What Would You Do (#9)

[Nicole]

Hmmm, hopefully this week the thread picks up a little, guess it was a busy week all around for everyone

Ok, so this week we have a picture by Clusty of one tasty looking cake for our What Would You Do project.



Large available

For those of you who are new to the WWYD threads, here are the rules (they're simple, don't worry):
Have fun, and edit the photo however you want. Then come back and post your version of it and tell us what you did.

You don't have to have Photoshop or anything special, Picasa will work as well. We just want you to show us how you would edit the photo if it were one of your own.

If you want your photo to be used in one of these threads (and I hope some of you out there do, cause I'm running out of photos again), just send me a PM with a link to your picture in a medium size and a large size. If you have any questions about the whole process, feel free to ask here or send me a PM.

Now, let's see those edits guys, and show us what you would do!

[wulf]

Look at the histogram, all crunched up in the middle, poor thing!

I've applied manual white balancing, some corrections using the curves tool, a bit of sharpening and cropping down so that there is less wasted space above the cake.

However, I would have liked to have got the background and stand whiter without overexposing the cake - for that, I think I would have needed to get into more time consuming layer masks to apply different compensations to different areas of the image.

Wulf

[Nicole]

Ok, I tried to do some of the layer mask type stuff, but I'll admit I didn't do as good a job doing the selection as some people can...



So, let's see...
My first step was selecting around the cake so that I could work with a few different adjustment layers.
I selected the inverse to work with the white background, and used a selective colour layer to remove the black from the neutrals.
I selected the cake again using the inverse selection, and created a new selective colour layer and increased the amount of black, and then darkened the magenta and yellow, and finally removed some of the black from the neutrals to make the plate whiter.
I wanted the cherry and leaf to stand out more, so I increased the saturation of the red and green using a Hue/Saturation Layer.
I used an unsharp mask on the cake layer.
Then added some text using the colour dropper to pick out a red from the cherry on top.
I think that's everything. Oh, and did a square crop.

[ELAY]

Nicole,

I lack the patience to do good selections myself myself, so my sympathies there.

But that crop! Now the rest of us have to struggle with the question of whether 1) we go with a less than perfect crop so as to avoid copying you, or 2) give in and use yours.

EL

[Firemaine]

On Cloud Nine


I stayed with Nicole on the ad idea. (sort-of)
Came up with the caption because that is the way I feel when my wife does one of these.
Working in Photoshop Elements 4.0
I made of copy of the photo to work with.
Selected the background with the magic wond
Added the back ground with the clouds.
Did some cloning of the clouds to make it look like it was sitting more in the clouds.
Added another two layers for the text.
Added some comtrast to try and make the clouds pop a little more.
And added some saturation to the over all picture.

[Teewinot]

Wulf, great fixes on color, lighting, and contrast.

Nicole and Firemaine, excellent job! Both of you used text and design in such a unique and creative way. Awesome work!

[Teewinot]

Inspired by Firemaine and Nicole, here's what I came up with...



GOAL: Make it look tempting...like guilty pleasure or something.

What I did (Paint Shop Pro 8):
-Painted in a black background
-Desaturated 100%
-Brightness/Contrast curves adjustment (increased contrast and brightness)
-Unsharp Mask (radius 75, strength 15, clipping 5)
-Histogram midtones adjustment (-20)
-Color balance adjustment: added a little red
-Duplicated layer, applied gaussian blur, overlay blend at about 60%.
-Created ellipse shaped mask layer around subject and filled with black...gaussian blur applied to mask to create vignette.
-Square crop.
-Added borders and title.

[Saralonde]

Such creativity everyone!

Teewinot, I never would have thought b&w for a food shot, but this came out great. This "What would you do" series might force me into pushing aside Picasa and pulling out Photoshop.

[ELAY]

Teewinot, yet another gorgeous high contrast BW shot.

EL

[xxpinballxx]

Im already amazed! I saw the photo and thought.....not alot to work with! Guess my creative juices aren't flowing yet. Then when I seen Wulf's it was what I expected to so and then on down the rest were really something else....
Tee I gotta say I love yours! I'll give it a go once and idea pops into the ole skull!
Good job guys keep up the great Post processing!