Editing Magic for Water Photos

Manage tricky lighting with improvisation and clever editing.

Dave Johnson

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Feature: Adding Reflections to Water

I've learned that all too often, the weather simply refuses to cooperate with my picture-taking plans. Even when the odds seem to be in my favor, I may wind up rolling a losing combination.

For example, I've twice visited San Diego--a town not famed for precipitation--and found myself trying in vain to get some shooting opportunities between downpours. Then there was a visit I made to Colorado to shoot some snow-capped slopes--which turned up missing due to unseasonably warm weather.

Of course, in some areas, extended runs of bad shooting conditions are not unlikely. Take a recent sight-seeing trip to the Big Apple, for instance, where an unending gloom of overcast skies cast a pall over most of my photos.

How do we deal with these kinds of conditions? A bit of improvisation--and some clever editing.

Cry Me a River

An overcast sky can suck the life out of a scene faster than you can say "digital vampire." Check out my picture of a river in Colorado, for instance. A terrible sky has left this scene utterly lifeless. And the picture was taken in the direction of the sun, making most of it dull and underexposed. Is there any hope for this photo?

Sure. Save the image file to your hard drive and load it into Jasc's Paint Shop Pro. We'll start by using the One Step Photo Fix to improve the exposure and brighten the colors: Click Enhance Photo in the toolbar atop the screen, then click One Step Photo Fix.

Sky Replacement 101

We've improved the look of the landscape a bit, but let's be honest: Nothing will fix the sky short of simply replacing it with a different one. So let's do exactly that. I've got another sky that's more interesting. Save the image file to your hard disk and then load it into Paint Shop Pro. When the image is displayed, copy it into the clipboard by choosing Edit, Copy from the menu.

Now switch back to our photo of the river and select the entire sky. To do that, start by selecting the Magic Wand tool from the fifth cubby in the toolbar on the left side of the screen (it's one of three tools that lives in that spot, so if you don't see it, click the down arrow to the right of the cubby and pick it from the list). Then, in the Tools Options palette atop the screen, set the tolerance to about 30 and the feather to 2. (If the Tool Options palette is hidden, choose View, Palettes, Tool Options to make it visible.) After all that, click on the sky. Hold down the Shift key and click some more on unselected areas; I found that I could capture the entire sky in five clicks. Finally, choose Edit, Paste, Paste Into Selection. You should see a new sky in the scene.

A Bluer River

That makes the sky look great, but the river still gives the game away. It's flat and drab and murky--not the kind of mountain river you'd expect to see under this new sky. So what can we do? For starters, let's give the water a hint of blue. First, use the Magic Wand brush to select all of the water. It'll take a lot more clicks to get it all--with the tolerance still at 30, I captured all of it in about 15 clicks. If you accidentally grab a piece of the riverbank, choose Undo from the Edit menu or right-click to start your selection over.

When you're ready, choose Adjust, Color Balance, Red/Green/Blue and use the upward adjustment arrow to set the blue component to about 20. Click OK to keep your changes. Notice that only the selected region--the river--is affected. But that's not enough. The sky should be reflected in the river, so let's add a little of the sky as well.

To control the amount of reflection we get in the river, we'll work in layers. Choose Layers, Duplicate. Make sure that the top layer (it's called Copy of Background) is selected in the Layer palette. (If you don't see the Layer palette on screen, choose View, Palettes, Layers to make it appear.) Then, since our river is still selected and the sky is still copied to the clipboard, choose Edit, Paste, Paste Into Selection one more time. The sky is now in the river!

But it's way too much sky--the river looks like it's made of glass. To finish off our little picture, drag the opacity slider in the Layer palette of the top layer (Copy of Background) to the left until it reaches a level you like--I found that 60 percent was just about perfect.

Dave's Favorites: A Time Capsule of Digital Photography

We keep hearing about how digital cameras have changed the face of photography forever. But where can we find a tangible example? In the America 24/7 project. First run in 2003, America 24/7 was an opportunity for thousands of ordinary, nonprofessional photographers to take digital pictures during one week (May 12 to 18, 2003). The results were sent to a team of editors and culled down to a sort of national "family photo album."

The resulting book, America 24/7, was made possible by the spontaneous photography that is so common now that millions of people carry around digital cameras everywhere they go. The book captures every aspect of America going about its daily life--work, play, and fun. America 24/7 is available in bookstores, and on Amazon.com.

Apparently, the project was such a success that there's a much more ambitious version slated for this year with at least 50 books, including one dedicated to each state. I'm looking forward to it. You can read more about the project at its official Web site.

Q&A: Removing Eyeglass Glare

My children gave me a photo of my four grandchildren. It is ruined by the glare of my granddaughter's glasses. Is there any way to remove the glare? I have Paint Shop Pro, but do not know how to fix this problem.

--Margaret Scopp, Waukesha, Wisconsin

In reality, it's only possible to remove glare like this before the picture is taken by making sure that the glasses don't reflect light directly into the camera lens. Unfortunately, no digital trick can "see" through the glare to reveal what was underneath but was never captured.

You're clearly stuck with this problem, Margaret, so the best you can do is try to cheat your way through to an acceptable solution. Try loading the picture into Paint Shop Pro (another image editor will also do) and carefully use the Clone Brush to paint your granddaughter's other eye in place of the one that's obscured by glare. This technique won't work in all situations--human eyes aren't symmetrical, for one thing--but you can get decent results if the eyes are fairly small and take up a relatively insignificant part of the overall picture.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "Still Boat," by Duane Smith, Lynnwood, Washington

About this photo, Duane writes: "I took this picture on our trip to the Pacific coast in Florence, Oregon. I like this picture because of the stillness of the water and the foggy background."

Duane used a Sony DSC-F707 to take this picture.