[BLOG] Better Photos = Better Reviews? Part 2
I've been pretty pleased with the results I've been getting with my newly constructed light tent. My recent Thermalright TRUE Copper review saw a lot of benefit from the relatively simple contraption and some patience with the manual mode of my camera.
As with many things in this world, "good" can always be "better". I've never quite been able to justify the high price-tag associated with Adobe Photoshop, so I've been a long time user of Corel Paintshop Pro and recently purchased X2. At $80 it is a much more reasonably priced and has met my needs to date.
I got some very crisp and bright images for the TRUE Copper review, but the backgrounds were still not quite as white as I wanted. Sure, they were white, but not 255-255-255 on the RGB scale. I wanted them blending completely with the site background. This was actually an easier task than I had thought using Paintshop Pro. I simply 'lightened' the background using the fill tool and a fairly low tolerance color match. This took it a few shades in the right direction. I then used the paintbrush tool at 100% opacity around the edges of each image. I went fairly close to the heatsink but left the small shadows in the image to ensure it looked realistic. I then used the same paintbrush tool at about 15% opacity to blend it in. The result was exactly the images I was looking for.
Above is the original.
And here is the new and improved image. Much better!
The process only takes me about 2-3 minutes per image, so I decided to revamp all of the TRUE Copper photos. You'll see them appear over the next day or two along with the snazzy new watermarks.
As with many things in this world, "good" can always be "better". I've never quite been able to justify the high price-tag associated with Adobe Photoshop, so I've been a long time user of Corel Paintshop Pro and recently purchased X2. At $80 it is a much more reasonably priced and has met my needs to date.
I got some very crisp and bright images for the TRUE Copper review, but the backgrounds were still not quite as white as I wanted. Sure, they were white, but not 255-255-255 on the RGB scale. I wanted them blending completely with the site background. This was actually an easier task than I had thought using Paintshop Pro. I simply 'lightened' the background using the fill tool and a fairly low tolerance color match. This took it a few shades in the right direction. I then used the paintbrush tool at 100% opacity around the edges of each image. I went fairly close to the heatsink but left the small shadows in the image to ensure it looked realistic. I then used the same paintbrush tool at about 15% opacity to blend it in. The result was exactly the images I was looking for.
Above is the original.
And here is the new and improved image. Much better!
The process only takes me about 2-3 minutes per image, so I decided to revamp all of the TRUE Copper photos. You'll see them appear over the next day or two along with the snazzy new watermarks.
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