Annette - Before and After

[Zansho]

I had a bit of a go with my Aunt's portraits, she asked me to take some photos for her upcoming wedding. We chanced upon a playground, and she wanted a couple of photos here. The sky was REALLY overcast, and terrible. We made the best out of it as we could, but hopefully my edits made things better. This is the before: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3010/3052010738_b53cc5f39d_b.jpg And this is my after: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3286/3052010722_0c8ed27afb_b.jpg

[HighPixel]

Very well done! How did you get clouds as there wasn't before?
HP

[Zansho]

I shoot photos of clouds, and make them into brushes :) They're on my photoshop brush palette, was simply a matter of me finding the right size brushes and using the correct opacity and such.

[SuzyView]

Wow. Great job! Love the crop of the car, too.

[Zansho]

I wasn't able to crop the car off fully, so I kind of had to borrow some grass with a clone stamp tool and blend the rest in, as well as the trash can. Took me about 15 minutes to get it all done ><;

[Svetlana]

Wow! You are PS genius!! Great job on the clouds and corecting the lighting!

[harroz]

that is probably one of the best sky replacements I've ever seen! no kidding!. well done. photo is so much better!

[Zansho]

The lighting correction just turned out to be a bad color temperature (damn the auto settings on my 40D!), and it just took a quick curves layer correction to make the photo pop. I also added a bit more contrast, then did a color blend mode layer for the sky to make it more blue, and then added in the clouds. The whole process took maybe 30 minutes total, not too bad! :D

[samurairx7]

wow nice job if you guys didn't say anything about the car i would never notice nice eye suzy

[viet]

Overcast is the best time to shoot, but crappy sky. Well done on the pp.

[_aravena]

Oh my! Wow. I didn't notice the car or any of that. I was simply amazed by the change in color which was fantastic. Nicely done!

[FamilyJules]

What a rockin' edit! Can I send you over some of my work to fix!? LOL
Great job!

[videochicke]

Wow! Great job!

[Zansho]

What a rockin' edit! Can I send you over some of my work to fix!? LOL
Great job!


lol, I actually run a retouching/editing service. I enjoy it, but I'm not sure if it's something I want to do full-time.

[digidiva]

Fantastic Redo. Awesome.
One nit-pic is that there are 2 identical little cloud formations in the image (one to the left of her hear, one to the right of the central wooden post) and they drew my eye right away.

[Canadian Techdiver]

Nice work...wow...

[heycow]

Okay, please take this as a constructive comment, but I can see the same cloud formations repeating. The little one over her head is also above the second pole from the right. And the "kidney bean" shaped one to the left of her head is also found near the second pole from the right. It's a simple fix to just make them look different, but it popped out at me. :) To be honest, I'd remove the one above her head since it looks like a cat's ear. :D

Overall this is an amazing job. I like the detail of adding the blue sky through the trees. Usually I just add more tree instead of sky. :D

(Edit: Saw digidiva's comment after I posted mine... :))

[Zansho]

yeah, I wasn't paying too much attention lol. I'll redo them again later! The blue sky was easy to do, just need a wacom tablet, a few minutes and a steady hand. Quite easy, really.

[RGolfJ]

What about the actual subject of the photo? I don't believe she is a subject that you want to be shooting up at. While I agree the edit is wonderful, I don't feel the overall image was worth the time.

[Zansho]

What about the actual subject of the photo? I don't believe she is a subject that you want to be shooting up at. While I agree the edit is wonderful, I don't feel the overall image was worth the time.


That's certainly your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. However, SHE asked for that shot, and being my aunt, I went ahead and shot it.

Keep in mind this is not a paying client. I just did this for her as a favor, since she does not have a real budget for a photographer, and I also photograph weddings in addition to my portrait/retouching aspects of my career.

What makes an image "worth" the time? You miss out on all the images you DON'T take with that kind of mentality. Some will pan out, some won't, and I think this one panned out just fine. :)

[RGolfJ]

your edit is great.....but all I see is a double chin and I know photographically that could have been avoided with a different angle. Bottom line...the only opinion that matters is that of your aunts and if she is happy that is all that matters. Just trying to offer a different perspective.

[Kissa]

It looks great - what program did you use to do the color adjustment and any way you can tell us what you did?

[GimpyPoop]

You did a phenomenal job!

[mattograph]

This is awesome all the way around.

One criticism -- one I never would have noticed without the before and after.

The cloned grass looks a little like -- well, cloned grass. It doesn't feel like its up to the rest of your work on the image?

Bear in mind, I'm really reaching here.

[Phil.hearing]

great edit!

[picturecrazy]

that is some nice photoshop work. no doubt.
but it seems like a heck of a lot of work if you were to be delivering 50 or so pics from the shoot. Adjusting some camera settings and using some fill flash would probably produce an image that only needs basic raw colour correction to get an awesome final product.

[pauleywauley]

one other little nit pick, some of the clouds are on top of your wood posts. faintly, but they are there. do your perform edits like this for all of your clients or was this a challenge for yourself to see if you could rescue a shot? seems very time consuming & could potentially eat up the profitability? interesting edit - a bit too fairy-tale like for me though.

[Zansho]

It was simply an edit to see if I *could* do it. I don't do this sort of thing for everyone, lol. Again, I wasn't paid for this particular shoot - it's family. I wanted to see if I could push the envelope a little bit and do something a bit dramatic on a boring Saturday afternoon.

If I see something I think is warranted that kind of treatment for my clients, sometimes I'll do it for them just to get a reaction out of them. I've taken ordinary shots (from my point of view) and transformed them into something else that seems almost artistic. I won't do it for every shot, but I'll do it for maybe 1 or 2 and usually the reaction is favorable, and it usually earns me more sales that way from other people who want that "fairy tale" shot.

[ejicon]

very great job. I'm impressed.

[Steve In Kentucky]

Well done, boring photo into a 100% keeper.