What Would You Do (#23)

[Nicole]

Really, I did delay this week's WWYD on purpose after I was so late posting it last week. I wanted to give it an extra day so that it got the full attention it should. Next week we should be back to it being posted on Tuesday :p

This week we have a picture from cjbnc of a bird coming in for a landing.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/1485136335_4cbc5f992e.jpg

Available Larger (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/1485136335_4fcd67695a_o.jpg)

The rules are simple as always. Make your edits to the picture and come back and share what you've done. Also, don't forget to post what you've actually done so that we can learn from everyone's edits. That's what makes the thread so much fun. Not only do you get to try something new, but you may also learn from everyone else :)

If you want your picture to be the subject of one of these threads or you have any questions about how the thread works, drop me a PM (and include a link to the medium and larger version of the picture if you want it to be used in the threads).

Now, go forth and edit! ;)

[MikeM]

Ahh so blurry!

I cropped then selected the bird and made a new layer from him which I motion blurred. I also adjusted levels and curves and did some unsharp mask. I was trying to emphasize the blur of the bird over the rest of the photo.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12058571@N06/1722653224/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2279/1722653224_538340c0d9.jpg" width="388" height="500" alt="WWYD23" /></a>

[cjbnc]

This picture was taken with my D40x, 55-200mm VR lens at 200mm, handheld. The bird landed on the dam as I was photographing. It was an overcast morning, so the light is pretty bad and the shutter is slow (1/8s) and blurry.

I thought the softness gave it a surreal sort of quality that might be worth keeping. For my own rendition, I tried to enhance that a bit... making it into an impressionist style painting.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjbnc/1485136349/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/1485136349_706051d882.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Heron painterly" /></a>

Roughly, what I did was:

- crop
- curves adjustment to fix contrast range and white-balance.
- add 3-layer Orton effect, using my RawExpose method, and masking out some of the blurred layer on the heron
- another curves adjustment, to fix the contrast after Orton-izing
- apply Photoshop's Paint Daubs filter
- duplicate Daubs layer, blend mode soft light, opacity 70%

[Delta]

This stopped being a photograph for me the second it hit the board in photoshop, mostly because I feel like it's unfinished AS a photograph--namely because of the blur. But it's NOT unfinished as a portrait of an unfinished painting!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11313530@N06/1728695785/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2172/1728695785_1764f5442e.jpg" width="500" height="335" alt="Bird Landingfixsmall" /></a>

A brief description (with vague details):

-First things first: Levels and smart sharpen with a gaussian blur effect. I cranked the thing way, way up.

-I bled the color using Photoshop's drippy watercolor brush (which turned out to be my weapon of choice) by turning down the opacity to about 70%, selecting white for my color and using saturation, hue and color for my brush blend styles. This fluxuated as needed in order to get the effects I wanted. By fluctuated, I mean that I adjusted the opacity anywhere from 30-70% in some places.

-Then, looking at the original, I added the colors BACK by base--blue for water, autumn hues for the trees and whatnot. You can see the flucuations in the fullness of color, as the left side of the portrait is more complete than the rest.

-To give it that "painted" feeling, I raised my opacity and used a normal brush type to spalsh a few deeper hues onto the upper right section of the frame and left them there.

-That left the bird and the tree behind him. I bled all the color there.

-Now for the fun part: Duplicated layer >> type: Overlay. Made it darker.

-Used a watercolor filter on the top layer, then backed it down as needed by adjusting the opacity of the layer.

-Applied a gradient with a dark blue on the left and white on the right to suck the color out just a bit more and give a more complete feel to the left side.

-Finally, to help get the green reflections out of the waterfall, I drew a box around it and did a selective hue / saturation drain on the greens. The graident I'd done before did most of the worth, and photoshop didn't want to read the leaves as green. So I tweaked it a little more with color balance.

And there you have it--I think.

Enjoy!

[windrider86]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alockintime/1728855085/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2111/1728855085_7a14ea9e3a.jpg" width="340" height="422" alt="assignment" /></a>
* Cropped
* duplicated to saturation and raised the saturation levels
* dupilcated - screen
* duplicated screen again
* duplicated added gaussian blur at 9.5 pixels
* duplicated again to mulitply
* merged all
* zoomed in and painted over bird with a white at about 35 opcaity and then smudged the edges
* added borders

[Delta]

* added borders

Which I love. Good job with the borders. The green stripe really jives with the way you've got the shot arranged. Wish I'd have thought to do that.

:D

[Teewinot]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7845858@N05/1733848766/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2292/1733848766_2c18453717.jpg" width="500" height="396" alt="What you would do #23" /></a>

GOAL: Make it look like an oil painting (the first solution I could think of for the blur).

What I did (in PSP XI):
-Cropped significantly to highlight the bird more
-Unsharp mask (Radius 75, strength 50) for contrast
-Applied a brush strokes filter (can't remember exact settings)
-Increased saturation to make it more colorful
-Adjusted histogram midtones to boost contrast just a bit more.
-Added ornate picture frame and changed mat color to go with photo.

[peeperita]

i wanted this to be a painting as well....although something went awry on the upload to flickr as this image looks far darker than it did in ps.....i had a crash last weekend and had to get a new box and reload everything....if someone has some insight to this problem, i sure would appreciate a reply....

anyway, here it is...

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10338505@N05/1777689917/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2140/1777689917_a7603b5e82.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="1485136335_4fcd67695a_obb" /></a>

i cropped with a slight adjustment to the leveling of the frame...used levels and shadows/highlights to make the water appear less white...sharpened....duplicated the layer....used the dry brush filter and set it to overlay to pop out the colors...decreased the opacity of this layer...the blues started bothering me so i used a color adjustment layer of orange, set to color and decreased the opacity....added a vignette on a seperate layer and again used the overlay blending to help seperate the water as it fell....freaked out about the bits of sky in the upper left of the frame and went back, cloning it out of the first two layers....

i'm so bummed that this image went so dark when it uploaded.....:(

thanks

peeper

[Nicole]

If you reloaded all your programs and it's all dark now when you upload, did you make sure that you're saving your pictures in sRGB if your program has color profiles? It might just be that you changed it on your old box and forgot. :)

[peeperita]

thanks for being there, nicole...i'm not sure that i follow you....

i started nosing around my computer and realized that when i open an image in ps and then opened the same image with my viewer, that the two do not match up....the viewer image looks just like what's appearing on flickr......

care to keep holding an old lady's hand on this?

[Nicole]

Sure, what program are you using for a start? :p

[peeperita]

nicole,i know i love you now, girl.....adobe cs2

thanks

peeper

[Nicole]

Ok, this is easy enough then actually :D I'm running CS3, but I doubt if anything is significantly different.

If you go to Edit -> Color Settings, you can change the default color space that it works and saves in (even if you don't quite get this, keep reading :p).

If most of what you are doing involves putting pictures online, then change your "Working Space" for RGB to "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" (or something that looks really similar to that). Now, look around that window and you see where it says "Color Management Policies"? For RGB select "Convert to Working RGB". There are 3 checkboxes under that area too, and if you want it to give you warnings when converting the file, then you can leave those checked. Otherwise you can uncheck them. Then click OK. Next time you open a file it should open in sRGB. And then when you click to save as, it will embed that profile into the picture, and hopefully the colors should be closer.

If you don't want to have it always set up for the sRGB profile, then you can just click on Edit -> Convert to Profile and convert it to that sRGB one that I mentioned before.

Hopefully that's clear enough, but obviously questions are ok :)

Edit: And in case you're wondering why to change it to sRGB, this is the web standard essentially. Most browsers totally discard this information anyways, so you want to make sure it's as close as possible to get the right colors when the internet decides to ignore this part of the information.

[peeperita]

you know i was just sitting on the new posts button.....;)

i'm going to do that right now....

brb

peeper

[peeperita]

well fart....

it's still doing it....

and you know, i have posted a few images since the crash and i feel like i got all dolled up and home....then went to the mall and saw my skirt was stuck inside my pantyhose....

poor peeper

[Nicole]

Have you remembered to actually change the profiles on the images before you re-save them? ;) It sounds silly, but it took me a while to get it working right after I set it up too and then I realized that I hadn't actually converted the old files. Just another thing to try.

[peeperita]

it doesn't sound silly at all....in fact.....i'm not all that sure i know what you mean by that.....

[Nicole]

Nah, I just figure I'm the only one to make all sorts of changes then forget to apply them to what I'm doing and then wonder why it just doesn't work :p

Just try this bit on a file that doesn't look right

If you don't want to have it always set up for the sRGB profile, then you can just click on Edit -> Convert to Profile and convert it to that sRGB one that I mentioned before.and then save it (make sure that it says "Embed Color Profile sRGB ..." in your save as dialog too. And see if that makes any difference.

[peeperita]

again my thanks....but, it doesn't seem to be working for me....and the thing is, now i have to be getting to my mister's gig this evening.....

i really appreciate all that you have tried to do for me....i'm going to work at it some more tonight after the show....

i may still ask you for your help if you don't mind too much.....you have been more than generous with your time.....

thanks a million...

peeper

[Nicole]

No problem :) Have a fun evening! Besides, sometimes computers cooperate after we leave them alone for a while ;)

[peeperita]

hey, girl.....i'm back from a great night out.....unfortunately, my computer would have none of your cooperating concept....

by now, i have no idea what to do....i have tried any number of combinations in my color settings to no avail.....i did discover that an unedited file opened with my windows viewer (which matches what i get when i uploaded edited ones to flickr) i get a darker, bluer image than when i open it with photoshop.....which is precisely what you've been telling me all along....photoshop's workspace isn't giving me the true color from the get go.....

anyway.....i'll keep hammering at it over the weekend....do me a favor, if you don't mind.....go through line by line....box by box and tell me where your settings are....that is if you haven't customized it like a hot rod.....maybe, i have inadvertently checked a bad box for me......maybe the conversion options are the culprit?..:confused:

i hate this because the weekends are when i like to sit around and edit my little heart out and i can't do it accurately enough till this is solved...

at any rate.....i did get the number for the specific software tech support people......alll i have to do is wait it out til monday.....

thanks for your patience....

peeper

[Nicole]

Will post my exact settings for you in a few hours. Just getting dinner ready now, so it'll have to wait :p Glad you had a good night out, and don't worry about it, it's a right pain when computers don't cooperate.

[peeperita]

believe it or not, i did it....and just to prove it, i re-edited the image that began this thread in the first place.....

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10338505@N05/1784182887/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2310/1784182887_9922301995.jpg" width="500" height="336" alt="1485136335_4fcd67695a_ox" /></a>

the steps changed a tad, but this is still closer to what i saw in photoshop the first time.....

nicole, if you hadn't had me pointed in the right direction i never would have been able to do this on my own.....i'm gonna bake you a cake one day!

thanks for everything....

peeper

[Nicole]

Great! Glad it finally worked :D See, it's just a matter of getting somewhere near what you actually need to do sometimes ;) Much brighter colours than your previous one. Again, yay! :D

[genielamb]

http://genie-creations.com/img/wwyd2.jpg

larger image (http://genie-creations.com/img/wwyd2large.jpg)

I loved the flow of the waterfall in this image but the blurriness is a problem. I agree the best way to 0vercome this is to change the photo into a painting. Hope you like the end result.

Capture NX : used black and white control points to neutralize the dark and light tones of the image. Then cropped the image to include the flow of the waterfall

Photoshop CS2: Filter - texture - grain. Played around untill I had the desired effect and saved the image.

The image was then resized and a border added using Arles Image
Creator, only because I was too lazy to add the border and resize myself.

The completed picture maintains the flow of the water to give it depth
as well as by making it appear as a canvas painting, the blur
in the original photograph is unimportant.

[mhuk05]

Using PhotoShop I applied a Cutout filter to the main picture and separately to the bird to give it more detail. Then applied a Plastic Wrap filter.

I was trying for a Japanese feel; not quite what I wanted but here it is:

http://lotusinternet.co.uk/dps/bird%20copy.jpg

[Nicole]

Oooh, nicely done mhuk05 :) I kept trying to get that sort of look and couldn't.

[mhuk05]

I used the Monkeys with typewriters approach. "hmm what will it look like if I try this?" :)

[xxpinballxx]

I use the cutout effect quite a bit in backgrounds to bring the subject out more in some of my shots....

[gburnash]

Ok, my first time trying this, so we'll see how I do. I like Picasa since it works well with my learning curve growing skills, and since I can't afford the expensive stuff. :)

I cropped the picture first- wanted to get the bird out of the center to give him a little more life.
"I felt lucky" to adjust the contrast, color, and balance- I liked what it did with the photo.
Changed it to a sepia tone
increased the saturation just a bit
soft toned the edges to finish giving it a bit more of an "old time" feel

and came up with this:
http://sirwillow.smugmug.com/photos/218629555-M.jpg