What Would You Do (#18)

[Nicole]

It's Tuesday (in NZ at least), so you know what that means... another week of WWYD :)

This week is a picture from tekla, and it's a first for the WWYD threads... underwater photography.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1017/1307314924_1956518713.jpg

Available Larger (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1017/1307314924_1956518713_b.jpg)

Simple rules: Edit the picture how ever you want, come back and post it in the thread with an explanation of what you did so we can all learn from it.

If you want your picture to be the subject of one of these threads, drop me a PM with a link to the medium and large size of the picture, and it will get used in the order it's received (so if you send a picture and it doesn't get used right away, it's still in the queue to be used) :)

Now, who's going to start?

[Tiberius]

I'll go first!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799829@N08/1401920972/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1007/1401920972_fe0d0e32cf.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="WWYD Underwater" /></a>

First I adjusted the levels to get rid of the slightly washed out feel (pun unintended, I assure you). Then I adjusted the colour balance, dragging the slider all the way over to the red. Then I applied the dark strokes filter, then dragged on a black and white layer that formed the border - where the picture shows is black, outside the picture is white, and shades of grey are the partially transparent parts of the image. This layer was set to Lighten so the picture would show through the black areas. Then I added a canvasy texture to give it the painting feel.

[snapdragon]

I upped the contrast & tone mapped , played with the color & did a graguated tint to brighten the top & did B&W focal to bring the focus up ,croped a little of the B&W area , sharpened the fish eyes and some of the closer fish to create more depth & smoothed the speckels 75 % to clear up the photo . It is a neat photo I enjoyed playing with this one , not the best at photo editing & I used more steps than needed i am sure ,hope you like it .<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/rightleftbroken/UNDERWATER/photo?authkey=Wtapd69xxjM#5111514650929391026"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rightleftbroken/Ru-_fjjZ5bI/AAAAAAAACiI/9SX_wdBfy2Y/s400/1307314924_1956518713_b__tonemapped.jpg" /></a>

[matthewchj]

Circular Fisheye lens!!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1430/1401680411_a0566b3010.jpg

1. Despeckled (x3)
2. Levels
3. Brightness/Contrast
4. Add extra canvas to facilitate distortion
5. Free transform-Warp: Change into circular shape
6. Spherize
7. Crop, Resize canvas to 3:2 aspect ratio
8. Fill empty canvas with black
9. Unsharp Mask

[vgal]

This is my first attempt at the WWYD thread. I couldn't think of anything particularly creative or clever, so I just tried to brighten the photo up a bit.

http://www.vgal.net/images/underwater.jpg


Copied and pasted photo in new layer (so I had a bottom layer and a top layer)
Adjusted curves of top layer to bring out the colors more, and adjusted levels to re-brighten the photo
Gaussian blur on top layer at 5px, set blending mode to overlay and reduced opacity to 40%
Dust and scratches filter on bottom layer at default settings
Sharpened bottom layer a whole lot with unsharp mask (enough so that it looked very unnatural on its own)
Used Film Grain filter on bottom layer, settings Grain 1, Highlight Area 0, Intensity 1

[Hugo]

First duplicated the image onto another layer and set to multiply to darken a bit.
Then, added a curves adjustment layer as outlined in a photoshopusertv podcast, where the idea is to give the skin back its normal flesh tones. Adjusted the red curve and the blue curve.
Finally, added a level adjustment and adjusted all values to histogram.

[cjbnc]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjbnc/1402320011/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1080/1402320011_38c2ed4e70.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="edited underwater photo" /></a>

I liked the composition of the original. The two problems that I saw were the large amount of sediment in the water and the color balance, so that's what I fixed.

Remove the larger sediment with...
Filter - Noise - Dust and Scratches... (radius = 2pixels, threshold = 6levels)

Remove the smaller dust noise with Neat Image (auto settings)

Adjust the colors of the result with...
New Adjustment Layer - Curves (click auto, then use the midpoint color balance dropper to find a neutral gray off the mask)
New Adjustment Layer - Hue/Saturation (saturation +35 only for the reds in the suit)
New Adjustment Layer - Curves (made a linear shift to brighten the midtones and compress the long highlights tail)

[odark30]

Applied Color boost, duplicate layer, gaussian blur/hue Saturation to bring out highlights and black edges. Polar co-ordinates rotate canvas, polar co-ordinates again. Add solid layer color under orb. Flatten Image... Hope I didn't forget anything!
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/50027271@N00/1403398832/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1374/1403398832_baa3da0c91.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="WWYD.jpg" /></a>

[Teewinot]

GOAL:
No real goal this time, just played around until I saw something I liked.

What I did (in Paint Shop Pro 8):
-Unsharp mask (radius 75, strength 30)...three times
-Saturation boost (~10)
-Curves adjustment (increased brightness)
-Duplicated Layer
-Applied gaussian blur (60)
-Layer blend mode DIFFERENCE at 100%
-Merged layers
-Curves adjustment (increased brightness)
-Added borders

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7845858@N05/1402798655/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1295/1402798655_4e35b515c7.jpg" width="500" height="389" alt="What you would do #18" /></a>

[Nicole]

Wow, fantastic guys! I think this is one of the best responses we've had! And so quick too :) Keep it up!

[Teewinot]

...and Nicole, you are getting dangerously close to 2,000 posts! :)

[Flippant]

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/shaunkt/RetouchingAssignmentsUploadedToDPS/photo?authkey=26N5Weqv7Fg#5111637298050044178"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/shaunkt/RvAvCjrpERI/AAAAAAAABKQ/4nlrb3p3H_Q/s400/fish.jpg" /></a>
kind of cliche i guess. dont have a good handwriting font.
removed noise, levels, hue/sat, added grain, overlay vingette, crop and polaroid effect.

[Nicole]

...and Nicole, you are getting dangerously close to 2,000 posts! :)

Really? (http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showthread.php?p=56072) ;)

Flippant: love what you did with the photo!

[hpebley3]

<a href="http://www.zooomr.com/photos/hpebley3/3298675/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.zooomr.com/images/3298675_7204bef320.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="WWYD 18" /></a>

I roughly followed the tutorial found <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/serrator/153507433/">here</a>.

[Nicole]

Oh, neat looking hpebley :)

[tekla]

WOW! Amazing transformations! I'm now all full understanding and trying what you guys did to the photo. Thanks a lot and keep them coming :D

Nicole - I'd hardly call the original shot "underwater photography" but the post processed ones beg to disagree.

In case any one's interested, the shot is from the water-proof, shock-proof little Olympus 770SW. Since we've had it, there were no more "might get wet, get sand or get lost" concerns when bringing a camera to the beach and everyone, including the little ones, are clicking away.

BUT while shooting underwater, one can't see the LCD screen, so out goes composition and in comes approximation and luck. And there is the sediment-looking or cloudy film over the shots even when the water is actually all clear... But still there are a lot of possibilities and I'm thinking this is one of the cases where post-processing IS the key.

THANKS ALL for the lessons! I'm sure to apply these to promising past and future underwater shots. And again, keep them coming...

[peeperita]

teewinot....that's just beautiful......

now for my own less inspired shot at it.....
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10338505@N05/1410414486/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1342/1410414486_a92749d2a9.jpg" width="500" height="347" alt="1307314924_1956518713_bb" /></a>

reset the points in levels......reduced the noise as much as i could and then unhappy with the results...did it again...masked out my favorite fish and tweaked the blues and cyan.......screwed around with the yellows and reds so that the yellow of the mask didn't compete with the rest and the flesh seemed somewhat normal.....sharpened that puppy....then a slight vignette of deepest blue

[campc07]

http://inlinethumb47.webshots.com/17646/2296198940101615738S600x600Q85.jpg

I love to play around with color.
PSE2
1. Levels
2. Contrast
3. USM
4. Invert
5. Accentuated Edges

[bahgheera]

She looks like she's swimming in an ocean of sangria... :D

[xxpinballxx]

okay I did one....real quick but had some ideas if i had more time....
http://xxpinballxx.zoints.com/image/70506-fish

I just selected a few fish and the female and inverted the selection. did a cutout filter on the rest of the background and then blue'd the waters up a bit and despeckled.

[windrider86]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alockintime/1429926107/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1310/1429926107_ffb6a4fbf4.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="what would you do" /></a>
First thing I did was to remove some of the noise. Then played with the saturation and contrast a bit. Then I duplcated the layer and set it to screen, duplacted it again and then did a gaussian blur set on 9. I tehn changed to to mulitiply and lowered the opacity to about 85. Then merged them. I then added the bubbles effect and this is my finished product

[nzgmw]

Great photo so I'm not keen for any major changes. Using auto tones in PS made a huge improvement. From there I lifted saturation, contrast and removed noise with Dust and Scratches removal. Final I darkened edges in curves to put more emphasis on the centre.