What would you do (#3)

[Nicole]

Before I start out the thread this week, I'm putting out a call for people who want their pictures to appear in one of these threads. If you want to have a picture in our weekly edit thread, please PM me a link to a medium and large size of the picture. Come on guys, if you want this thread again next week, I'm gonna need another shot to post ;) Ok. Now, on to the thread:

Well, this week, we have a picture from our top poster, JiminyClickit (http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/).

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/208/511206876_b8305a4ad1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/511206876/)

Large: Available here (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/208/511206876_9b2f9e1c33_o.jpg)

Once you've done your edits on the picture, come back and post it in this thread, and give us and explanation of what you've done. I'm looking forward to seeing what this week brings! Come on, impress me :D

[Tiberius]

First, I brightened the image by duplicating the layer and setting the blend mode to screen. I did this seven times and merged the layers. This fixed the exposure, but it left the flowers over exposed. To repair that, I went into shadows/highlights and set the shadows slider to zero and the highlights slider to maximum, reducing the exposure for the highlights and pulling a bit more detail back into what had become blown out. Then I created a selective colour adjustment layer to bring out the colour of the bee. However, this changed the colour of the plants as well, so I created a layer make to limit the effects. Then, deciding that the bee was a little too dark, I duplicated the background layer and used levels to make it brighter. Then I created a layer mask and copied the layer mask from the selective colour layer onto the new layer mask.

Oh, and I cropped it too. :p

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c49/Tiberius47/511206876_9b2f9e1c33_o.jpg

[evran]

http://desi.thriceshy.com/images/1731jiminyclickit_edt.jpg

Editied in PS CS3
- Reduced size to 50% + crop
- Brightened the flowers first using: curves & increasing the exposure
- Lowered the gamma so the flower area would "pop"out more
- Adjusted a color balance layer to make flowers "pop" out even more
- Blurred background
- Masked the flower areas
- Added gradients in lighten mode to shade out the darker areas
- Lowered saturation & set to soft light to darken the background
- More gradient layers (in lighten mode) to soften the dark background
- Added border + type block
- Added type
- Sharpened

[hitkaiser]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hitkaiser/531262164/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1089/531262164_0014495185.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="jiminiclickit" /></a>

Cropped
Levels - to make things brighter
Curves - to increase contrast
Noiseaware - remove nosie
UnsharpMask
Increase saturation

I think that's it..

[Tiberius]

Evran, yours would look incredible if you brought out the bee as well as the flowers and had them both on the dark background.

[xxpinballxx]

okay I took the bee out and adjusted te saturation hue and contrast.
Took the flower out and did the same.
Then i took the saturation down to get rid of any color.
Merged the layers and then cloned out the wandering pedals of the flower.
Was a quick ten minute job but here it is......
http://xxpinballxx.zoints.com/image/63125-beesm

[blzrd]

okay I took the bee out and adjusted te saturation hue and contrast.
Took the flower out and did the same.
Then i took the saturation down to get rid of any color.
Merged the layers and then cloned out the wandering pedals of the flower.
Was a quick ten minute job but here it is......
http://xxpinballxx.zoints.com/image/63125-beesm

I absolutely love the tint of the flowers on this crop.

[jiminyClickit]

Great to see a challenge met, and I'm not surprised to see the successful results so far. My goal when first trying to get something out of this was to keep the wing-motion highlights (it was the first I'd ever gotten in any insect - first bee shot actually, a fluke while doing blooms).

This is good work. As Nicole says, she needs more photos for the next weeks' challenges. Find a real stinker and PM Nicole, so the thread goes on!

[Teewinot]

I didn't have a 'vision' going into this one, so I more or less experimented with different effects and until I found some that I liked.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7845858@N05/532613979/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1252/532613979_e1b2e308d6.jpg" width="311" height="500" alt="What you would do #3" /></a>

What I did:
1. I cropped quite a bit. I didn't like the distracting branches in the background, plus I sort of didn't want to keep the bee because I'm not a fan of them. :D
2. I brightened the shot a lot (curves).
3. I duplicated the layer, did a gaussian blur followed by a color mode blend.
4. I flattened the 2 layers and desaturated.
5. I then cloned/painted out the leaf--quite tricky! I did the best I could.
6. Next I cloned/painted out all the background.
7. I played a bit more with contrast/brightness.
8. Finally I decided to add the borders to complement the B&W within the photo.

I'm mostly pleased with the results. And it was a learning experience so that's all that matters. :)

[Teewinot]

My goal when first trying to get something out of this was to keep the wing-motion highlights (it was the first I'd ever gotten in any insect - first bee shot actually, a fluke while doing blooms).

Haha...and that's what I ended up getting rid of...well I did like the wings, but again, I'm not a big fan of bees. My husband is with everyone else. He thinks I should have left the bee in. :p

[xxpinballxx]

tee well tell your husband to get on the computer and make his own...LOL!
I thought about making the wings motion over exagerated ....maybe I'll give that a whirl.

[jiminyClickit]

Teewinot,

It's your vision and work that's important, as long as the experience was rewarding.

[knickers71uk]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/knickers71uk/532978053/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1285/532978053_b151744332.jpg" width="329" height="500" alt="editcompdps" /></a>

Ok this is my try.

1) one step[photo fix in PSP X solved the exposure problem.
2) This left a little too much noise so corrected this using digital noise removal, set at a sensitivity of 50
3)using Virtual photographer plugin I used custom settings of settig film to 400 ASA, photogrphic style:warm and effect clear.
4) again left a little to noisy so I removed the digtal camera noise.
5)Using the freehand tool I highlighted the yellow fuzzy bit of the bee and adjusted the saturaton up to 30.
6)Using these settings: size 50, hardness 50, step 10, density 100, opacity 10 I dodged the wing movement to slightly highlight the movement further.
7) edge preserving smooth (cos they looked slightly jagged to me) set to 5.
8) Cropped it.
9) I add a very subtle vignette, altho my plugin calls it a frosting.


then I added a border taking the colour off the photo to add original copyright

[jiminyClickit]

knickers71uk,

You could almost convince me to switch to PSP.

[Dazyl]

I like several of y'all's edits, and I'm actually with Teewinot about the bee (though I left it in this, since Jiminy said he likes it...)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/polimom/533028688/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1269/533028688_6f8a9b9547.jpg" width="500" height="379" alt="DPS edit dark bee" /></a>

In PSE --

Adjustment layers for both levels and contrast.
Duplicated background layer, reduced noise.
Cropped
Dodge tool on bee
Selected bee and flowers immediately in front of him, created adjustment layer, screened, reduced opacity by about half (creating a very mild vignette).
Selected inverse, created adjustment layer, darkened.
Gradient map layer to Black and White -- reduced opacity to 30%
Hue/saturation adjustment layer -- upped the yellow about 1/3, upped master 18%, reduced lightness a tad.
Merged layers.
Duplicate background to new layer, then did another and screened. Reduce opacity to 50%. Merged down one layer.
Applied Orton:

Duplicate prior level and screen
merge layer down.
Duplicate layer, apply Gaussian blur, multiply.
Modified blur layer opacity to 55%, modified "sharp" (screened) layer to 75%.

Merge layers. One last layer for unsharp mask.


I'm not happy with the flowers immediately in front of the bee. Need to go back into the process and bring those back up more slowly so they don't lose so much detail.

Knickers, I like what you did with the color in your edit!

[knickers71uk]

knickers71uk,

You could almost convince me to switch to PSP.

I have to say Jim that I love PSP have been with it since version 5, also I can use all the photoshop plugins with my PSP, and all I had to do was add a DLL file to my system file to make them work. I would say that 75% of my plugins are photoshop plugins and I always seem to manage to backwards engineer most photoshop tutorials to PSP, its a much cheaper alternative to CS3, and well worth every penny I paid for it.

polimom: "Knickers, I like what you did with the color in your edit!".....why thank you!!

[Teewinot]

knickers71uk, very nice job fixing the light/color. It really looks great!

tee well tell your husband to get on the computer and make his own...LOL!

xxpinballxx, haha, I'll tell him that! In his defense, he was only trying to be helpful of course. :)

It's your vision and work that's important, as long as the experience was rewarding.

jiminy, it was a rewarding experience...thanks for providing the means!

[xxpinballxx]

I'm sure he was teewinot. Nice to have someone supporting you. my wife doesn't understand all my time on her ereading and "playing" with pictures.

[ladytx]

I did the edit in Paint Shop Pro:

1. Duplicated layer
2. Took saturation all the way down
3. Added a layer and put in the light blended on overlay
4. Selected out the bee from the original
5. Turned down the saturation on him
6. Darkened the rest of the picture with the histogram

My purpose obviously was to highlight the bee in the picture.


<img src="http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m46/ladytx/beeedit.jpg">

[xxpinballxx]

ladytx,
you are the winner in my opinion. I love it! Never would have expected this type of shot!
Kudos!

[Clusty]

Opened the pic is Camera Raw CS3
Adjusted brightness, exporsure, blacks, contrast, etc., etc., etc..
Duplicated the background layer
Applied a Gaussian Blur with a radius of 2.0
Set the layer's blending mode to Soft Light
Used the "Dodge and Burn" Method on the top part of the flower
Cropped


There you have it!

http://h1.ripway.com/clustyjr/wwyddps.png

[jiminyClickit]

Clusty,

As much as I'd like to see your edit, the first third of your gigantic photo took 5 minutes to download, so I posted this instead.

[Clusty]

Clusty,

As much as I'd like to see your edit, the first third of your gigantic photo took 5 minutes to download, so I posted this instead.
Sorry, I fixed it.

[jiminyClickit]

Clusty, Welcome

Sorry, I have Dialup. It was worth waiting for, sharper than most so far, with a clean, light look. Thanks for resizing. Sometimes it's the website just being sluggish.

[michael-olszak]

wow! cool stuff here. just found this thread. nice one for some practice! here's what i've come up with during work. didn't have much to do so...

http://www.molszak.nl/DPS/bee.jpg

[jiminyClickit]

michael-olszak, Belated Welcome

Thought this was done, but as all threads, it stays as long as there's room. Your edit reminds me of old National Geographic photos, or the Sunday paper rotogravure. Effective and well done.

[michael-olszak]

jiminyClickit - thanks man. I really like the old photo effects. they always have this darkish quality to them.

[windrider86]

Thought I might pull up an old timer. First I played with levels to brighten. Did some selective saturation on the bee. Use the selection tool to create an area around the bee. Image-create frame. Used persepctive mode under the pick tool to reshape. Created drop shadow around the frame. erased parts of the flower i wanted to go over the frame. Fractalious plug in on the bee (this plug in wont allow you to do sections so i had to use a duplicate layer and erase aruond the bee) merged layers. Duplicate again and set mode to multiply to darkent he background. Erased parts I wanted to remina light.
Did a one step noise removal and then sharpened the bee.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alockintime/2695976392/" title="what would you do3 by windrider86, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3228/2695976392_df8758f57c.jpg" width="500" height="458" alt="what would you do3" /></a>

[zetson]

Windrider, I'm lost for words. That is pure excellence! That frame fits perfectly.