43 votes

Should I horizontally flip a client's portrait?

If the lighting was asymmetrical and consistent between shots, then the lighting will be flipped as well and this might easily make the shot look simply awful or so awful its funny. This may not be ...
Yorik's user avatar
  • 541
36 votes

How to convert JPEG to RAW in Photoshop or similar?

In addition to the points Alex S made, you need to consider why they want RAW. There are several possible reasons: Bit depth as Alex S said. JPG suffers from compression artefacts which RAW doesn't. ...
Chris H's user avatar
  • 3,772
31 votes

Should I horizontally flip a client's portrait?

There are no hard and fast rules in art. You are free to follow your heart. If flipping some of the images assists in the symmetry of the final presentation, then go for it! Few if any will recognize ...
Alan Marcus's user avatar
  • 38.7k
29 votes
Accepted

How to convert JPEG to RAW in Photoshop or similar?

RAW is not (or minimally) processed image data from camera sensor. JPEG is processed image data. Typically, raw-files from modern cameras have 12-14-bit per pixel which means up to 16384 values (for ...
Zenit's user avatar
  • 1,791
26 votes

How does Renato D'Agostin achieve these super minimalist and high-contrast photos?

Upon viewing his portfolio at the link you provided, my first thought was push processing. In push processing, one typically underexposes the shot (that is, meters and set exposure as if the the film ...
scottbb's user avatar
  • 32.3k
24 votes

What is it about this albatross photograph that makes it look like it might either be faked or actually a photorealistic drawing (to me at least)?

IMO, the primary cause of the effect is differential lighting. The birds and grass have hard bright frontal light from high right. Whereas the foreground and background appear to have softer/dimmer ...
Steven Kersting's user avatar
23 votes
Accepted

How do I achieve this creamy black and white look?

If you want to achieve this digitally note how the whites aren't full white and the blacks aren't full black. You can do that e.g. in Lightroom or any other editing tool by pulling the endpoints for ...
JTjards's user avatar
  • 346
23 votes
Accepted

What type of editing is necessary to achieve this type of watch photo?

To me, it is just that you dial is over-exposed, easy to fix with the Curves tool of your editor: In other cases, just using the contrast tool could be easier, but here this would blow out the ...
xenoid's user avatar
  • 20.6k
21 votes

What is it about this albatross photograph that makes it look like it might either be faked or actually a photorealistic drawing (to me at least)?

Late addition To me, the jury's still out on whether it's fake, but I do come down on the side of 'real, but worked up [too] hard'. In the photographer's defense, I do get the feeling the guy only got ...
Tetsujin's user avatar
  • 23.1k
19 votes
Accepted

Why is the range for manual white balance so limited at the bottom and top?

Digital color works by separating light into three channels: red, green, and blue. This roughly mimics the way the human vision system creates the perception of color. Our vision system compensates ...
mattdm's user avatar
  • 143k
19 votes

Removing "banding" lines caused from using silent shutter

I don't use Photoshop, so here it is done with Gimp, but I assume the same tools are available on PS: Use Wavelet decompose to decompose the image into its frequency components (these are images that ...
xenoid's user avatar
  • 20.6k
18 votes
Accepted

Should I horizontally flip a client's portrait?

What I did in the end Thank you all for your suggestions and advice. You all really helped me decide what to do. Just to clarify, I wasn't aware that they wanted this before the shoot and they were ...
xtojump's user avatar
  • 521
16 votes

Why does this photo's skin tones look, weird?

The skin is exactly the same in both images. It's your perception of the skin that is different based on the surrounding colors. Our eyes and brain have a remarkable ability to adapt to different ...
Michael C's user avatar
  • 175k
16 votes

What is it about this albatross photograph that makes it look like it might either be faked or actually a photorealistic drawing (to me at least)?

Complementing Steven Kersting´s answer: The photo looks like a diorama. Look at the images at this google search You put some stuffed animals with a printed photograph as a background, then you add ...
Rafael's user avatar
  • 23.9k
15 votes

Photoshop's color replacement tool changes to grey (instead of white) — how can I change a grey background to pure white?

Graphic Design Stack Exchange: How to cut how hair accurately Advanced hair extraction tutorial First off, plugins and simpler methods are available. This is if you want to get higher quality results. ...
RyanFromGDSE's user avatar
  • 2,447
15 votes
Accepted

How to shoot a light trail photo where an object is still in focus?

This is motion blur caused by 'panning'. Ideally, you would use a tripod or monopod and track the car (panning) as it's moving with a relatively slow shutter speed. The background will blur as you ...
Robin's user avatar
  • 1,582
14 votes

How is this changing vertical perspective effect achieved?

This picture is a composition of slices of many photos taken from different heights, likely from a drone. The key to understanding it is to examine the camera's perspective or point of view from ...
scottbb's user avatar
  • 32.3k
14 votes
Accepted

Why does the histogram of an image depends on the software that opened it?

It's all to do with the profile applied to the raw files and guesses other software makes as to what that profile ought to be... RAW is not an 'absolute' format in terms of the image displayed, it's ...
Tetsujin's user avatar
  • 23.1k
13 votes

How do I get this oversatured-but-not, blown-out-but-not, subtly surreal look?

Look at the shadows under the cars. Now look at the shadow under the model... Oh wait! This looks to be more about how it was lit and exposed when shot than how it was post-processed. This photo is ...
Michael C's user avatar
  • 175k
13 votes
Accepted

Is there any Photoshop effect that can create vertically distorted bokeh as one sometimes sees in film and video?

I was always wondering if theres anyway to get bokeh that looks something like this (vertically distorted bokeh). This vertically-oval bokeh is the result of an anamorphic lens, which "squeezes" an ...
scottbb's user avatar
  • 32.3k
13 votes
Accepted

Photoshop's color replacement tool changes to grey (instead of white) — how can I change a grey background to pure white?

The color replacement tool isn't working for you because its default mode is "Color", which changes hue and saturation, but not luminosity (brightness/value). That's why you get the blue or the gray→...
mattdm's user avatar
  • 143k
13 votes

How to get rid of these white stripes from sunlight through window?

I agree with Tetsujin. The highlights in the image you posted are blown out to pure white. Since you do not have the raw file, there is no information to recover. It is possible to use collage and ...
xiota's user avatar
  • 26.9k
13 votes

Removing "banding" lines caused from using silent shutter

This "banding" is caused by the primary light source in the image varying in intensity over time, and by the (electronic) rolling shutter in the camera converting this variation over time ...
Ilmari Karonen's user avatar
12 votes
Accepted

How does one actually *use* a dark frame?

Straight away I should mention that lunar photography is different that astrophotography of deep-sky objects. The types of frames you are describing (calibration frames) are extremely helpful for ...
Tim Campbell's user avatar
  • 3,897
11 votes
Accepted

How can I overlap a landscape image into the shape of a person's face?

Find or create the silhouette profile image. You can find tutorials online about this by searching for "silhouette," "profile," etc. I'm being vague about this because there are lots of ways to do it. ...
Warren Young's user avatar
  • 5,224
11 votes
Accepted

Why I am getting only solid yellow images from Adobe Camera Raw?

The display corruption could be a consequence of using GPU acceleration in the ACR module. Not all cards are supported, so try toggling off the option. Also make sure that option is off in Photoshop.
Joanne C's user avatar
  • 33k
11 votes

How could I edit armpit stains out of a photograph?

Colour-dodge will do it. You didn't say what software you have access to, though I assume most editing software will have a Dodge/Burn feature. In Photoshop I set it to dodge shadows with about 40% ...
Tetsujin's user avatar
  • 23.1k
11 votes
Accepted

How to edit photograph to remove flashes of light / glow / glare?

When an image contains pure white (#fff or values RGB 255/255/255) - we refer to this as "blown" or "blown out". There is nothing you can do to alter these pixels to gain lost detail. For example, I'...
OnBreak.'s user avatar
  • 20.5k
11 votes
Accepted

How does Renato D'Agostin achieve these super minimalist and high-contrast photos?

Hello this is Renato D’Agostin. By chance I found myself on this blog, and found curious and flattering to read comments about my photography. I thought it could be nice to comment myself. Regarding ...
user96911's user avatar
  • 126
11 votes

"Move" focus in post-processing

There are various software solutions that will attempt to recreate edges that are not really there. Photoshop's Smart Sharpen isn't bad, but it still tends to look a bit 'cartoon-like' if you push it ...
Tetsujin's user avatar
  • 23.1k

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