Before & After #46

[BitterSweet]

This game is to help those of us who are trying to learn new tricks when it comes to editing.

Here's the breakdown of the game. I will post a picture that I choose, resized to exactly 800 pixels maximum on the long side. Outside of being resized it has to be unedited...meaning no adjustments to any levels, it has to look like it did as it came out of the camera.

The game will last 48hrs and whoever can produce the best edited image (as judged by me) will be picked and it'll be their turn to post their unedited picture for all of us to take a crack at.

The participants must have their "Image Editing OK" turned on and they must provide at least a simple breakdown of how they edited the image, some entrants are a little vague on this point, please give us all details so we can learn and share tips. For instance if you use the unsharp mask tool or Smart Sharpen, provide us with the adjustments you used so others can try them out.

You can post multiple images, but the first image you post will be the one that is judged - all other images will be considered for knowledge and tip use only.

Also, please keep all comments, be they positive or negative, to yourself until after the game has ended.

If you happen to be the winner of the game please start the next one with the title of the game and the following number. For example…the next game should read (Before and After # 46).

This is all about having fun so have at it!!!

This game will end on Wednesday, April 15th at 9pm (EST).

I had to actually go and take some more pictures because I didn't have many. Again sorry it took so long

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii244/Devilslilvamp/ba46.jpg

[Blender7]

heres my version,

mirrored and saturated
gave some flare
gave it a dark cloud mood
cloned out weird thing in middle

[TheSonofDarwin]

Let's see...

Ran it through Dynamic HDR and overlayed it on the original image
Added a layer of brownish-gold
Blurred the water
Glamour Glow (Nik)
Layer of white on low opacity, masked all but water to begin fog look
Repeated, masked again on a gradient
Darkened the image slightly
Changed the hue of the foilage a bit via selective color
Burned the edges, shadows, and water
Glamour Glow
Ended up not liking it as dark, so increased exposure a bit

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y173/thesonofdarwin/ba46e.jpg

[suzyb]

Converted to black and white.
Added the boat. (My apologies to the vintage boat site I got this from.)
Messed with the contrast so it more closely matched the older picture.
Blurred the shadow of the boat so it blended a little more nicely into the water.
A little noise reduction in the trees.
Added the border.

[Spidy]

This didn't turn out like I was hoping ... but!

Saturated
Replaces sky
Despecled
Burned and Dodged
Cloned and cleaned water
Cropped
Beveled frame

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h62/Spidy5005/ba46copy.jpg

[shannyD]

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c239/daisydeadpeddles/ba46-.jpg

cropped, framed, contrast, saturation, added yellows, reds, and some oranges, added more blacks, USM, ohh and jason hollisters gamma reduction. :)
shan

[Ocron]

I didn't like all the greens so I decided to try to change seasons entirely and make it a fall afternoon.

- Opened in camera raw and bumped temp +10, tint +19 to warm it up, blacks +10, clarity +25, vibrance +30. Opened in PS.
- Created a copy of the background, convert to LAB color, Apply Image w/Soft Light blend mode. Convert back to rgb and lower the opacity to ~80 and flatten.
- Hue/Saturation, bring reds saturation down ~-8.
- Curves adjustment layer, select medium contrast, then paint on the layer mask so it only darkens the water.
- Levels adjustment layer, bring white end of output down slider down until the blown out sky looks gray then paint on the layer mask so only the sky is effected.
- Blue photo filter adjustment layer. Again, mask out everything but the sky, set the blend mode to darken, then bring the opacity way down so it doesn't look too fake.
edit: forgot to mention that I leveled shoreline and removed the stick in water and the branches in the top right.

http://ocron.zenfolio.com/img/v1/p945131813.jpg

[SQuiP]

Thought I'd stick closer to the real thing this time.... ;)

Straigtened( not even sure if it was really skew....) and cropped
Cloned out stick and twig
Sharpened image then blurred background
Auto levels
Hue adjustment (always nicein the fall :)) and saturated
Slight curve adjustment
Hue again....saturation....less saturation...hue
Decided to do it right and did a colour adjustment to bring out reds and strengthen greens
Slight diffuse on water reflections and added subtle vignette
Border using canvas size

[ilmk]

- cut out the trees and pasted on a new layer
- flipped them
- cut the land line so the new upside down tree layer would fit in the water
- lowered opacity to bring on more of a reflection in the water
- cut out clouds on one of my pics and added them into the blown out sky
- color boosted
- darkened slightly
- black boarder

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/Angie1977/POTN_002.jpg

[Shadiow]

Lightroom:
-Straightened, cropped
-Boosted Contrast, Blacks, Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation
-Dropped the Exposed 2 stops
Photoshop:
-Boosted Yellows, Greens and Reds
-Unsharp mask
-Some other stuff that I don't remember
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/RedG35C/POTN%20PS%20Challenges/ba46.jpg

[BitterSweet]

Hey guys sorry it took so long I lost track of time (watching Gene Simmons family jewels)

This one was very hard for me to pick a winner to the point I ended up having to look at all of them and find the flaws which of course there weren't many but I didn't know how else to pic.

So the winner is SQuip!!! -- I really liked the colors that you brought out and the reflections on the water.

TheSonofDarwin- I really liked yours but if I was able to see the ground between the water and the trees more yours would have won.

Blender7- very cool ideal. Only thing I didn't like was between the trees (which is very hard to do though)

To everyone else I loved all the edits and wish I could have picked more them one winner :) :)

[kab8715]

So how many people noticed the faces in the trees of blender7's edit?! Where the trees are mirrored in the middle I see 5 different faces. from the top I see a little owl, gremlin, and big owl. then the 4th 1 is the 1 that jumped out at me first... looks like an old guy with mustache. then the last one... I think its in the nintendo games... whichever one where you pulled them onion looking things outta the ground... I thnk thats what the last one looks like :)

[SilverHCIC]

Congrats SQuiP and everyone else. Very nice edits here!! -- I can see why Tracey had a hard time selecting!!
I have two questions that I hope Justin and Shan can help me with:

1) What is Glamour Glow, and what does it do for an image??
2) What is Jason Hollister's Gamma Reduction, and what does it do for an image?

[BitterSweet]

1) What is Glamour Glow, and what does it do for an image??


I think I can answer this one because I think Justin has the same program as me. Glamour Glow is a filter from Nik Color Efex pro. It give a slight glow to an image. It usually looks best on portraits but gives a nice look to landscapes almost a fantasy look.

[SQuiP]

Thank Bittersweet :-)
Next one will be up a few minutes.....
I also often use glamour glow, in my case diffuse glow, it great for that soft, dreamy look like Bittersweet said (actually I really like the way the example pic above looks....).

Great edits! Liked Suzyb's and ilmk's idea
Never noticed the faces either Kab, but see a pretty mean one in the middle :-)

[suzyb]

Congrats SQuiP!

[TheSonofDarwin]

I think I can answer this one because I think Justin has the same program as me. Glamour Glow is a filter from Nik Color Efex pro. It give a slight glow to an image. It usually looks best on portraits but gives a nice look to landscapes almost a fantasy look.

Besides what Tracey said, it's pretty much a save-some-time action program. The glamour glow action, for example, lets you alter the glow, saturation, hue, shadow, and highlights all at the same time rather than creating a few layers and doing the same thing. While it probably doesn't save too much time, depending on which action you use, what it does offer that is probably the best feature is a live preview of what your photo will look like after you apply the changes. It works off your visible image, so if you don't want, say, your high pass filter affecting your image for the action, just turn it off temporarily before activating the program. The one thing I don't like about it is that all the layers/masks/etc. it creates it merges into one, so you can't fine tune it anymore than what you had done within the program unless you delete the new layer and do it again.

Also, while it doesn't look like it did too much in Tracey's example on the original image it can have a different effect depending on the nature of the image you feed to it:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y173/thesonofdarwin/bae.jpg

[shannyD]

Thought I'd stick closer to the real thing this time.... ;)

Straigtened( not even sure if it was really skew....) and cropped
Cloned out stick and twig
Sharpened image then blurred background
Auto levels
Hue adjustment (always nicein the fall :)) and saturated
Slight curve adjustment
Hue again....saturation....less saturation...hue
Decided to do it right and did a colour adjustment to bring out reds and strengthen greens
Slight diffuse on water reflections and added subtle vignette
Border using canvas size


just beautiful, i saw that, and was just wowed by it.

congrats!!
shan

[SilverHCIC]

Tracey, SQuiP & Justin - WOW!! Thanks for the great descriptions of what the Glamor Glow & Diffuse Glow actions can do. I have accomplished similar edits before, but it takes me many steps & layers. ... Maybe it's time for me to get some new software:rolleyes:!!

Justin, I have seen you use it before, and I am amazed at some of the things you have posted!! And Tracey, I've seen you use it before as well, and I think you and SuzyB are the queens of this forum!! -- So either I figure out a simpler way to accomplish that effect with what I have, or (more likely) it may finally be time for me to upgrade and play with grown-up toys!!

[suzyb]

Hey! I've never been called a queen of anything before! Thanks! :D :o

There are surely quite a few creative, talented folks in the B&A's - count yourself among them Silver! I am often awed by what people come up with! I like to fiddle around, but the more I see around here, the more encouraged I am to learn the "right" way. I have CS3 - but it still scares me and I tend to stick with Elements.