Lotus Cortina

[sstein]

Took a few pics of my friends Lotus Cortina at Knockhill on Thursday. I was having trouble exposing for the car and the sky so I don't think I got any shots where both were exposed well.

managed to save 1 pic which I think looks OK seeing as it's a botch of sky from 1 pic, and car from another!

Think I need to get some filters.



I also wish I had noticed the horrible markings on the road, photoshopped some out but I don't think I can get rid of the ones touching the car (or in inside windows)

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Stuart

Edited by sstein on Saturday 14th April 21:21

Edited by sstein on Sunday 2nd September 18:21

[trackdemon]

Nice car.

What you need really is an ND grad filter, however its pretty easy to mimick the effect in PS using the graduation tool:

[sstein]

That looks good, graduation tool? is this the gradient tool?

May I also ask what technique you used to get rid of markings that are touching the car without damaging the car? Or do you just have to zoom right in close and ring the car off with the selection tool? The problem I can have with the cloning is when I do it on a large area, I end up with a large repeating pattern?

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Stuart

Edited by sstein on Saturday 14th April 23:35

[_dobbo_]

To avoid patterns in cloned areas try using the clone healing brush rather than the standard clone tool.

[stuart b]

Gradient in PS will work to a degree but for best results use filters when shooting or blend more than one exposure (as you say you did). The latter is particularly useful when your horizon is not nice and flat (e.g. trees).

In addition to healing brush, what I do in this kind of situation is select a piece of the car using the magnetic lasoo tool (it's worth learning how the settings on this tool work and when to use different settings to make it more effective). Copy that to a layer and then turn the layer off while you work. Then you clone/heal out the bits you want to your heart's content without worrying about nicking the edge of the car. Turn your layer back on and it's done. I find this easier as I don't have a tablet and my selections can be a bit dodgy. If you select too much of the car when you create the layer, it's easy to erase later. By working in layers you get much more flexibility to correct minor slips.

Stuart