Engagement Portrait B4 & After

[windrider86]

Would you mind telling us the steps you did to achieve your final look? Please and thank you

[scootermcq]

Originally Posted by windrider86

Would you mind telling us the steps you did to achieve your final look? Please and thank you

Sure

I opened the RAW file in CS5
Adjusted the levels using a neutral grey in the image, black & white points
Then I brought the image into Photoshop
Used the quick selection tool to isolate the couple to a new layer and adjust skin tone in curves to my liking.
I used mostly the spot healing tool for the bird crap, but also cloned out some of the bigger hunks
For the sky, I opened a landscape shot I had done with nice clouds and used the rectangular selection tool to grab an appropriate sized chunk of the sky
I copied this layer onto the image between the original layer and the isolated couple (so their heads were over the clouds etc) and reduced the opacity until it blended in.
I then flattened the image and created a duplicate layer
On the new layer I burned and dodged where needed on the couple
I then created a duplicate of the duplicate and applied a highpass filter at 1%
I selected overlay for the mode and flattened the whole image
Saved as a jpg for web

[klam]

That's a lot of poop on the ground. Nice work cleaning it up.

[Liz Caldwell]

Very well done scooter

With the (real) clouds overhead, I'm not sure I would have taken the time to clean the pier myself... I would be too worried about impending rainy doom looming overhead.

Anyway, you did a really good job of blending your work and making the edit look natural, and I also like the extra contrast you added to their reflections in the pier.

I would like to suggest that you consider lowering the saturation of the red on his shoes... Normally a pop of color like that is a good thing, but it's coming from his feet, so... I might also suggest adding a vignette at 30% to help draw the eyes up to the faces of the subjects

All in all, great shot and great edit

[bhursey]

Originally Posted by scootermcq

The sky was not blown out, there just weren't any details to recover. I took some clouds from another image I took from a different session and blended them into the grey overcast sky to make it more interesting

Thats called cheeting.

[scootermcq]

Originally Posted by klam

That's a lot of poop on the ground. Nice work cleaning it up.

It was pretty slippery too!!!

Originally Posted by Liz Caldwell

Very well done scooter

With the (real) clouds overhead, I'm not sure I would have taken the time to clean the pier myself... I would be too worried about impending rainy doom looming overhead.

Anyway, you did a really good job of blending your work and making the edit look natural, and I also like the extra contrast you added to their reflections in the pier.

I would like to suggest that you consider lowering the saturation of the red on his shoes... Normally a pop of color like that is a good thing, but it's coming from his feet, so... I might also suggest adding a vignette at 30% to help draw the eyes up to the faces of the subjects

All in all, great shot and great edit

Thanks

Originally Posted by bhursey

Thats called cheeting.

I'm not above that.....

[shl141602]

All in all, great shot and great edit

[Rigu]

Nice edit, between the choice of scrubbing down a pier and cleaning it up in PS I think you made the right decision.