What you would do (#1)

[Nicole]

This is the first post in what will hopefully be a weekly series of posts.

xxpinballxx made the suggestion (http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2351) that with all the people who are really good at post-processing stuff, we could start a series of threads where a photo is posted per week, and we all can do what we want to edit the photo and explain what was done to it. This will teach people new ways to post-process and give people some new ideas.

So, the rules are simple:
Threads will be posted on Tuesdays (US time)
If you want your picture to be used in one of these threads, send me a PM with links to a medium sized file for posting, and a large and / or raw file (it will keep everything organized)
If you post an edit in the thread, please also post what you've done to it :) That's it, do what you would to edit it.I mean, that's pretty simple, right?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our first picture was submitted by jmadigan (http://www.jmadigan.net).

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/204/509805593_88914785fb.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8435129@N02/509805593/)

Large Size (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=509805593&size=l) (1024x681)
Raw File (http://www.jmadigan.net/photos/dps/sam_rain/sam_rain_RAW.CR2) (7.2MB)

Ok guys, show us what you can do :D

[Teewinot]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7845858@N05/510199940/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/204/510199940_893f118a11.jpg" width="500" height="480" alt="What you would do #1" /></a>

What a cutie! Certainly not the expert here, I decided to play around with the “antiquing” angle.

What I did (in Paint Shop Pro 8):
1. Duplicated layer
2. Applied a Gaussian Blur to the duplicate layer
3. Chose ‘Overlay’ blend mode with a 75% opacity
4. ‘Colorized’ the original layer: Chose a yellowish/sepia color and gave it minimal saturation.
5. Cropped the image to a square.
6. Added noise
7. Created a mask around the edge and used fill tool with a color found on the girl’s jacket to create a mild vignette.
8. Applied a Gaussian Blur to the mask
9. Added a white border

This was fun! Can’t wait to see what others come up with!

[eflouret]

Great effect Teewinot! Here's mine...

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/imagenes/varios/girl-low.jpg

High Resolution version here (in jpg format) (http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/imagenes/varios/girl-high.jpg)

I also played with the image until something came up.

1) IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS (30 1 230)

2) FILTER > BLUR > SMART BLUR (100 100 HIGH NORMAL)

3) FILTER > SHARPEN > UNSHARP MASK (60 80 0)

4) FILTER > SHARPEN > SHARPEN MORE

5) FILTER > BLUR > SMART BLUR (100 100 HIGH NORMAL)

6) FILTER > NOISE > MEDIAN (1)

In step 4, the Sharpen More filter gives a lot of detail to the hair, and the Median filter in step 6 gives everything a "vectorized" look.

Here's a closeup of the face:

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/imagenes/varios/girl-close.jpg

Who's next?

[Digidave]

eflouret, Very cool effect!http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_1_55.gif

[xxpinballxx]

I want my computer back so I can play with this one...great shot to start off with. Sorry Nicole for not getting a photo to you Im having difficulties. Hope to get on this one soon. Great start so far....good job you guys!

[Nicole]

No worries xxpinballxx :) You're on deck for next week then... if your computer is fixed :D

BTW, great effort so far everyone! Some good really good results :)

[Tiberius]

I saw eflouret's technique, and thought that looks pretty good, so I followed his instructions and used that as a base to make a watercolour effect.

Follow the instructions in eflouret's post. Duplicate the layer twice. On the top layer, go to FILTER, BLUR, MOTION BLUR and set a motion blur at 90 degrees (so it's going up and down). The amount to use depends on the size of the image, but I used 20 pixels. However, this leaves the eyes, mouth and nostrils blurred, so create a layer mask on the blurred layer and use a black brush with a low opacity to let some of the unblurred eyes, mouth and nostrils from the layer beneath to show through. Don't do it too much, otherwise the watercolour effect on't come across on the eyes, and it looks really freaky. Just use it to define the outlines of the eyes, mouth and nostrils a little. Don't worry about getting it right straight away, because you can come back and adjust it later. Now, create a new layer that is on top of all the other layers and fill it with white. Now create a layer mask on your white layer. Select a brush that looks like a paintbrush (so not your standard round brush, but one with a bit of texture), set the opacity way down to about 10-15%, set the brush size to a fairly large brush (about 100 pixels works pretty well in this case) and start painting on the whaite layer's layermask in short downward strokes.Keep the brush strokes within the basic shapes though - for instance, I kept the strokes of the umbrella outside the strokes I used to show her face through. A bit of overlap is fine though. Don't worry about being too neat, and don't worry if you don't go all the way to the edges. It actually looks better if it's a bit messy. Now, reduce your brush size a little and increase the opacity (i brought mine up to about 50%), and go over the subject and other areas that you want to define a little more. Then repeat the same process; short downward strokes, keeping confined to the shapes. Keep going until you are happy.If you want, you can reduce the opacity of the blurred layer a bit to bring out the details a bit more.

And here's the result I got from this, bearing in mind I did a rushed job.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c49/Tiberius47/509805593_88914785fb_bcopy.jpg

[JJthethird]

As a newcomer to PP I thought that I would experiment. The look that I was going for was the graphic novel type illustration.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jjthethird/510673651/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/223/510673651_d83954b829.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="DPS project" /></a>

Using Elements 5.0

1. Duplicate layer
2. Remove colour
3. Invert
4. Add gaussian blur- about 11
5. Overlay. This made the colours brighter.
6. Then I merged the layers down.
7. I then added poster edges, setting the brush,edge thickness to suit.
8. Then cropped the image.
9. I then used adjust colour for skintone to get a comicbook type skin.

I havent done much of this before so I understand that it wont be up to the standard of most but I fancied giving it a go.

John.:D

[Teewinot]

JJthethird,

Nice job! I really like this. I also really find this crop effective. I toyed with leaving those far right branches in, but ended up going with the square crop because it better fit my technique. However, in your case, the crop really works! I like how the subject has somewhere to look with her eyes.

Thanks for sharing!

[xxpinballxx]

still trying to get my laptop working...only PC with CS i got...UGHHH!
Nice work...I really like Tibs. I think it gives it a whole new look. Not that the others don't just a dreamy watercolored look.
I can't wait to play with this photo....anyone know alot about laptops?

[Angela]

You people are amazing and highly skilled in making changes.

I aspire to be photoshop proficient like the lot of you one day!

[tzimmerman]

Here is my attempt, just a crop, rainbow, and subtle eye enhancement.

To do the rainbow.....I created a new layer, and use the gradient tool with the rainbow selection in a radial gradiant to make the curve, then I duplicated the background layer....erased out the area behind her.

Eye enhancement I used a technique I found in another forum, i saved their instructions.

It's called "Eye Pop". You do it in photoshop with a layer mask. You duplicate the layer and change the style to color dodge- or any that look good (just look at the eyes- ignore everything else). Then "Layer". "Layer Mask", "Hide all". Change your forground color to white, select a brush and start painting away at those eyeballs. The layer that you masked will start to show up. Fiddle with opasity and hardness until you get the result you want.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s179/tlzimmerman56/509805593_88914785fb_bcopy.jpg

I love the idea to this forum.....I am very novice in retouching and using layer masks and stuff......I think there is an easier way to select a background and erase it out but I just go use my eraser and feather it alot :P. Looking forward to learning alot on how to use masks and such.

[xxpinballxx]

I like it! SO far for a starter thread this one is going pretty well if I must say so myself. Now just waiting to see someone really turn it into something else entirely!

[Teewinot]

tzimmerman...I like it too! It works so well with the umbrella and the girl's eyes peering beyond!

[jmadigan]

Wow, very cool everyone. Keep 'em coming!

I like the special effects, but I'm kind of surprised nobody has taken the tract of just making an improved traditional photo. If I can post about my own photo, here's what I did along those lines:

Original, out of camera:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/204/509805593_88914785fb.jpg

After post processing:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/212/510274503_0040796127.jpg (http://flickr.com/photos/hjmadigan/510274503/)

Step 1. I started off thinking the whole thing was kind of overexposed and undersaturated. So I used Adobe Camera Raw to make some global changes to contrast and saturation. I also selectively boosted the saturation in the magenta range to make her raincoat and umbrella pop.

Step 2. This made the background way too saturated and contrasty, though, so I brought it into Photoshop and created curves and hue/saturation adjustment layer masks using the lasso tool and paintbrushes. These I used to desaturate and darken the background.

Step 3. I then wanted her purple umbrella to stand out a little more, so I created another hue/saturation layer mask to tweak that.

Step 4. Next, I thought her face was a little dark, thanks to being under the umbrella. So I created a final curves adjustment layer mask and brightened it a bit.

Step 5. Finally, I used the clone stamp tool to clone out the little bit of metal at the top left of the umbrella, because I found it distracting.

But like I said, I like the other special effects showing up here too. I also really like the crop in tzimmerman's entry. If I were to do it over again I'd do a similar one.

[Nicole]

Of course you can edit your own photos :) No reason why not :)

[tzimmerman]

Wow....those are 2 completely different photos. I wish I knew how to improve saturation and contrast like that.....my camera doesn't shoot in raw so I will have to figure out how to do it in photoshop.

[jiminyClickit]

From first look, it appeared the eyes were unusually turned in, so that's where I concentrated effort. Started with a portrait crop, but when zooming in, this area seemed essentially "her." The eyes were redefined by brush, catchlight repositioned, eye on left lightened, left side of face darkened some.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/511785303/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/212/511785303_a82d2a1a13.jpg" width="500" height="365" alt="1WYWD" /></a>

[xxpinballxx]

nice jiminy thats where I would concentrate and edit too the eyes. I hope to get my computer working today so I can edit this one.

[xxpinballxx]

okay I got my computer somewhat working...here is my first attempt
I cropped out what i didnt want to see then dodged out the umbrella mast and some of the white sky on the right side of the pic.
Also there were a couple hairs standing out to me so got rid of them. I then softened and adjusted levels a bit.
I softened the total image which I think took away some from her eyes but gave it a more soft "child-like" photo.

http://xxpinballxx.zoints.com/image/62156-samseyes

[xxpinballxx]

Here is another attempt. I took her outof the picture creating a layer and taking the color all the way down in that layer. Then i used the ethereal glow to give it the dream like look....
http://xxpinballxx.zoints.com/image/62296-samagain

[Flippant]

well i just tried to do something simple:

applied curves just to the girl, and desat and darkened the background slightly:
http://lh5.google.com/image/shaunkt/Rlb8EzffkZI/AAAAAAAAAAs/DgHg2Ao8XN0/s400/dps_1_colour.jpg

pumped up the sat by using a duplicated overlay and converted to b&w using channel mixer:
http://lh6.google.com/image/shaunkt/Rlb8GDffkaI/AAAAAAAAAA0/T6VuNKefvQY/s400/dps_1_bw.jpg

i thought the composition was good as is. if i took this pic i would have been very happy.

[ELAY]

What a great idea for a thread.

Hats off to those who have gone before; here's my effort at something of a mildly gritty, antique look.

1. Slight crop to move subject left and get a bit closer.

2. A bit of curves adjustment to get the face a bit brighter (judging from the end result, though, should have paid a bit more attention here -- oh well, jmadigan has taken us all to school re levels and curves adjustments).

3. Orton effect, followed by a bit of desaturation to bring the colours back down a bit.

4. Duplicate background, convert to BW (I just desaturated for this) and then tint with sepia. Blend this layer on either hard or soft light (i forget).

5. Add film grain, and paste the fake through-the-lens frame into a new layer, blended on darken only.

Somewhere in there I lightened the eyes a little bit too, by making a duplicate layer, lightening with curves, then masking transparent and painting the eyes back in.

I work in Gimp, but I think this will translate well enough. Most (all?) of these steps were cribbed from 3rd Foundation over at flickr -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/3rdfoundation

EL

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/67761809@N00/513833311/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/230/513833311_ce49c15d1f.jpg" width="500" height="357" alt="Umbrella girl" /></a>

[hitkaiser]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/513871256/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/215/513871256_0ea29b3951.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="sam_rain_hitkaiser b&amp;w" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/513898489/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/221/513898489_b2a0c9d01b.jpg" width="361" height="500" alt="sam_rain_hitkaiser" /></a>

· Took RAW file and opened up in Adobe RAW plugin.
Increased exposure slider (hitting alt key to check I wasn't overdoing it)
Increased "Recovery" slider till red lines on histograms were greatly reduced
Increased blacks, again hitting alt key to check I wasn't overdoing it
Bumped up vibrance & saturation
Removed all options of sharpening and noise reduction
Cropped to make portrait orientation

· Opened up the file in photoshop
Adjusted levels and curves to boost contrast slightly
Applied Noiseware filter to remove grain
Selected (and feathred) Eyes, applied unsharp mask

And voila...

for the b&w I went back to the RAW, chose monochrome.. greatly bumped blacks and exposure and did the whole eye sharpening thing again. Removed noise with noiseware.

[jmadigan]

Nice job, hitkaiser. I like your color one better than mine. The portrait cropping loses something of the umbrella (I just like the color and how it cuts across most of the top 1/3 of the frame in the uncropped version), but yours feels much tighter and eliminates the distracting background without losing the message that this is a little girl playing in the rain.

[trelaflip]

here is my attempt. only working on 5 hours of sleep so im not sure about it lol

http://www.jasongrover.com/cabinet/sam_rain_RAW.jpg

now that i look at it i wish i would of gone portrait style instead.

[komalthecoolk]

I wanted to focus on making the image look like it was really a cloudy/rainy day.

Made a layer copy of the original. Desaturated the background a bit and gave it a slightly bluish-green tinge.

Erased the part with the kid in it and adjust the saturation a bit so that the whole pic looks dark/rainy but the kid still looks colourful.

Added a slight vignetting effect and adjusted the curves jussssst a bit.

CLICK FOR A LARGER IMAGE

<a href="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13/komalthecoolk/kid2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13/komalthecoolk/kid3.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

[evran]

Original:
http://desi.thriceshy.com/images/2887sam_rain_RAW.jpg

Edit:
http://desi.thriceshy.com/images/147sam_rain_edit.jpg

Alright well spent about an hour or so on this edit using both adobe camera raw and photoshop cs3

Camera RAW:
- Custom WB settings with a little warmer tone
- Increased black areas to ensure colored areas showed up a little more vibrantly
- increased vibrance slightly and lowerd saturation to give it a midtonal range of colors
- Tone curve was edited similarly to the medium contrast settings
- Really worked on the Hues to set the base colors
- Added a little vignette in lens correction setting but mostly did it manually in photoshop later
- In the camera calibration settings, I only worked on the saturations of each primary to get the tones I wanted
- Saved & opened in photoshop


Photoshop:
Not really sure how to explain this part without telling you guys exactly what I did, mostly layer adjustments were made

- started out w/ gradient maps to set colors on certain parts of the shot
- increased exposure and gamma settings
- neutral colors were adjusted on relative method setting
- first set of gaus blur for the background + mask
- levels + curves + color balances
- smudge
- second set of gaus blurs + mask
- curve + mask
- sharpen + mask
- the end


edit//
- was wondering if I could post this on my flickr, will credit the original photographer
- just realized how zombish I made her look :(

[rachel_r]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelrusinski/526532897/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1093/526532897_f957fb882e.jpg" width="500" height="359" alt="sam_rain_new" /></a>


I went with a more traditional portrait look. Here is what I did:

RawShooter:
· Color Temp: 6350
· Tint: 4
· Highlight Contrast: 15
· Hue: 25
· Sharpness: 6
· Noise suppression: 4
· All other settings default

Photoshop
1. Rotate & crop
2. Eyes Layer
a. Dodge Whites
b. Burn edge on iris
c. Dodge inner iris
d. Burn eyelashes
3. Brightened left side of face to match right (partial screen layer @ 40%)
4. Sharpen eyes
5. Layer
a. Filter - Median – 10
b. Layer opacity– 50%
c. Layer mask- Mask out areas that need to stay sharp – eyes, mouth, nostrils etc
6. Filter – Diffuse Glow
a. Grain – 0, Glow Amt – 1, Clear Amt - 15

[xhan]

TBH I'd do absolutely nothign with that photo its great! No amount of money would make me put a filter on it!!

I could desaturate and up the contrast but thats it!

[JJthethird]

[QUOTE=rachel_r;24420]<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelrusinski/526532897/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1093/526532897_f957fb882e.jpg" width="500" height="359" alt="sam_rain_new" /></a>

Very nice job Rachel, the eyes are very....well eyecatching. Nice work.

John.:)

[mikem12188]

rachel r

Haven't seen any of your work in awhile, welcome back.