Photo Manipulation

#1

New York Time Square

  It never gets dark at Time Square. All the lights and signs and boards. They all are competing each other that who has the most colorful color and is the brightest and is able to grasp the most attention from people.

  The glamour of Time Square starts from here inviting us. I loved how well the subway sign harmonized with its colorful surroundings.

  

  I first cut out a bit of the bottom and right parts of the picture so that it shows more of boards and signs. I selected each one by one using drag tool and colorized each one by one by adjusting hue and saturation in Photoshop. I gave each one of them different level of hue and saturation. I adjusted hue and saturation accordingly to the point where adjustment brought out the essence of the color. I for example wanted red really red. I wanted it look provocative.

  My camera unfortunately failed to capture the scene as the image developed in my head when I first went to Time Square. I wanted to bring out its colorfulness and made it more vivid. After editing it’s now closer to the impression of Time Square I got then.

True face behind those signs and boards are the real reality here. It is business. It is money. 

Original Image

#2

New York Street

  There are so many big cities in the world but out of all of the cities New York stands out. To me it seems like New York is a city that sells itself. The city adorns itself with so many advertisements.

 People seem to be accessorized to make the city more appealing. What characterized the city? Who/What characterizes this city, people or advertisement?

  In the first picture, I emphasized the advertisement. I selected each one at a time using drag tool. I brought out the color using hue and saturation tool. I wanted brownishness to spread out very delicately over the advertisement boards because I thought brown could add more elegance to them. I’m not sure if I executed it well. Lastly I grayed out and blurred everything else.

  In the second picture, using the same tool, I emphasized people, street and cars instead. Those I think that give the real liveliness to the city. I again selected each one at a time using drag tool. I colorized each one by one by adjusting hue and saturation. I especially intended to bring out the color of yellow cab which a lot of people now immediately associate it with New York City. It wasn’t easy to select yellow cab only. I was going to use Magnetic Lasso tool, but cabs didn’t stand out against the background enough. I once enlarged the picture and using regular Lasso tool instead I followed the contour of the cabs precisely. Frankly it’s a little bit of hassle because I’m not very good at it and once I miss one spot or misplace the cursor, I have to do it again. I however liked the result!  I grayed out the advertisements and this time I blurred them using a filter. 

Original Image

*Pictures taken by me