Advice on separating the barracuda from the background

To All,

I have a slide that might be of potential interest to a client, but I am having a difficult time translating it into a digital format via scanning and Photoshop. The detail of the barracuda and 3D quality of the image seem to disappear during the process. Its not a great image to begin with in terms of composition, but it offers what the client needs.

Thus far, all I have done is scan the slide and then adjust the levels, contrast, saturation and unsharp mask in Photoshop. Oh, I did experiment with cropping it a bit as well. Below are two .jpgs of the same image after Photoshop:

The next is the raw image after being scanned with a Coolscan 4000 ED:

Any processing tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

God Bless,

Scott

You might try high pass sharpening, either as an alternative or before using unsharp filter. It works like USM, but you can go a bit further without making the air bubbles look like shattered glass. I think you it might help help make the cuda pop out from the rest of the image, if that's what you're trying to do.

The procedure is: Create a new layer. Select: Filter -> Other -> High Pass. Select a filter value around 10. On the Layer Palette, select Hard Light as the blending mode, and experiment with different opacity values on the new layer. Something around 30-40 should work. When you're happy, merge the layers, and you can consider also applying a bit of USM too.

Robert Delfs

Hello Robert,

I will give it a try. Other than the basics, my Photoshop skills are minimal. I would certainly benefit from an indepth course or two or three regarding Photoshop. :-)

Scott

Hi Scott,

ther are several self study cds out there. In english I know of the Total Training Series. I tried em and they are pretty extensive. On the downside they are quite slow in terms of learning speed.

Chris

The procedure is:  Create a new layer.  Select: Filter -> Other -> High Pass.  Select a filter value around 10.  On the Layer Palette, select Hard Light as the blending mode, and experiment with different opacity values on the new layer.   Something around 30-40 should work.  When you're happy, merge the layers, and you can ...

Whoops! There's an error here. I should have written:

Create a new DUPLICATE layer.

Sorry!

Robert

Hello Chris,

I am sorry, but I think you are focusing on the wrong end. I am the one who is "quite slow in terms of learning speed". ;-) Seriously, thank you for the suggestion.

Scott

Robert, Robert, Robert,

You told me that you NEVER made a mistake. Now what am I to think? :-) Thank you for catching the error and taking the time to make another post.

Scott