Before and After 72

[hamtheman]

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 1024 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 #73.)

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

This will end on Friday, June 20th at 6:00pm (Eastern).
I took this when I was at a picnic at the Princeton battlefield.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i62/hamtehman/IMG_1021JPG.jpg

[BitterSweet]

This was a nice shot and very fun to edit. The colors in the sky actually came from the photo so I didn't ad anything just enhanced it.

-Cloned out goat? and cropped
-Film effect filter
-Tonal Contrast Filter
-Low Key filter on the sky
-Surface blur on the sky
-More contrast
-Added color
-Did a slight darken/lighten center filter
-added border.
-Brightened.

[ZeroOne86]

Cool photo. Here it goes...
-Cloned out the various things in the picture such as the object that was in the middle, fence and the clump of dead grass
-Saved this as a .jpg then brought it up in ACR reduced and increased exposure by 1, up and all the down to 4
-Brought all these together and tone mapped in Photomatix
-Pasted the tone mapped picture onto the original and put it on mask and revealed the sky since this is what I tone mapped it for
-Did a surface blur on a mask onto the sky because of the noise generated by the tone mapping
-Selective color to boost the colors in the sky
-Curves
-Channel Mixer to bring out a bit more green and changed the layer setting to Hue
-Did a midnight green filter to burn down the bottom portion of the photo and reduced opacity to 50%
-Enhanced Foliage filter
-Pro Contrast filter on a mask to reduced the haze in the far tree line just a bit
-Selective color on the bottom portion of the photo
-Border

Glad that's it because it was starting to get a little long :D

[thekid24]

Duplicate layer
-Open texture photo
-Copy texture layer over photo set to blend mode overlay
-Merge
-Adjust colors using curves
-Open second texture layer
-Copy that over photo
-Blend mode overlay
-use marquee tool to outline shadow
-feathered at 100
-used levels to darken shadow
-marquee tool to circle photo
-Feathered 100
-inverse
-used levels to darken
-merge
DONE

[theflyingkiwi]

cropped the image to remove some of the sky
maded an adjustment layer using the curves tool, adjusted the curve so that I got detail from the sky
selected the now black ground and removed this from the adjustment layer, so it doesn't get applied to the image.
created another adjustment layer using the curves tool and, adjusted the contrast off the ground.
selected the first adjustment layer and then selected the area in black
ctrl+i to select the inverse of that layer and removed the sky from the 2nd adjustment layer.
created another layer and created a small black border around the image.
applied a gussian blur to this image.
flattened and then removed some noise

[xarqi]

This will end on Tuesday, June 20th at 6:00pm (Eastern).


How's that again? Do you mean we have until 2017 to do this? ;)

Anyway, here's my effort:
Photoshop CS
Used shadow/highlight tool - major work on highlights to get detail in the sky; zero pixel width to avoid a halo on the horizon; shadows lightened just a touch.
Cropped to avoid nasty foreground and gate on right, although if the whole gate had been there, it would have been a good feature, and improve the composition proportions.
Cloned a little of the foreground to fix the remaining rough ground at right after cropping, and some disproportionately thick grass blades at left.
Layers for curves (darkening the sky some), hue/sat (fixing the blue cast to the grass and giving the grass flowers (seeds?) a more golden tone, and increasing saturation a tad; and tweaking the b/w levels just a tad; flatten.
Convert to Lab, select L channel and USM (about 200%, 0.2 px, 0 threshold from memory).
Convert back to RGB and save.

[SQuiP]

- Levels, desaturation and contrast
- Scratch layer at 47% opacity, background blending
- Sharpened - blurred background
- Vignette
- Mirrored - overlayed previous copy and blended to make landscape longer
- Liquid straigtened horizon
- Cropped and border

[suzyb]

Cropped.
Levels adjustment.
Brought out some of the shadowy areas.
Added the farmhouse.
Added the new sky with rainbow.
Tried to blend those in the best I could.
NR in the sky/clouds.
Messed with levels a little bit more.
Sharpened.
Border.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3014/2592432901_0c31e75091_o.jpg

[kab8715]

I debated on whether to post or not because as I came to the thread to post I saw your's, suzy, with the rainbow and didn't want you to think I was stealing your idea....sorry! But as I kept looking at them I figured they were really different so I'm going to go for it.


I cloned the clump of grass and whatever those 2 things in the distance were.
rotated a little bit
followed a tutorial on how to add the rainbow - first time I've ever added a rainbow to something. I was surprised how simple it was :)
on new layer added rainbow gradient using radial style - adjusted to size
erased parts that went below trees
set blend mode to screen
flattened image
used midnight dark action
added border


http://my-photo-storage.net/potn/after72.jpg

[lhos]

Ok, here goes:
Cropped
Selected sky and copied to layer (multiply)- did this 3x then merged the layers
Added color overlay to sky
Adjusted shadows
Cloned out dead grass stuff
Hue/Saturation
Curves
Selective color separately for sky portion (blue/cyan/neutral) and grass (yellow/green)
Adjusted brightness/contrast
Added border

[trials2k]

these are some great edits guys... good shot to work with too! :)

[Shadiow]

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/RedG35C/POTN%20PS%20Challenges/BA72.jpg

[Permagrin]

lovely photo to edit

I used the red channel to bring out the red in the sky
a tonal contrast filter (nik) to bring out detail
adjusted the red channel again for more red
used a glow filter
framed

[hamtheman]

Permagrin: I usually hate borders but somehow you managed to pull it off.

suzyb: I like the crop you did and you were very creative with the house and rainbow.

SQuiP: I LOVED yours, you blended everything so seamlessly and I never would have thought to mirror it. I also love the blurring of the background and the texture over the whole thing. I liked yours the best.

[BitterSweet]

Congrats SQuiP and to everyone else.

[SQuiP]

Thanks! I'm very honored, the competition is fierce :-)
Kab, still a big fan. Zero, yours is so fresh!

Next one's up

Edit: Kid - awesome work... every time!

[Permagrin]

Thanks hamtheman

Suzyb and Kab1875, loved your edits!

congrats Squip :) and most definitely the competition is fierce.

I think I have more fun seeing what others do and how they do it than I do editing myself.

[suzyb]

Great job, SQuip! Congrats!

[ZeroOne86]

Thanks! I'm very honored, the competition is fierce :-)
Kab, still a big fan. Zero, yours is so fresh!

Next one's up

Edit: Kid - awesome work... every time!

Thanks SQuiP and congrats. I liked you edit as well the texture overlay and mirrored effect were well executed. Congrats and great job everyone else.

[kab8715]

Thanks! I'm very honored, the competition is fierce :-)
Kab, still a big fan. Zero, yours is so fresh!

Next one's up

Edit: Kid - awesome work... every time!

Thanks hamtheman

Suzyb and Kab1875, loved your edits!

congrats Squip :) and most definitely the competition is fierce.

I think I have more fun seeing what others do and how they do it than I do editing myself.


Thanks for the comments :) Gives me more confidence to try again. I really tried to add a bride and groom because I thought that would have looked neat with the rainbow.... I have a hard time getting things to the same scale though so I gave up.

Great job everyone :)