What’s Your Preference?

Nicole · #1 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 07:17 AM

We're only one week away from the milestone of #25. I'm still shocked how long we've been doing these threads.

If you want your picture to be the subject of one of these threads, then drop me a PM with a link to the medium and large version of your picture.

Now, on to this week's picture. We have one from one of the mod's this week, wulf. He said that he wasn't too happy about how the focus works in this.

Available larger

The rules are simple. Use this picture and post-process it however you see fit. Then come back to this thread, and post your version of the shot as well as what you actually did to get the picture from point A to point B. Now, let's see what you would do.

wulf · #2 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 09:53 AM

Aha! I was waiting for this to pop up in the rotation. I'm looking forward to seeing what you all do with it.

Wulf

aadam_21 · #3 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 12:03 PM

OK, first shot at a WWYD:

1. Sharpened with unsharp mask, then reduced some noise.
2. Adjusted levels
3. Adjusted curves - used cross process preset as a starting point and adjusted from there
4. Duplicated layer, set to overlay, and applied high pass filter
5. Cropped away from top and left
6. Applied vignette

I didn't go too crazy with the sharpening and I intentionally left some color noise. When playing with cross processing, I like a gritty/grainy feeling.

Jamesc359 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 05:14 PM

I didn't do anything fancy, I didn't even crop it, but here goes.

1) Duplicated the layer and hid it for a moment.
2) Applied an unsharp mask on the original image. Radius 5 - Amount 1 - Threshold 0
3) Going back to the duplicated layer created a layer mask and erased/colored in the wasp.
4) Duplicated the duplicated layer, and deactivated the layer mask.
5) Applied Gaussian blur with a value of 20 and reactivated the mask.
6) Used a gradient (white to black) on the layer mask to achieve a consistent bokeh/blur across the web.
7) Went back to the original layer (unsharpened layer) and adjusted the Hue-Saturation. Blue channel, Saturation -100. (to correct for the blue tint the webbing around the wasp took on when the unsharp mask was applied.

Kvikken · #5 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 06:31 PM

-Duplicated the background (original picture) layer and converted the new layer for smart filters (photoshop CS3).
-Added then a unsharp mask to sharpen up the picture a little.
- Used the layer mask to decide which parts of the picture to be affected by the unsharp mask. I let the wasp, and the upper part of the net, the part that was already pretty sharp to be affected and "painted" the rest of the picture black.
- Adjusted the levels a little bit to get some more contrast.
- Added a black and white layer set to overlay on 90% opacity to get some more, different kind of contrast.
- Added a black and white layer with the blue filter (CS3), left it at normal but set the opacity to 60%.
- Used a soft small brush set to 50% opacity and painted the wasp on the last black & white layers mask to get more of the yellow colors back.

And then I ended up with this picture!

Nathan deGargoyle · #6 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 09:29 PM

In GIMP:

Duplicated the background and tone mapped it. Used quickmask to select the wasp and used colour curve to increase the saturation.

Moved the wasp away from the flare. Cropped the flare out. Positioned the wasp at the Golden Section, smudged it onto the web, flattened and tonemapped again to tie things together.

Hope you like it Wulf.

wulf · #7 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 10:18 PM

Some neat stuff here - certainly making the picture much more striking and worthy of being kept.

Wulf

windrider86 · #8 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 11:42 PM

Warped sense of humor here. Its been a long day

* Made first image a negative
* brightened the colors
* Found a picture of spider man and deleted the background
* added a shadow
* pasted as a new later onto the first pic
*resized it to where it fit
* added presrt text box (I dont know what its called)
* added text
* merged all layers
* cropped the bottom down

Nicole · #9 (**permalink**) 10-31-2007, 11:44 PM

lmao! I love it when people get really creative with these

Nicely done windrider.

Teewinot · #10 (**permalink**) 11-01-2007, 12:21 AM

windrider86, that is so clever!!! nice job!

******************************************

GOAL: I was feeling abstract again this week...

What I did (in PSP XI):
-Cropped down to subject
-Sharpened subject several times
-Unsharp mask (radius 75, strength 35) X 2
-Saturation increase (65)
-Applied 'Enamel' filter
-Added special frame and extra borders

When I look at it, it sorta kinda looks like a psychedelic large-mouth bass...haha.