Making your subject pop

I've recently been playing with a plugin from Nik Software and wanted to give you a very quick introduction to this plugin and what it can do to make your subject pop out of your photo.

The following image was taken today at Graig-Y-Nos, South Wales. I saw this little robin sitting on a wooden handrail and took a quick shot.

Before



After



I thought I'd give the little robin some PS treatment as he was looking a little lost there compared to the vibrance of the background and to do this I used the Viveza plugin from Nik Software.

This is not a detailed tutorial but I wanted to share with you how quickly you can make something pop in an image using this excellent plugin.

Firstly, I created a copy of the layer not to destroy the original photo.



Then chose the Viveza plugin from my filters menu.



With Viveza open, I next needed to add a control point.



I placed the control point at the centre of the robin and using the light small gray dot, I then clicked and held the dot and moved my mouse until the circular mask was just about the size of the robin.



Next, I adjusted the brightness to 59%.



I then added more contrast to bring out extra detail in the robin.



Finally, I then chose to add more saturation to the area to bring out the colours a lot more.



There are a whole lot more settings you can use but you can see from the final image below how quick it was to really bring this little bird more into the foreground.



To find out more about Viveza and what it can do, you get further details from Nik Software:

Nik Software, Inc. | Viveza