1016303"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7200/26803228770_85d76b6332_c.jpg" width="800" height="451" alt="P1016303"></a>

[rickztahone]

In the first picture, did you want to keep the white rocks on the ground? With the second picture, the picture is too small to see where the smudge is really affecting the image. How large are these jpeg files? They should still have some good latitude to be able to be worked on. PM and I can give them a go for you if you want.

[JJudge951]

Thanks Ricardo. I uploaded all of the full size JPEGs to my Flickr, under the album St. John Lens Smudge. When going through the photos it becomes more obvious where the smudge is. For the picture with the rocks, I was hoping to keep them.

I appreciate the offer, and would love to see what you could do with them. I tried with Photoshop yesterday, but I am quickly learning that the learning curve is pretty steep with that. If you are able to make any progress I would be interested to know what you did to get that result, as it will help me to learn how to use Photoshop.

Also, if there is a way to fix these, would it be possible to apply the same work to each photo, or will I need to do each one individually?

Thanks again. :beer:

[rickztahone]

Thanks Ricardo. I uploaded all of the full size JPEGs to my Flickr, under the album St. John Lens Smudge. When going through the photos it becomes more obvious where the smudge is. For the picture with the rocks, I was hoping to keep them.

I appreciate the offer, and would love to see what you could do with them. I tried with Photoshop yesterday, but I am quickly learning that the learning curve is pretty steep with that. If you are able to make any progress I would be interested to know what you did to get that result, as it will help me to learn how to use Photoshop.

Also, if there is a way to fix these, would it be possible to apply the same work to each photo, or will I need to do each one individually?

Thanks again. :beer:

With some subtle cloning the second one shouldn't be that difficult, you can't really tell as is unless you really focus on it. The first one however is going to be difficult. If you want to keep the rocks, the only way I see to possibly fix this is to actually increase the contrast in that area. Even with that, it will be difficult as it is very hard to regain sharpness in shots like this which is what you are lacking under that haze. I will give it a go if I remember to later today when I get out of work.

[IPT]

Yup, some will be easier then others. The one with the rocks can be done, but it will take patience and lot of creative cloning and/or contrast work as mentioned. I'd narrow it down to your favorites in order of priority. Then just start fixing them from number one on down and quite when you can't take it any more :).

Using the cloning stamp is not hard. Some techniques you will want to watch videos of would be PS cloning, using layers and layer masks, and local adjustments (also using masks and layers) and how to "transform" (that will allow you to take a new rock, distort it and rotate it so it looks like if belongs whenever you put it). Like most things, once you learn the basics and get some practice it isn't that tough.

PS and LR can be daunting because of the initial learning curve. I've used PS for years but my last version was CS5. I'm on a new learning curve myself but I do have the foundation of familiarity with the software. LR is newer to me. Seriously consider Lynda.com. They have tons of great videos and it's reasonably priced by the month with full access to any video that have (many, many topics...). It's great investment if your looking for tutorials.

[JJudge951]

Thanks Louis.

Looks like this scenario will be a good chance to really learn PS.

What would be really nice is if there was a way for the "smudge" to be easily selected, or automatically isolated. Seeing as it is the same in every photo. I am guessing the big problem with this will be that the smudge lacks any sort of defined edges or outline.

Does anyone know if PS has any way of selecting this portion of each photo?

[Misled]

You can always crop it out, work on it then merge or insert it back in the original. If you're stamping though you need an area to work from.

[IPT]

Thanks Louis.

What would be really nice is if there was a way for the "smudge" to be easily selected, or automatically isolated. Seeing as it is the same in every photo. I am guessing the big problem with this will be that the smudge lacks any sort of defined edges or outline.

Does anyone know if PS has any way of selecting this portion of each photo?

You would do it manually. Sort of like Jesse mentioned. Except instead of cropping and re-inserting I'd just create a duplicate layer and mask out what you don't want affected :). It will be tough, because as you mentioned not all the images are the same (you will need different techniques for each individual image most likely).

As for making the same selection I'm pretty sure that can be done, or you could do it real quick with a mask and one dab of a brush sized to your smudge. You can create an "action" in PS and you can make it as many "steps" as you want (ie. select an area, add a contrast enhancing layer, a saturation layer, sharpen the image, on and on). You can even create "pauses" where you can modify an attribute specifically as the action "runs'. (At least you used to be able to do all this. I imagine the more modern PS still has these capabilities and more).

Back to masks again, you create an action to duplicate the layer, sharpen it, increase the contrast, and enhance the colors. Using the masks you could then selectively apply it where ever you want in the image. Or, you could just make a master layer with those attributes (only in the blurry area and drop and drag that layer/mask onto whatever image you wanted. The one caveat is that all the images will initially have to be the same size or you will get misalignment.

LOL, you got some reading (or video watching) to do :0. All that said, often it is not easy to fix this sort of thing. The best result will be if you can clone in (swap) other "good" data to replace the "blurry" data. You can't recreate that actual blurry part. The best you can do to "repair" it is enhance contrast and sharpness and hope it masks the blurriness enough that you don't really notice it.

[JJudge951]

You would do it manually. Sort of like Jesse mentioned. Except instead of cropping and re-inserting I'd just create a duplicate layer and mask out what you don't want affected :). It will be tough, because as you mentioned not all the images are the same (you will need different techniques for each individual image most likely).

As for making the same selection I'm pretty sure that can be done, or you could do it real quick with a mask and one dab of a brush sized to your smudge. You can create an "action" in PS and you can make it as many "steps" as you want (ie. select an area, add a contrast enhancing layer, a saturation layer, sharpen the image, on and on). You can even create "pauses" where you can modify an attribute specifically as the action "runs'. (At least you used to be able to do all this. I imagine the more modern PS still has these capabilities and more).

Back to masks again, you create an action to duplicate the layer, sharpen it, increase the contrast, and enhance the colors. Using the masks you could then selectively apply it where ever you want in the image. Or, you could just make a master layer with those attributes (only in the blurry area and drop and drag that layer/mask onto whatever image you wanted. The one caveat is that all the images will initially have to be the same size or you will get misalignment.

LOL, you got some reading (or video watching) to do :0. All that said, often it is not easy to fix this sort of thing. The best result will be if you can clone in (swap) other "good" data to replace the "blurry" data. You can't recreate that actual blurry part. The best you can do to "repair" it is enhance contrast and sharpness and hope it masks the blurriness enough that you don't really notice it.

Thanks Louis. I have a lot to learn within PS from the sounds of it. I should probably start at the beginning and go from there. Once I get the basics down, I can go back to these and see how much better I can make them.

The good news is that I am going back there in November. Hopefully by then my photography skills will be much better than they were last time, and I will make sure not to smudge the lens.

[IPT]

Hopefully by then my photography skills will be much better than they were last time, and I will make sure not to smudge the lens.

Smudge free lenses generally help image quality :).

PS really isn't that hard. The new generation is even easier. There's a little learning curve learning where to find stuff, and how to adjust the tools. My guess is that most people don't use even a fraction of what the program is capable of. Once you get some of the foundational stuff ironed out you'll be amazed at what you can do.

In fact sometimes it seems so easy to manipulate stuff these days it makes "photography" a little less appealing (to me). Well, not less appealing, but I don't appreciate images as easily as I used too. It's just too easy to create stuff that wasn't really there and manipulate images. I remember way back when when Art Wolfe manipulated some Zebras in an image. He cloned them to fill the frame. He did note that is was digitally manipulated, but boy was the photographic community up in arms in dismay. Boy have we moved far away from that purity :). Progression, it is what it is, and the truth is done correctly good images can become stunning one's.