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to begin with, thanks for taking the time to take in my read, really I don't think many say that anymore.

Ok, so your thinking about sending me an image to send through the mixer, and your just-not-sure. Yes you have a picture and yea it pretty good, but it just wasn't a perfect shot. so you continue looking through your pictures looking for a really -good- picture.

There is one thing I have learned, and I have learned not to say, i can fix anything that is wrong with any picture. Seeing most boat pictures are taking in one of three places, in the owners drive way or on the water or at a dock, there are a rather large number of things that end up in some pictures when the image is captured. I will use this as an example.

This is boat belongs to Donald R Tierney Jr 59 thunderhawk jr, and as you can tell, it is a -nice- picture but right out of the gate I know I will have my work cut out for me, there are really a couple of subjects matters in a boat picture, the boat and the water and sometimes the shoreline and the background view.

Look at this picture, and take notes about what is drawing your attention away from the principle -subject- of the the image, which is the 1959 Thunder hawk Jr, the secondary -Subject(s)- are the two people in the boat, which as you follow this take note of them and what has happen to them.

If that was Cindy Crawford laying on a pool floaty instead of two people in a boat, what would take out of the picture?


  

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There you see the begging, just two people in a boat, on a lake enjoying a nice day together, well for one strange moment while editing I had to walk away from this because looking at them in the boat with the tangled assortment of bow lines hanging over the windshield right in front of them and how they seem to be looking at -a map- made me think of Bugs Bunny making a wrong turn in Albuquerque.

There where a number of things that pulled my attention away from the subject matter,  the pontoon boat running way to close to shore off to the left in the back ground, a series of lines on the bow eye hanging over the bow, the same lines on the foredeck of the bow, the same rope lines draped over the windshield, a can on a stand, and the sun flared fad of the red deck paint.

Like i said if the boat was Cindy Crawford on a pool floaty, what would you rather see, all that "stuff" on her floaty or would you rather see what -just her-?

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Ok, sorry about the dogs in the pool on a pet floaty, my bad just if I would of posted what I found of Cindy Crawford on a pool floaty, really I don't think I would want to lose you now.

to step away from Donald R Tierney Jr's 1959 Thunder hawk Jr. photo -just for a moment- I would like to show you another example of an edit I did to a really good picture I edited, that I still found stuff wrong with the main subject matter.

This is a 1948 Century Sea Maid that is owned by Craig and Peggy Thrasher from East Aurora, NY. I put a -before- and -after- shot side by side, one was good, the other my edited version is the one that became better, like removing a mole of the face of a super model with a uni-brow could make a picture better, or the best of what was.

There are six things that have been edited in this picture.

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The -After- is what I call putting the image through the "mixer", in this case everything is not exactly what it use to be.



the bow "eye" is gone from the front of the boat which I gave it a half of a thought to edit one back in but I decide not to because the "look" of that nice clean bow with no imperfections was to me extraordinary. The rope lines that where on the bow eye where removed, the rope lines on the foredeck where removed and the lines over the windshield also, A can on a holder was also removed. But taking that out of the picture is not like taking it off the boat, in a picture you leave an area that now has to be "repaired". Looking back on that now you will notice I had to fix the water, the foredeck and rebuild the middle of the windshield by repainting the "area" that was effected, meaning the persons on the left what use to be his arm on the dashboard was "painted" in, and the person who was on the right their head and part of their body also. The background next to the person on the right was completely redone by the paint option including the water and the shore. The chrome around the windshield was also rebuilt and the red trim paint on the side gunnel and foredeck was enhanced backed to what it may have looked like , Next stop the Thrasher!

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The Thrasher is basically a "limited" process of "effects". After I run through the Mixer and stir it all up and put it back together, I like thrashing it. My opt out option right -now- is basically making the boat "pop" by selecting -just the boat- and who ever is in it, then inverting the selection to include everything other than what I have protected.




Here I cropped the image down to focuses just on the boat on the lake with the two people, again for some reason I am just assuming they are reading a map, where I left all the color that was originally in the picture plus what I enhanced.

I turned the rest of the picture black and white, and ticked it with a smudge to add the appearance of "age", which doing it makes me think everything grows old, except a classic fiberglass boat.

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other examples of Mixed and thrashed images I have reworked, would be Clinton Stroebel's 17 foot, 1957-Skagit Express

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Looking good there Mark. You do nice work.