What’s Your Preference?

startlearn · #1 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 01:28 AM

I took this photo on my son's birthday. I apologize the before photo is not directly from camera( which is very underexposured) and adjusted the exposure and lightness. The after photo I followed the following work flow found on the website:
http://www.dphotojournal.com/photosh...ital-workflow/
then used magnetic lasso to isolate the image, got a new layer, change the back ground to black. I did a very bad job on isolating the image because I can still see the margin. I could not use extract to isolate my subject because my photoshop grayed that function in the drop-down menu.I really like this photo and want to send to lab and have it printed about 10 by 12. So any suggestion on improvement will be highly appreciated. Thank you

Major_Small · #2 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 01:48 AM

That's a very noisy image... and I don't think the pp was done very well either - the image got brighter, but you lost a lot of contrast and introduced a whole lot more noise. As for the isolation, I don't think you really needed to do that for this shot. It wasn't so much the ragged edges that gives the isolation, however - it's the lack of contrast in the image.

If you'd like, I can take a whack at it to see if I can do better. Like I said, I probably wouldn't isolate it, but if that's what you want, I'll do that too. If you want me to try, you should probably open up a larger version, as the largest version from your Flickr is way too small for a 10x12.

startlearn · #3 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 02:20 AM

Major-small,
Thank you so much. I would appreciate a lot if you can try to pp it. I am totally new on this. The purpose of my isolation is to change the background color. Because the original one is kind of blending with the clothes. How can I get a larger version? I have the before saved as tiff (34M) on my computer. Thank you again!

Major_Small · #4 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 02:40 AM

This is what I've come up with - I'm not quite sure where the compression artifacts are coming from, as I've scaled it down in The GIMP and it's been uploaded full-sized to Flickr... I guess Flickr decided to resize it again somewhere along the line...

If you'd like, send me a PM and I'll give you my email address. Save the TIFF into the best quality JPEG that'll get it under 20MB and pass it along, and I'll try to re-create that on the large-scale version, minus the artifacts.

startlearn · #5 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 03:12 AM

Hi, Major-Small. I like your PP and sent you a PM.

Major_Small · #6 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 04:40 AM

Coolio. I got your PM and email, and have sent you a full-sized version - isolated, curve-corrected, de-noised (as much as I could), and cropped for a 10x12 print. Hope it suits your taste

Alex168 · #7 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 11:39 AM

Seems as if everyhting has been sorted out here, neat!

But honestly i quite like the first image alot, i would just mask around the litte boy a litte and appply some curves/levels to adjust the colour saturation and whot not to make him stand out a bit more

startlearn · #8 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 02:44 PM

Alex 168, thanks for your tip.

Sylvia · #9 (**permalink**) 03-25-2008, 06:25 PM

That's a beautiful picture of your son... What's that red spot on the forehead for?? Just curious...
I had a go at it with the smudge tool and played a bit with curves. I ended up adding a hot spot to lighten up his face.

Sylvia

startlearn · #10 (**permalink**) 03-26-2008, 12:39 AM

hi, sylvia,

About the red spot, I am not sure either. The children in ancient china usually wear them. I guess like a blessing. I like the light you put on the face. Can you tell me how you do it? thank you