What Would You Do (#35)

[Nicole]

Wow, I cannot believe how quickly the weeks go by. We're up to week 35 of What Would You Do, our weekly post-processing thread where DPS forum members get to work on the photo of another forum member and show how they would post-process it.

This week's picture is from one of our mods, wulf



Available Larger


The rules of the game are simple. Use this photo and post-process it however you want. Then come back here, show us what you've done, and tell us how you did it (after all, the goal is to learn how to do different post-processing techniques).

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 version of the photo. I use them in the order that I get them, so don't worry if it takes a few weeks before you see your photo.

Now, let's see what you would do!

[Nobie]

Levels, selective color, curves, crop.

I don't like to change nature, just present it more accurately than sometimes the lens does. I know it sounds funny, but when you see something in real life...it kind of has a uniqueness to it. Similar to sound, we just can't quite recreate the real thing. So, most of my post-production is spent far away from filters/effects/etc. and more on the subtle adjustments that go largely unnoticed.

In this, my first challenge acceptance, I like the strong emotion represented from the glaring and searching eye. I wanted that to be more of the focus than the wide, bowl-like gravel pit that seemed to take precedence over the shot.

[FrankenPengie]

Wow! Nobie and I have similar tastes.

In CS3: Just for yuks I did an auto everything; levels, contrast and color. Then I duplicated the layer and did a good Unsharp Mask. Duplicated again. One duplicate ended up as a Color Burn with 27% opacity. The other is a Screen at 24%.

[embrodak]

Delirious late-night gimpage. Sleep deprivation, then cutting, resizing, and pasting into the ready made image. Bird was partially erased to appear to be behind the couch. (High-tech, I know.)



Really, in retrospect it's obvious the bird is looking at something.

[jujitsu1]

Had a little fun with this .



Cut and moved the thrush out of one of my photos .
Then added and repaired the background with the history tool .
Then added the word bubble and text .
Then blended them all together .
Used Photoshop cs .

[The Weird Witch]

I felt sorry for little birdy that his home seemed so unnatural, so I gave little birdy a new home

[wulf]

Cool! Keep 'em coming.

A couple of notes about the original shot. Firstly, it was taken with my 70-300mm lens while visiting a garden just before Christmas. Most of the time the problem with bird shots is that the birds keep their distance; the main challenge with this guy was that he kept hopping closer. However, in common with his avian bretheren he did have the uncanny ability to move from where I had focused when he sensed my finger about to press the shutter! That is why the original is not a compositional masterpiece.

Secondly, if you look at the full size version you will see some amazing detail in the feathers on his back, which was the reason I kept this shot. I like the treatments above but I'm hoping someone will also make the most of those feathers!

Cheers,

Wulf

[windrider86]

Found a picture of a chicken leg- copied and pasted as a new layer.
Copied and pasted leg as a new layer - mirrored it and placed legs off to the side
selection tool and traced around bottom area of bird and copied, pasted as a new layer and placed new selection off to the side and brought that layer to the top of layer pallette.
Placed legs where i thought they would look ok and then placed the layer with the bird on top and sized it to where i thought i thought it looked ok and in poportion to the chicken legs
I then found a worm and copied and pasted as a new layer several times. I mirrored some and placed them around the bird and sized them differenlty. Selected each one and created a drop shadow for each one to make it look somewhat 3-d. Used the selection tool and traced around the bird and then also selected drop shadow for the bird. Merged all layers.
Used the cloning tool to bring some of the rocks around the base of each worm to try and make it look like it's coming out of the ground. I was going to use the change to target tool and change colors of each worm but only got around to doing one.

[snapdragon]

I copyed and cut out the bird from the copy& pasted him in the or , then I used smuge tool to blend him in and create a foot for him , next I wanted to see him have a beek and a catch light in his eye . Did a 3% water color effect .Then I did a cut out frame and then did a colored blended frame around it and lightened a tad .

[pkd14u]

Adjusted levels, a little HDR adjustment in Curves, lots of changes made in Selective Color, more HDR adjusting in Curves, flattened, Unsharp Mask.

pkd14u