What Would You Do (#45)

[Nicole]

Oops, sorry a little late again this week. I'm seriously going to start getting these out on time again... really

This week's picture is from windrider86



Available larger

The rules are simple, edit the photo and come back and show us and tell us what you did so that we can all learn from each other. This thread has been really useful to a lot of people trying to learn and try new things with post-processing, so if you can give us a good description of what you've done, even better

If you want your photo to be used in one of these threads (and I'm always looking for more pictures to add to the queue of pictures to be used), just drop me a PM with a link to your picture in medium and large size (if possible). Easy as that! I use pictures in the order that I get them, so if it takes a week or two or three before your picture gets used, don't worry, it will get there soon.

Now, let's see what you would do!

[xxpinballxx]

Nicole you are definitely a trooper.....this thread idea is now almost a full year old.....just a few more weeks....unbelievable......
I figured I owed an attempt.....


this has alot done to it...its two layers one darker than the other and then light added by erasing some of the darker areas to highlight what I want and then i selected the river itself and brightened that up some and then selected the sky and lightened it up and upped contrast so it didnt look soo flat......
Then did some blurring techniques to give it a soft feel then ran noise ninja.....

[xxpinballxx]

this thread doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves lately huh nicole.....
I think it slowed when we re-designed the site.....

[windrider86]

i did this on my lap top so not an easy task
first i created a new layer with a new sky (not so fond of the sky bu m y choicesare rather limited right now) erased edges I didnt want.gassian blur set at 5.mirrored image. used the burn tool set on midtones to darken edges. merged

[Teewinot]

Originally Posted by xxpinballxx

this thread doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves lately huh nicole.....
I think it slowed when we re-designed the site.....

I think that the placement of this thread in the Games and Challenges section has been great. It probably is a lot more visible there. I imagine that part of the "slow-down" of responses lately has to do with the fact that even though this challenge rocks, it's been ongoing for almost a year!!! That's great for longevity's sake, but perhaps some people are just tired of it now...been there, done that sort of attitude. We just need to find a way to attract the new forum members. I wonder if we could spice it up by offering some specific tutorials for everyone to follow for a particular picture in any given week and see how everyone comes up with different results depending on their editing program, skill level, and style. That would also help the newbies who are intimidated by post-processing to be able to jump in and try. Right now the way we do it is a little intimidating...some one with no editing experience might not even know where to start! Just thinking out loud here. Sorry this became long-winded.

[Digidave]

Right now the way we do it is a little intimidating...some one with no editing experience might not even know where to start!

That would be me! I've tried & tried but have never gotten anything worth showing.

[xxpinballxx]

Originally Posted by Digidave

That would be me! I've tried & tried but have never gotten anything worth showing.

Not true Dave...its all showing....sort of like the old saying there are no dumb questions"
There are no unworthy edits....whatever you o that you like is worth it....might have something everyone else thinks is great....some of mine i think are terrible but post anyways and shockingly i get responses that they like them...LOL!

[Micah Olson]

Very nice photo! I really like the reflections in the water and even though it has pretty flat lighting, I turned out really well!

[Teewinot]

Originally Posted by Digidave

That would be me! I've tried & tried but have never gotten anything worth showing.

Thanks for your honesty, Dave!! But I'm sure xxpinballxx has a point in saying that no one should feel like their attempts aren't worth posting...

That said, I think we can safely assume that there are others out there who share Dave's sentiments. I was thinking more about what I said above and I have an idea to propose.

What if we started a spin-off challenge to WWYD that focused more on offering a tutorial to follow that everyone could take a stab at it using whatever photo they want. This is similar to about a year ago when Darren posted an article about the "antique effect" on the blog and then had an assignment on the forums challenging everyone to submit a photo they had applied the effect to.

Potential problems I see with this idea are:
(1) Someone has to run the challenge and it might be a bit of work (i.e. finding tutorials, etc...also see point two)! At this time I would consider at least helping getting it started...
(2) Part of the difficulty with tutorials is that they are almost always written for Photoshop users. Talented photo editors can usually translate pretty easily, but I know at least in my experience, this can be a challenge. I for one use Paint Shop Pro and I know there are also a lot of Gimp users too. It would be cool if we could find a way to offer a more general tutorial that would work in most popular editing programs....but that could be tricky.

Potential positive results I see with this idea are:
(1) Once people learn a few editing techniques, they might be more inclined to participate in WWYD!
(2) There is not currently any challenge like this on the forums (I think!) and I imagine it could be very popular...we could be responding to a demand we didn't even know existed. Post processing is getting so popular and I'm sure lots of people would love to learn and practice things like textures, orton, lomo, Dave Hill effect, layers, etc.
(3) Having a place where everyone can come together and share results using the same tutorial could be really great. That way some one who is having trouble could get help from some one else who isn't.
(4) Perhaps if people have a lot of success with their own photos, they would be motivated to write Before and After threads...

So, what does everyone think, especially you, Nicole. Also, if this should be discussed elsewhere, please feel free to move it to the appropriate location in the forums.

[Digidave]

Now that sounds like a great idea! That's something I could wrap my head around & may even learn a trick or two. It's not easy teaching this old dog a new trick!