Ribbit! An experiment in photo manipulation

Earlier this summer, I was on vacation in Kure Beach and we went to a nature center. I shot this photo of a frog behind glass. I kinda like the composition and the little guy’s expression, but there is nothing too exciting about the noisiness, muted color or lack of sharpness. The noise in the background might be a little hard to see at this size, but it’s there. You can click the photos so see them a bit bigger.

Since it is labor day, I have been moderately unproductive, and so I have been messing around with this photo, and the result is kinda neat. Now I can’t remember exactly what I did, but I’ve been playing a lot with filters and a little bit with channels in photoshop. What I was able to come up with is a less noisy and more colorful background combined with a sharper and almost surreal looking textured frog. Click the photo to see a little more of the detail. It also really brings him forward in the photo. I titled it ribbit!, for fun and maybe a little bit for irony. Unfortunately, everything I did was at a pretty small size. So if I wanted to use it for anything else I would need to try and reproduce it. Ah well…it was fun. : )