Making Water Droplets Magical

Last time, I gave you a very basic setup for capturing a falling water droplet with your Point 'N Shoot camera.

Points to remember:

• use your macro setting
• turn on your flash
• put your finger under drip, focus on finger, remove finger/hold focus
• mentally time drip
• be patient and shoot a lot

Here are some extra tips:

• use a tripod if you are having trouble with shake causing blur
• good lighting is essential – not only your flash, but room lighting – more is better
• try different "speeds" of drips from the faucet

Now, let's say you've done the setup, and you've got tons of captures. You've narrowed your 'photographic loot' down to just a few of your favorites…

…but something is still missing. They just don't "pop" with that fantastic quality you're looking for.

With a perfect setup and lots of experience, you'll get more and more amazing photos straight out of your camera, but even when you don't? All hope is not lost.

Photo Editing is part of the art of photography, and it can make your finished work of art a masterpiece.

Using nearly any photo editing software, you can make some basic changes in brightness, contrast, and color levels that will make you love your water droplets a little more when they need that "extra boost."

Here's a photo I just took in my kitchen sink:

Ok, now I'm going to crop it to improve the look:

A couple more changes can make it look even better:

• Color Levels
• Brightness & Contrast

I'm using Photoshop Elements 6 – but you can make these changes in ANY photo editing program! I'm just going to cover a few basic edits.  Your screen may look a bit different with different software, but all photo editing programs have these options in some fashion.

Adjust Color Levels (Red, Green, Blue)

In the majority of cases, I drop the color (make it darker).  That's my personal preference.

I dropped the entire RGB (all 3 color levels at one time) below 1.00:

Result:

You can also play with each Color Level separately…

A Little More Blue (actually lightens):

Result:

A Little Less Blue (means more yellow, darker):

I like that. (Remember, this is all very subjective – play and see what YOU like.)

Brightness & Contrast:

I often Drop Brightness and Raise Contrast:

Result:

There are certainly many more things you can change and tweak, and you should play with your software to discover them, but even just changing those few things will make a big difference in your finished product.

I did one final crop, and now we can compare the Photo that came out of my camera with the Photo that I edited:

Which one do you like better?

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