Sometimes all the aspects of the scenes we plan to photograph cannot be controlled or foreseen… especially on-location. That’s where Image Enhancement plays a key role in the final production of our photographs for our clients.
Image Enhancement is a combination of advanced technology and artistry.
Action Foto has been doing its magic since the early days of the film photographic darkroom.. but we now have the benefit of today’s modern digital computer wizardry techniques… and can do some truly amazing things.
We can foliate a dead tree or bush, add grass to the bare spots, clean up the debris in the streets, remove the neighbor’s laundry from their clothes line…. and just about anything that’s needed to make a picture the best it can be for its intended use. Nearly all of the photos we use in clients advertisements and promotional materials have some amount of enhancement… it simply makes the result “perfect”.
Several examples of “Before” and “After” pictures are shown below.
Compare the “Before” and “After” photos by sliding the vertical separator left or right. The Before photo will be fully visible when the separator is fully to the right, and the After photo when the separator is fully to the left.
This photograph is of a new landscape, pool, fountain and man-made lake installation at an estate in central NJ, created by Ehrich & Ehrich Landscape Architects. It needed a lot of tender loving care, because it was going to be used as a full page advertisement in an issue of Architectural Digest. We made the following enhancements to the photo:
- Removed the dead tree in the upper left corner by the road
- Cleaned the pool deck of debris
- Removed all the temporary sprinkler pipes sticking up in the landscape beds
- Filled in the skimpy bushes in the circle surrounding the fountain
- Closed the gap between the lawn and the mulch around the circle of bushes
- Removed a distracting shadow on the lawn in the lower right corner
- General color, contrast, brightness enhancements.
This was done in 2002, when the Photoshop tools were much simpler than we now have, but with a lot of tender loving care, the final result was beautiful in the Architectural Digest advertisement. It was used about 4 times again over the next few years in Architectural Digest and it also appeared in the prestigious Robb Report magazine.
This photograph was taken for a TechoBloc catalog. The installation was beautiful, but unfortunately, the homeowner had allowed their lawn sprinklers to run that morning, even though we had spoken to them prior to the photo session, and asked them to turn them off, which they agreed to do.
Fortunately, Photoshop came to the rescue and we were able to dry the pavers on the walkway and the walls. The highlight glare on the upper walkway in the left was also reduced, so that the pavers became visible.
This swimming pool was photographed for Haven Pools, on eastern Long Island, for entry into the APSP and NESPA swimming pool Design Award competitions.
As you can see, there were a few issues with the lawn and the flower pots along the left side of the pool. We used some Photoshop fertilizer to restore the lawn, and got the flowers in the pots to fill in and bloom.
The pool installation won Gold Awards.
This paver walkway and entrance was photographed for an EP Henry catalog.
There were some issues with stains and dirt on some of the pavers, and a large amount of efflorescence on the pavers surrounding the paver circle. We cleaned up all of these problems. and the photograph was used in the catalog.
This was photographed at the Hoboken Light Rail station for another EP Henry catalog.
The gaps between the pavers were too large and not uniform, and the paver color (as photographed) looked too bright, compared to the actual paver product.
We corrected these problems, making the gaps between the pavers smaller, and toning down the paver color to it’s correct look.
We did an extensive photo shoot at the Villa Roma resort in the Catskills for a Nicolock Pavers catalog. There are literally acres of pavers at the resort, especially around their multi-pool complex, and we photographed them all.
This photograph was taken at the entrance to the swimming pool complex. Unfortunately, there was no best time of day to photograph it without serious shade on the outside of the entrance gate. The original photograph was almost considered useless, but with modern technology magic, we managed to make a useful picture out of it. However, it never made it into the catalog along with many others from Villa Roma that did.
Despite careful advanced planning with the homeowner prior to the photo session, things aren’t always the way we want them upon arrival at the site. In this case, there was no one home, and the clothes were hanging on the clothes line.
This was one of the pools that Dover Pools & Supplies wanted to enter into competition, and all angles needed to be photographed in order to make the best competition package selections. This long shot looking back at the house was essential to complete the group of photos.
With very careful photo-processing surgery, the clothes line was removed, and the picture served it’s intended purpose.
This paver driveway and walkway was photographed for an EP Henry catalog. There were two main issues with it: efflorescence on the driveway border and a few parts of the walkway, and more seriously, the circular wall pavers surrounding the shrubs to the right of the front steps were from a competing manufacturer.
With the help of Photoshop, and some artistic imagination, the problem was fixed, and the photo was used as planned.