My girlfriend. C&C please!

[scraggles]

A picture I took of my girlfriend a while ago. Taken through a mirror. I'm more interested on criticism on the post processing. I'll take all comments though!

[drisley]

Wow, very pretty. I think with some post processing, you could turn this already nice picture into something very fantastic!
I'm not a post expert, so maybe somebody else could give some tips. Maybe add a little contrast with curves or levels? And if you have photoshop, try the shadow/highlight tool to move some of the data "up" to make the image a little brighter, with more pop. Curves can probably achieve this too.

[Maureen Souza]

Nice.. I would add some light and contrast to it though. Would you mind if I played with it a bit?

[scraggles]

Be my guest Maureen. I did some softening on the skin. Here is the original.

[Maureen Souza]

I actually liked the PP you did; Ijust added some light and contrast to it and I didn't want it to be too harsh. She's a beauty.

[drisley]

Great job maureen. That is exactly what I had imagined for an improvement in post.

[Salleke]

Very nice lady and picture but the one Maureen Ps-ed is realy good.
Nice work Maureen.

[Nidz]

Interesating pose. Nice picture. Good work on the processing.

[kallousa]

Would you mind showing you my attempt ?

[scraggles]

Go ahead Kallousa. Very nice Maureen

[BottomBracket]

Very pretty subject. Great job Maureen, the blue eyes really livened up in your version.

[Croasdail]

I have a love\hate relationship with Maureens version. Taking it cool has absolutely made the eyes pop, and in that sense the image is very very nice. At the same time, it also has a un-natural aura about it. Soooo... as art, I love it. As a representation of a real person, if feels worked.... does that make any sense?

[JMHPhotography]

You can really notice this more in Maureen's edit because the color balance is correct. This is not a reflection(haha no pun intended) of Maureen's work, because I think her edit is great, and this problem exsists in the original as well. What I'm talking about is the shadow that starts around the undernose point on her face and ends mid chest. They are caused from the lights over the mirror I'm sure. But to me, it makes it look like she's got 5 O'Clock shadow. Try some selective curves on that area to even it out. Your girlfriend is really pretty btw. :)

[davidfig]

OMG Maureen, can I come to your house and watch this happen. Wow! FIrst of all she gorgeous. But with the post work she just expodes off the screen. I also think the lighting is great. There is only a slight shadow under the nose, so lots of light up high and wide. Nice job Maureen, but it was a good pic to start with. ;)

[soupdragon]

I wish I had a girlfriend that was a model too.:(

[scraggles]

You guys have no idea how much your positive comments mean to her. I posted a picture yesterday and it was nothing but positive comments and it really made her feel great. So she suggest I work on this picture and post it, to see what everybody thought and once again, you guys help her realize how I see her. I see her as the most beautiful woman in the world. Thank you for proving it to her.

[Degar71]

Wow, the first thing I am drawn to is her eyes... you captured them brilliantly... you can really see the intelligence and kindness behind them...

I would love to see one with a smile too because I think it would really give life to that picture...

Keep up the great work....

[ayotnoms]

Now that I've come out of my hypnotic state caused by looking into her eyes, I can say that I like what you've done here for the most part. Maureen did an excellent job lightening the image and making those baby blues really pop.

Your gf has a natural beauty that really doesn't need too much post processing IMHO. The only aspect that needed attention was pointed out by Forkball.

Hope to see more posts featuring your own personal model :)

[Maureen Souza]

Hmmm, I tried again to lighten the shadows around the chin but it just took away from the eyes, IMHO. Having the forehead to mouth lightened and keeping the shadows caused by her hair makes for a more dramatic effect with the eyes.

John, let's see what you can do with it......I'm curious to see your interpretation.

[Titus213]

Lovely photo that may perhaps be a bit over softened in the original post. When you lose too much shadow you lose definition of features. I think your post work smoothed her forehead out too much. She is a beautiful young lady and the original photo isn't too bad at all. I think Maureen's highlights add a lot too it but the shadow remains. Great concept though. Perhaps a reflector on the table in front of her would help?

Here's a try at that shadow - I wouldn't even attempt the work Maureen did - it's beyond me.

And again, she's a beauty!

[Keiffer]

Wow, Maureen. you took a nice pic and made a fantastic pic! How did you get the light on the forehead and the eyes to pop like that? Please explain:-)

[Maureen Souza]

Wow, Maureen. you took a nice pic and made a fantastic pic! How did you get the light on the forehead and the eyes to pop like that? Please explain:-)

It wasn't much of a tweak at all. First I went into shadows and highlights and increased the shadows just a little. Then I went into curves and lightend the facea bit and thenI added some contrast. That was it. I am no pro...still trying to learn my CS2.... mostly I slide the little buttons back and forth until I am happy with the photo.;)

[JMHPhotography]

I'm apologizing in advance in case this is out of line, but I couldn't help myself... She's a very beautiful girl and on one of the other forums I participate in, I do these types of edits a lot. I just think this is a very good example of what changes can be made to enhance a picture. I hope you and your girlfriend like this. If I've stepped on toes, please tell me and I'll take this down immediately.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/3103/kathleen10ns.jpg

[Maureen Souza]

John, I really like how you've evened out the light on her face (how did you do that?) Wow!

The color is off a little... too reddish-gold, I think but that can be fixed easily.

Here's one more go I had at it.... worked with the lighting a little more.....

[JMHPhotography]

Actually, the reddish gold was intended. :P I was having fun with it and it was the result of a gausian blurred overlay layer and a white and black point balancing. But I see what you mean. I may have overdone it a tad. It was intended to give the image more impact.

Evening out the light on the face is pretty straight forward... I just lasso'd around the area I wanted to change... then feathered the selection by 50 pixels. Then I added a curves adjustment layer and bumped up the RGB curve until the face blended evenly. Then the jawline kind of vanished on me so I burned the shadow around the jaw and bridge of the nose to give her face more dimension.

Here is another version without the brassy touches.
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/9451/kathleen18bz3bk.jpg

John, I really like how you've evened out the light on her face (how did you do that?) Wow!

The color is off a little... too reddish-gold, I think but that can be fixed easily.

[Maureen Souza]

Scraggles: thanks for letting us play with your photo. I got some good practice in from using my CS2 and I learned a lot too. Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.

[kallousa]

Thanx scraggles
Here I have two alternatives


37606



and



37607




Hope you like

Regards

[MDJAK]

Here's a question. How do you take a copy of that photo and get it into PS in the first place? I mean copy it from the post

[kallousa]

Right click on the photo, Save Picture As , and specify where to save it on your PC.

[MDJAK]

Thank you.

[Harry Settle]

I wish I had a girlfriend that was a model too.:(

Not me. . . I wish I had a Maureen.

Dualing editors, do you all know how helpful you have been while playing around here? I wish we had a place in a forum for something like this to go on all the time.

[lisa1969]

she is very beautiful!!!

[Maureen Souza]

Not me. . . I wish I had a Maureen.

.

:o :o :o :o :o

[Dimitry]

Other than the fact that it looks a bit softer due to the mirror, I would have never guessed if you didn't say it. Cool shot!

[Steve Parr]

In the ones that have been processed, the eyes look fake; like she's wearing colored contacts...

Steve

[Murphy66]

Great shot and great subject.

Hope we get to see her again soon.

[RAitch]

In the ones that have been processed, the eyes look fake; like she's wearing colored contacts...

Steve
It's all about focus and bringing attention to things that are important. I don't think they're unrealistic. I can tell from that first post (even though there's a slight lack in contrast) that here eyes are vibrant.

On that point... here's my try at this editing free-for-all.

[RAitch]

I started playing with some cross processing on my last picture there.
BIG PROBLEM... I ended up with 4 versions and couldn't decide which ones to post because I liked them all. It took me about 10 minutes to narrow the 4 down to these 2 which are actually a slight variation of the same formula.

Hope you enjoy... let me know if you want to see more.

[RAitch]

BTW scraggles, I hope you don't mind me making edits. I didn't formally ask but you seemed really open to the others. Sorry about the hindsight... I was just anxious to get editing.

Hopefully they turn out OK since I'm not using my normal editing machine.

[scraggles]

I guess I should have stated earlier, anyone can edit the pictures in anyway they choose. Enjoy!

[NBEast]

First: Georgeous gf. Very kind look.

I think "soft" suits her well.

I'm not skilled enough to fix the 5 O'clock shadow, much. Or more notably the lack of detail and lines.

I tried repeating similar with Maureens but without adding contrast. (2 O'Clock spot from left to right, mild intensity, highligting across eyes. Coming slightly from bottom though to not increase shadow contrast. Color balance. Ever so slight levels to show jaw outline


Photo 1: Corrections mentioned (she's got great jaw and lip lines)
Photo 2: Original.

http://FLASHME.smugmug.com/photos/43777117-L.jpg http://FLASHME.smugmug.com/photos/43778228-L.jpg

[NBEast]

I started playing with some cross processing on my last picture there.
BIG PROBLEM... I ended up with 4 versions and couldn't decide which ones to post because I liked them all. It took me about 10 minutes to narrow the 4 down to these 2 which are actually a slight variation of the same formula.

Hope you enjoy... let me know if you want to see more.Hey, that's a cool edit. I like it!

The one on the left, less blown out and the shadows forming a triangular face is my preference. UB an Artist!

I'de put that on an album cover.:cool:

[ronosmena]

hi scraggles, I just felt that everyone is in an editing mode, I decided to give it a little touch, first of I would like to say I agree with maureen, your girlfriend is a beauty and maureen did a great job bringing out her beautiful eyes, I just wanted to add a little airbrushing and softening.

[garbidz]

what a beautiful woman! I ended up staring back to her eyes for about 45 minutes until a telephone woke me up...how do you ever get any work done?
you've done a beautiful job, obviously!

my humble effort as follows:

http://static.flickr.com/27/61517027_3335bec06c_o.jpg

two levels layers: first one to correct the color balance (white to white) and second one with a mask to darken the BG
H/S layer with a mask to desaturate the BG
new layer: option-merge visible, a little tweak with layers
smart sharpen ( a tad too much)
crop to put the left (?) eye to the golden section
flatten, post...

[JMHPhotography]

In the ones that have been processed, the eyes look fake; like she's wearing colored contacts...

Steve

kind of ironic since the eyes was really the only thing I didn't touch. haha.

[RAitch]

Hey, that's a cool edit. I like it!

The one on the left, less blown out and the shadows forming a triangular face is my preference. UB an Artist!

I'de put that on an album cover.:cool:
I like it too. The one that's blown out (which I really liked for a different effect) was the full cross processing while the one beside it had only the main and red channels processed. I liked the blue tones a bit better.

There were some other versions with a different method applied that also looked nice... but I didn't want to post 4 more images right away.

We had a pretty good storm last night and I guess my UPS didn't last long enough. Woke up with the computer at the login screen and PS wasn't running.

Thankfully most of the work was done to get the 2nd of my original 2. Might post more later if there's any interest.

Thanks BTW.

[JMHPhotography]

BTW scraggles, I hope you don't mind me making edits. I didn't formally ask but you seemed really open to the others. Sorry about the hindsight... I was just anxious to get editing.

Hopefully they turn out OK since I'm not using my normal editing machine.

I really like your edits. VERY nice looking and great idea softening around her emphasizing her face. Did you do that with Picassa or Photoshop? One thing though, as I pointed out before, all these edits still have that shadow beneath her nose that emcompasses her lower face and jaw. If you even out that lighting in your edits, they'll be perfect!.. :)

[AMG]

here is very quick one, I think this is what you are looking for for the shadow, and very pretty subject by the way, very striking eyes. I didn`t touch the eyes, they already stand out so much, and some people may already think the eyes have been worked, because nowadays, you never know what is real. :lol:

[RAitch]

I really like your edits. VERY nice looking and great idea softening around her emphasizing her face. Did you do that with Picassa or Photoshop? One thing though, as I pointed out before, all these edits still have that shadow beneath her nose that emcompasses her lower face and jaw. If you even out that lighting in your edits, they'll be perfect!.. :)
I like those shadows. It gives her face 3 dimensions... I think it works well and also adds to the contrast.

Thanks for the comments!

[MartyK]

Ok, ok.... I have to join in.

A quick attempt.... About 10 min. What do you think.

[RAitch]

I think I can't see it for some reason.

[MartyK]

Sorry, it's fixed.

[RAitch]

Looks good. nice and smooth.

[Maureen Souza]

It is way cool to see how everyone has worked this photo over.

Scraggles, if I were you I'd copy them all, print them out and put them in a book for your GF for Christmas.

[Exit]

I really dont like the shadows on the face and neck. The picture was way small, but this is what I got in photoshop :D BTW this was done on my laptop so the colours may be off

[berrylish]

pretty girl. its fun to see everyone's ps versions. scraggles, you should hold a contest hehe!

[Wildewinds]

my turn:
http://www.pbase.com/wildewinds/image/52038982.jpg

The curtain was my biggest issue with this photo. Blurring it out makes it look sort of fake, but hopefully not too bad.

[angelkat007]

I wanted to thank everyone for all the nice comments on this picture, and all the cool edits!! (the pic is of me) :-)
-Kathleen

[Falkon]

Here's a question. How do you take a copy of that photo and get it into PS in the first place? I mean copy it from the post

If right click has been disabled by the web master, then just drag the photo to your address bar and drop it in the address bar then right click on the photo. :lol: Or drag and drop on your desktop. :lol:

[Keiffer]

Hi athleen, Welcome to the forum and the madness:-) Here's my feeble attempt.I wanted to thank everyone for all the nice comments on this picture, and all the cool edits!! (the pic is of me) :-)
-Kathleen

[RAitch]

I wanted to thank everyone for all the nice comments on this picture, and all the cool edits!! (the pic is of me) :-)
-Kathleen
You made it easy.

[Homer]

Very nice pic. You've got a beautiful model to help you develop your photographic skills.
For what its worth here is my contribution to the post processing activities.

[angelkat007]

You made it easy.

haha would you all stop my head is getting so big its going to explode!!! just kidding! It really is cool to see a bunch of different versions of me though! You all did a great job.

[RAitch]

Then why not "approve" more photos to be posted so we can inflate your head some more?

[scraggles]

I'm with you on that one RAitch.

[RAitch]

Then get crackin' and start shootin'.

[Bootless]

great photo, great pose, she got that "Mona Lisa" kinda look goin on....

I think the original is great the way it is.... but since we are allowed to play :) here is my attempt

[dwterry]

Of all the variations... I like Keiffer's crop/tilt, and Maureen's very first edit. Combine the two?

[Falkon]

I have to say Maureen's first one it the best to me.

[Bootless]

k i just realized that I got her eye color wrong....
and I was bored... so I re-edited the photo...
k enough playing back to work for me :)

[i7137]

Here is my go!!


http://images12.fotki.com/v236/free/8f57a/4/414293/2832064/forposting-vi.jpg?412500

and a BW to mix it up

http://images15.fotki.com/v246/free/8f57a/4/414293/2832064/forumpostbw-vi.jpg?411500

hope you all like it

[Samiad]

Actually, the reddish gold was intended. :P I was having fun with it and it was the result of a gausian blurred overlay layer and a white and black point balancing. But I see what you mean. I may have overdone it a tad. It was intended to give the image more impact.

Evening out the light on the face is pretty straight forward... I just lasso'd around the area I wanted to change... then feathered the selection by 50 pixels. Then I added a curves adjustment layer and bumped up the RGB curve until the face blended evenly. Then the jawline kind of vanished on me so I burned the shadow around the jaw and bridge of the nose to give her face more dimension.

Here is another version without the brassy touches.
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/9451/kathleen18bz3bk.jpg

I have to say, this post process job is incredible! For me, this is the best on the thread. Could you spare some time to explain in more detail how you did this? Even if you just talk about how you did the eyes so well I would be very grateful!

[JMHPhotography]

I have to say, this post process job is incredible! For me, this is the best on the thread. Could you spare some time to explain in more detail how you did this? Even if you just talk about how you did the eyes so well I would be very grateful!

Thank you for you kind words. I'm guessing that you're wondering how I got the eyes to pop so much right? Well I didn't touch the color. That's all her. What I did do is pull more attention to them by using my burn tool on shadows at about 12% and went around the eyeliner and mascara with a small soft brush. I also did one sweep across her eyelids giving her a natural looking eye shadow effect. Before doing all that though, I did a little edge USM to clean up the lines.

Now another thing I did that nobody has is even the lighting on the lower part of her face. I used a lasso to circle the area in question... then feathered it about 40 pixels. Then I did a curves adjustment layer to lighten the area up and match the upper part of the face. Then I used the burn tool on the shadows of her jaw line to bring her jaw back. Everything else was just minor tweaking.

[Dante King]

nice work scraggles, she is beautiful.

[garbidz]

This thread has been one on the most informative ones I've seen here.
For the first, of course there have been many technical secrets revealed. the second issue, far more interesting is how different personalities create different esthetics. One is a dreamer, another is a taxidermist, then there are classics, neorealists and some impressionists. I got my own work to perspective here which is invaluable for me. My approach needs "some adjustments".

Great fun, guys!

[JMHPhotography]

This thread has been one on the most informative ones I've seen here.
For the first, of course there have been many technical secrets revealed. the second issue, far more interesting is how different personalities create different esthetics. One is a dreamer, another is a taxidermist, then there are classics, neorealists and some impressionists. I got my own work to perspective here which is invaluable for me. My approach needs "some adjustments".

Great fun, guys!

haha... I'm dying to know which personality I am, although I'm pretty sure I'm not the taxidermist. :lol: :lol:

[garbidz]

A dreamer.
I am a taxidermist.

[shdwlark]

I like the picture and I like the PP work that Maureen did. It made the Blue eyes just jump out and show off! And the little shadowing doesn't hurt it all. It gives the picture a since of light and depth.

[marie]

I love her beauty and the photograph :cool:

[marie]

Here is my go!!


http://images12.fotki.com/v236/free/ab16a/4/414293/2832064/forposting-vi.jpg?412500 (http://public.fotki.com/i7137/random_pics_i_like/forum_post_bw.html)


and a BW to mix it up
http://images15.fotki.com/v246/free/ab16a/4/414293/2832064/forumpostbw-vi.jpg?411500 (http://public.fotki.com/i7137/random_pics_i_like/)

hope you all like it
:(
the picture is not showing i7137

[i7137]

fixed!?

[marie]

fixed!?

sorry for the delay
no , no picture that I can see

[shdwlark]

Thats a good thing man. I hope your lady is loving it.

John I really love the first one it was awsome.

[RAitch]

Yeah, am I the dreamer?? Hmmm...

[20Der]

Doesn't matter what you do to the picture, just don't lose the color of those beautiful eyes. Some of the touchups do, and the whole picture is lost. IMHO...:)

[WPG]

Well since everyone else was taken a stab at PS'n the photo I figured I would.
first off this is what i did.
moved the levels around a bit to give it a bit brighter look - Fixed some of the pixelation around the chin and what I can only think of is a white smug on the mirror that is on her neck in the reflection other than that I did some spot checking a few on the forhead and some on her face. Then cropped it to 1 by 1 mostly to give it a better aspect - better only because I'm a fan of the 1by1 square images or something.

anyways she's a great looking gf/model for ya. Hope she is pleased with everyones work on her picture.

[RAitch]

Doesn't matter what you do to the picture, just don't lose the color of those beautiful eyes. Some of the touchups do, and the whole picture is lost. IMHO...:)
Some of my edits lost the colour? Or some of the edits in general?

[kenyc]

Man, that girl's been worked over! :) :) :) :)

I'm not even gonna try an edit, but will say that the only thing I see wrong with the original is that it's a bit dark and the background could be better chosen, but it's a good shot overall. What a wonderful model you have and incredible eyes!

KAC

[scraggles]

Well thanks Kenyc. I thought this topic was dead lol. Good to see that I'm not the only one who can't get enough of her. She's my pookies!

[kenyc]

:) Well, I was reading (and commenting) on your other thread about the lens and DOF so checked out some of your other threads and remembered seeing this one before. She looks to be a great and photogenic model, make the best of it!

KAC

[Az2Africa]

I gotta agree. I liked Maureens first edit the best. It was a good shot to start wuth and she is a natural beauty. That bit of tweaking really made it pop without being over done.

[rcanzano]

And One More . . . . . .
There are a lot of very cool variations on this one, but I liked Maureen's I think the best.

Here's my contribution

I wanted to complement her eyes, so I changed her sweater. I also evened out the background and changed the lighting just a bit to add a little more drama.

[Thornfield]

personaly I think the shot is ok. I like all the pp attempts but find the expression a bit bland. I think this is a great looking girl with the most gorgeous eyes. She would look stunning if she had a little more expression in her face. A mischievious look would be a killer.

[vbourrut]

Nice portrait with good DOF and good lighting. I think the background could be better imho

[zacker]

very nice, love the striking Blue eyes. Then again, Im a sucker for Big Blue Eyes!
ask My Wife.....lol
Good Job, Keep up the good work.
-zacker-

[Balliolman]

The blue eyes make the shot every time!

[Degar71]

I wanted to complement her eyes, so I changed her sweater.

RCanzano...

OK... pardon my lack of photoshop skill (or whatever program you used).. but...

AHEM... HOW DID YOU CHANGE THE SWEATER ???

ahem... sorry.... that just amazed me...

[scraggles]

haha he probably selected it, then go to "Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation" Then in the box that pops up, check the 'colorize' box, and play around with the sliders until you get what you want. Always do these kinds of edits on a new layer so that you always have the unaltered original to go back to if you need to.

Thats how I would do it at least.

EDIT: Oh, my explination was for photoshop CS2.

[rcanzano]

I just called her up and asked her to change sweaters :-)

Nah, scraggles has it pretty much right, though I took the long way around. I did it about 5am (see my post about ruining yourself) so we'll see if I remember what I did

Basically I duplicated the layer and then turned it grayscale by completely desaturating it. This way the new color would go over something neutral.

In a new layer I dropped the opacity down and painted the new color on the sweater

In the grayscale layer I erased everthing that wasn't sweater.

Back to sweater color layer - adjusted hue and opacity until I was happy

Back to grayscale layer - adjusted contrast to bring out the details of the sweater a bit more

Cloned the background curtain to fill things up

Rendered some lighting in the filters section to add a little depth.

I did a photo shoot once for a real estate office and everyone chose to wear the most hideous colored clothing. No one matched and it looked terrible. (except for my great photograph of course) so I went in and changed everyone's clothes so they all looked like they matched somewhat. The client loved it. Sometimes clients don't make the best choices so in some cases you can fix it.

In this picture her pink sweater went well with her red hair, I just wanted to try and take it a different way.

[sony23]

opps I posted an edit here

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=124136

sorry I didnt realise it was your photo.

Bruce

[scraggles]

Not a problem.

[Degar71]

Scraggles and RCanzano,

Thanks for the explainations... It looks like I still have a bit to learn about CS2... I'll have to try it on some portraits I have...

[scraggles]

I actually got into Photoshop long before I got into photography. It's a great program.

[JosC]

Bootless, how did you do that background effect?

[zacker]

she reminds me of some actress but i cant think of it. Everytime i see her pic i think its the actress but i cant remember who she is... anyone else see this?
-zacker-

[20D_Newbie]

I thought she looked familiar but not an actress. I wonder if she is from TN.

[Joeri]

Nice work and great light.
Keep up the good work.

Joeri

[scraggles]

Thanks for all the comments and compliments.

She's from here in NY, sorry guys! She is my supermodel though!

[angelkat007]

you're all too nice