help with editing...maternity self portrait

[Life in Motion]

Originally Posted by Marija

I'm too embarrassed to post original. too much wrong things on it

one thing i would be trying to keep while trying to process your original image is the flow of the natural shadows and highlights. Shadows can be just important to an image as light. the way the shadows naturally wrap around your picture and highlights are very important to not making an image feel flat. with maternity a lot of times you want to emphasize the shadows and highlights to add more drama to the picture. it looks like there is a lot done to the posted image in breaking the way light would naturally wrap around your belly. I tried a couple of things just for a visual example to show you what i'm referring to.

I added shadows where i thought the flow of light would naturally take shape. you see how instead of trying to get rid of the shadow on the belly, helping continue the shadow on your belly will add more of a 3d effect and make it look more dramatic. I would just start over on your original keeping in mind to keep the flow of highlights and shadows. but be careful and not to over darken the bra and hair. your posted image looks like the bra is kinda painted on, i went back and selected the bra and upped the eposure to bring back some of the natural shadows and textures on the bra itself. But now looking back at the image i overdarkened your hair lol. oh well, you get the idea anyway...just a quick edit...

I hope this helps. i understand about not wanting to post the orginal. self portraits put a lot of courage to post...let alone a maternity one . but i must say you're very pretty and i wouldn't worry about that.

I would personally Just start over with the processing keeping the natural light wrapping around the image in tact and just emphasize whats already there a little, rather it be more shadows or more highslights. also one thing that i think made a big difference is on your face in the picture between the eye brows i lightened and smoothed that a little, just take away the slight brow frown...making your face look a lot more relaxed.

once again hope this helps...i know the processing is a little off but just wanted to place a visual with explaining the natural flow of light.

just one opinion

[Marija]

thank you a lot! it looks good now. But how did you add shadows, I mean, what were the steps? I'll go back to the original to try do what you have done... Now is midnight so, I'll do it tomorrow.
my hair and the top looks that black because I applied Surface blur, I wanted to smoothen my skin, but I didn't select just the skin...

[Life in Motion]

Originally Posted by Marija

thank you a lot! it looks good now. But how did you add shadows, I mean, what were the steps? I'll go back to the original to try do what you have done... Now is midnight so, I'll do it tomorrow.
my hair and the top looks that black because I applied Surface blur, I wanted to smoothen my skin, but I didn't select just the skin...

Well i don't know what program you have for editing. but I have under retouching a darkening tool i used for the shadow on the bridge of the belly. i also went and selected the arm from the wrist up to the shoulder with a laso/selection tool and took the exposure slider and went negative so to add some shadows to the rest of the arm so the shadows werent as uneven in the image. Now when i do this on my program i have the option to make the selection soft around the edges so it's not a harsh transition. i did this same technique on the belly too where it was so much brighter than the bottom part. I think that if you first work on getting the exposure/shadows more even in the picture then you can up the exposure a little bit and add a little contrast. I also used the stamp tool on the face a little(i love this tool, may be called clone tool on your program) it allows the texture to stay intact with what your trying to manipulate, i usually just select surounding areas to the place i want to cover usually right next to the spot, and clone it over the area creating an even transition of textures.

also i cropped in just a tad for a more pleasing composition.

hope this helps.

just play with it until you get something you like

[RLucas]

I tried to keep it as simple as possible, as this image is quite good.
Opened image in GIMP, and duplicated layer. Went to Colors >Invert. Went to Filters>Gaussian blur at 30pix. Changed layer mode to soft light and merged down. ( It will look gray at this point, but the tones will be more even.) Duplicate layer and changed layer mode to Screen. Adjust opacity to taste, and this is what I came up with.

Hope you like!

[edbayani]

another way would be - duplicate the bg layer so you have something to come back to. then go to the duplicate layer and press Q to enter quickmask. use a soft brush about 100 pixel size and opacity set to 50%. brush on the dark areas brushing the lighter parts first and brush again the darkest part to have a gradient selection. don't worry about the background since it cannot get lighter than white. exit quickmask. press ctrl H to hide the selection so it does not interfere with the adjustment and with levels adjust till it is the same density as the upper arm. you can increase the contrast a bit before deselecting.

[Marija]

Thank you all!
i tried all versions with CS4.
RLucas and edbayani have similar results, so i followed edbayani's steps. it wasn't easy because it seemed i just couldn't get the selection right.
I decided to go with edbayani's way because that's what i was aiming for with this photo.
Life in Motion, thanks for everything you wrote! It is of great help for my self portraits. I'll use your advice on my next self portrait and also, I saw your maternity photos and, if you don't mind, i'll steel your ideas
Here are my results of your propositions!

[Life in Motion]

Originally Posted by Marija

Thank you all!
i tried all versions with CS4.
RLucas and edbayani have similar results, so i followed edbayani's steps. it wasn't easy because it seemed i just couldn't get the selection right.
I decided to go with edbayani's way because that's what i was aiming for with this photo.
Life in Motion, thanks for everything you wrote! It is of great help for my self portraits. I'll use your advice on my next self portrait and also, I saw your maternity photos and, if you don't mind, i'll steel your ideas
Here are my results of your propositions!

I'm always glad to contribute to the circle of creativity . can't wait to see your take on some of my ideas ...