What Would You Do (#80)

[Nicole]

And we're back. Between the holidays and a lack of photos, WWYD took a 2 week hiatus. But we're back and we're ready to get back to the photo editing game thanks to Heide (yay!).

So Heide has given us this photo to edit:



Available Larger

The rules of the game are simple as can be. Use the photo in this thread. Edit it. Show us how you would change it, fix it, improve it. Then post your version in this thread and tell us how you got there (after all, part of the fun is sharing your knowledge with others). There is not skill level requirement nor is there a software requirement (although The Gimp is a free option if you feel like you can't participate because you don't have Photoshop).

If you'd like your picture to be featured in one of these WWYD threads, drop me a PM with a link to the medium and large version of your photo. Remember, these threads can't keep going without you! If you have any questions, feel free to pass those my way too.

So, without further adieu, let's see what you would do!

[lenardjclim]

Edit it by using Lightroom Vr 2.2 Focus on the green colour and burn the surrounding.

[holycow958]

Photoshop
~Cloned out bottom right leaf thing
~Added curves adjustment layer - 100%
~Added levels adjustment layer - 100%
~Added invert adjustment layer - 34%
~Added green curves adjustment layer - 100%
~Added glass filter
~Added another filter that I forget
~Cropped

[Nita.w]

Using Photoshop:

Increased contrast with levels
Increased saturation of greens
Decreased saturation of reds and magentas
Cropped
Applied diffuse glow filter
Cloned layer and applied "multiply" blending mode

[iluvrobots]

Photoshop Elements:
Auto Color Correction
Contrast +23
Spotlight Lighting Effect
Cropped

[Heide]

Oh Nicole thank you for this.... I have been playing around with this picture for the last three days... I'm a beginner using paint shop pro (or any photo manipulation software), there is still lots of learning to do.


Here how far I got up to now - my goal was to bring out the 'diamond' better, and to add some more colour :



And the steps
Selected the diamond and promoted the selection to a new layer, feather was 10. Then I took the pick tool and made the diamond much bigger.
Back to the original photo, I unselected the selection.
Then Adjust-blur-radial blur with 30% and the midpoint on the diamond.

Then I tried to get the edges between the diamond-selection and the blurred picture softer and more blurry, but no luck, so I gave up for now. But there must be a way to get this done nicer, will keep trying.

And last I used a plugin for the blue and the glass border and that's it.

Added on 5/1/09
I should probably have said that I used plugins from ICNet Software for the colour and border above.....

And I tried some more and learnt how to use a mask to get the edges between the two pictures better. Also I found a free plugin from Richard Rosenman called "diffuse glow" which made the diamond more sparkly, here ....



Some more on my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/32965977@N07/

:-)
Heide

[rhermans]

I don't know how far you can go with using plugins (it's my first post also) , but here my view on the image.



used Photoshop cs3 + redfield:fractalius plugin

• cropped the image to a square (love the way the leaves connect the corners)
• darkened the image a bit.
• dupplicated the image to a new layer
• added a glow300 effect from the redfield:fractalias plugin
• erased the flower from this layer so the original showed thru

Ronny

[foxor]

You'll have to forgive me...I've played around with photoshop for years but it is only more recently that I've started to play with it as far as 'sophisticated' colour and contrast management goes. Ask me to remove a person or something and I'm golden...but all the blending mode stuff is a little further outside my comfort zone. That being said, here's my take on the photo. There are things I'm not totally happy with, but I *do* like the way the white remnant of the flower really pops.



Here's how I got it.

Created background duplicate X2
On upper duplicate, gaussian blur ~8px
On lower duplicate, reduce saturation ~100%, lightness ~20%

From background layer, isolated subject (in this case, leaves and stem in focus)
Feathered ~10px, copied and pasted onto own layer
Make duplicate, hide duplicate for now
On unhidden layer: increased lightness by 5, decreased saturation by 20
Then, increased brightness by 5, contrast by 20

Unhide duplicate, and gassian blur ~8px
Change blending mode to overlay
Increase brightness, decrease saturation, and increase contrast to preference

From background create another duplicate and move to very top. Convert to black and white. Change blending mode to multiply. Reduce opacity if desired (in this case, reduced very slightly, ie. less than 10%)

Created subtle vignette by duplicating background (one last time!) and applying radial blur ~25px. darkened and reduced saturation drastically. created spherical selection which was centered on photograph, feathered selection 175px, pressed delete a few times.

Et voila!

[jtal]

edited in Photoshop CS3
- auto levels
- curves: adjust red, green and blue channels
- selective color: adjust green
- duplicate layer, desurate, lower opacity, then merge
- selective color, again: adjust green
- vignette added in filter>distort>lens correction
- sharpen

Sorry if that was too blunt, I forgot to take note of my steps. No special effects or anything here; I just wanted to experiment to the colors.

[windrider86]

added a border on the bottom only. traced around a portion of the upper leaf and copied it the bottom to add to the leaf that got cut off. Cloned in purple to the new border. added the fairie by using a paint tube. Duplicated layer, changed blend mode to screen. merged. duplicated layer again. gaussian blur at 15% changed blend mode to multiply. merged. Duplicated again and changed blend mode to mulitply. merged. added Mura Meisters cloud filter on a duplicate layer for the fog look. merged. used AAA Foto Frame plug in for the frame. Added a new layer for texture and changed blend mode to overlay. Erased a few areas I wanted to stand out. Added some sparkle in the fairies wings by used the flare paint tube.