Select “SEE MORE” in the white bar below for an brief explanation of my editing process for this image.
…original image, straight out of camera…
This is always fun; fill a clear dish with water, put in some dish soap, and use a straw to blow bubbles. When the COVID lockdown hit, I tried a few “stay at home” photography ideas, and then revived this idea from back in 2014 (original photos here and here).
Honestly, the original photos end up pretty great. The light below the glass dish adds the rainbow and shimmer, so getting colorful dynamic images is simply a matter of making sure that you can focus on the right bubble at the right time.
Cropping these images is always tricky. I think that each time I look at these images, I choose to crop them differently. Because it’s round bubbles, choosing where to crop is a choice of what looks and feels right.
(cropped 25% off the right, 10% off the left and bottom, and maybe 33% off the top)
Once I’ve cropped the image, then it’s simply a matter of enhancing the colors and textures. The first step that I took is to add saturation; normally, I wouldn’t adjust an image’s color this much, but this image is more “abstract” than my typical images.
(Saturation +38, Vibrance +26, Dehaze +17, Texture +45)
The next step is to brighten the dark areas and tone down the bright spots.
(Exposure +.20, Highlights -51, Shadows +72, Blacks +42)
I then chose to add my standard level of Sharpening, but I could not tell a difference in the image at all. Lastly, I added a Vignette to darken the corners just a bit.
(Sharpening Amount 89, Detail 59, Vignette Amount -8)
As I mentioned before, I believe that if I recropped the image, I wouldn’t take as much off the right side. But, if you ask me in a month, I will change my mind again. 🙂
