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After shooting a sports event and sorting the keepers from the rejects, I was about to delete the rejects when I spotted the potential of this one. Can you see it? The original, "footy1", is straight out of the camera, and not much to look at. The Photoshoped version has been cropped, apply curves adjustment, local contrast boost, rough selection and feather the selection, darken the background and use the "render/lighting effects" tool. A most difficult but brilliant tool in many ways. So I guess, the lesson is...look closely before you discard your rejects.

http://www.pbase.com/matt_k/image/34115753
http://www.pbase.com/matt_k/image/34115832

Hey matt, very nice work. How much was the total time spent in PS editing? I gotta admit, "footy1" would have been one on my "rejects" list.

Wow Matt, that really demonstrates the importance reviewing work with an open mind and vision (not meaning to sound wanky), and being able to get the best out of post processing.

Footy 2 is excellent.

Total time about half an hour. That's my concentration limit for just about any image. The lighting effects tool can really do some wonderful things to an image...but very fiddly until you get used to it. Try using it like a kind of "fill flash" on some of your duller pics.

Yep,

As a rule I don't discard the rejects (unless they are really truely rubbish) ... just burn them to CD for review on some rainy day.

A good shot. Agree re review of images. Considered? More of a crop on the right side and lighting effect straight on the ball. Would have been dramatically good if the LHS player was more sharply in focus.

Wow Matt...what a huge difference. Makes me feel better to have kept all those marginal originals. There may be hope for some of them yet.