Before & After #162

[MJA]

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 72hrs 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 & After #163".

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

This round will end Friday 2/20 at 5:00pm EST

Moosehead Lake, Maine
This was taken when I was just starting out with a P&S. Looking back, this was difficult lighting since my little buddy is in the shade of one of the clouds. I have yet to try an edit and would like to print the winners photo to give to him.

Per Sams request...IF you would like to use the original 3072x2304 click here -> http://www.cornbread.com/~ratta/banda162large.jpg
But keep in mind the image posting rules when submitting your edit!

http://www.cornbread.com/~ratta/banda162.jpg

[S.Horton]

Shadow/Highlight - Caution with radius; don't lose the contour of the face/shirt
Noise reduction, shadows emphasized; layer 80% opacity
Curves - 3 point color correction
Curves - linear burn, gradient to sky, 20% opacity
Selective color blues, sky color bumped
Levels, just a very slight increase to bottom brightness, gradient tool inverted mask from sky
Overall decrease in saturation
Crop
Alien Skin Kodachome 25 layer, 20% opacity

http://midnightblue.smugmug.com/photos/477053219_cetAR-L.jpg

I think this is a very tough edit, for me. It would be possible to spend many hours to 'will' the trees to be nicer, and to retouch the subject to make it look just a bit better.

Link to full-size:
http://midnightblue.smugmug.com/photos/477053219_cetAR-O.jpg

[monty28428]

lens distortion and crop
Duplicated layer twice
first layer - adjusted levels for boy, USM to add contrast, USM to sharpen (too much USM I think....), erased most of everything but the boy
second layer - adjusted levels, hue and saturation

Best I could do -- I'm sure better will follow!!

[MarineManiac]

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e363/cabbage2003/Untitled.jpg

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e363/cabbage2003/Untitled1.jpg

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e363/cabbage2003/banda162largefix-2.jpg

[ameybrook]

First time playing.

-cropped
-cloned out boy
-levels / selective color / hue adjustment
-topaz adjust
-border

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j52/ameybrook/be162.jpg

[dilorenzo1954]

Opened in ACR. Adjusted exposure, brightness and clarity. Brought up the recovery slider also. Straightened horizon. Used Transform/skew tool on lower right half to straighten the railing. Used Nik Color Efex graduated density filter to balance the tonality without blowing out those beautiful clouds. Created layer mask, USM on boy to bring out contrast. Merged layers. Nik Color Efex foliage filter to bring some pop to the trees and greenery on islands. Cropped to remove bothersome dark cloud. Finished with Nik glamour glow. Resized, applied Noise Ninja and frame. Sat down and poured me a beer...

[monty28428]

Sat down and poured me a beer...

Me too!

[Ocron]

- Opened up 2 smart object copies from ACR, one exposed properly for the sky, one for the boy and blended using a layer mask.
- The boy and trees were really noisey now so ran the whole thing through Noise Ninja.
- The boys face still didn't look good so I did some more smoothing using TRA Pro Retouch and the blur tool.
- Now his face was too flat so I did some manual dodging and burning to give some depth, and added a litte color back too.
- Bumped the contrast all around, but more so in the clouds, and also warmed up some of the white parts of the clouds. Bumped up the greens then did a light smart sharpen and border.

http://ocron.zenfolio.com/img/v6/p405238842.jpg

[tkbslc]

Spent WAY too much time on this. It was fun though :)

Masked out 3 layers with different exposures in PSE6. Erased different parts to blend exposure. Probably should have used large res file instead of the 1024p one. Then I moved into Photoscape and added a Provia film look and added the frame. I used DPP for some minor noise reduction and sharpening.

Could have coaxed a little more detail/brightness into the boy, but then the exposures didn't seem to match and it looked fake.

[SilverHCIC]

This was a tough one due to the harsh back lighting conditions and lack of contrast. I couldn’t decide upon a desat/high-key approach or a conventional edit. … So I combined both:

1. Selected sky and adjusted hue/sat of blue
2. Selected clouds and reduced blue
3. Burned edges of selected clouds to boost contrast
4. Selected boy and applied Levels adjustment to brighten
5. Reduced yellow & red in boy
6. Darkened railing by selecting then applying Levels adjustment
7. Curves adjustment to overall image (just tweaked until I was happy)
8. Adjusted hue/sat of mountains in BG to reduce blueish color cast
9. Noise reduction
10. Copied image
11. Converted to duotone (nearly B/W conversion)
12. Levels adjustment to create high-key
13. Transform>Distort to shrink the color layer
15. Applied border & drop shadow to small/color image
16. Added text
17. Cropped final image

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3359/3295635410_e71187f741_o.jpg

[MJA]

Thank you all for playing. I'm a little surprised at just how many entries this B&A has gotten. It was by no means an easy photo to edit and I appreciate everyones entry!

s.horton - This edit looks very natural except the background forest looks just a little on the bright side. The only thing that distracts me are the highlights on the sides of the boys hair.

monty28428 - your edit is also natural looking except there almost seems to be a halo eminating from the boy's shirt. I like how you cropped a little off the left up to the railing.

MarineManiac - Your edit appears a little dark overall. They boy really has a tan going! I see you also cropped the left side like monty28428. The background across the lake looks really good.

ameybrook - awsome first time entry. i like the mood your edit conveys and even though its a tad noisy, it just plain works. Unfortunately, my little buddy isn't included.

dilorenzo1954 - You nailed the exposure of the boy. But i'm not sure the blurred trees work, I can see sharp trees through the fence at the bottom.

Ocron - I think this is the tightest crop of all. I like the clouds and background but the close crop makes the boy slightly grainy.

tkbslc - I think your edit has the most tree detail of all. Other than a little oversaturation of the blue sky, it looks balanced.

SilverHCIC - Very creative edit. I wonder how it would look with the color photo in a dead space like the lower right?

Ok...there are so many entries and only 1 person can win....YIKES. For judging, I used my criteria of a printable photo to give to my little buddy for him to remember this long hike.
What I ended up doing was downloading everyones submission and reviewed them over and over until I came to the conlusion.....Ocron is the winner! Congrats Ocron!!

[S.Horton]

Ocron - Nice recovery/retouch on the face - Congrats!

[dilorenzo1954]

Nice edit Sean!

[Ocron]

Thanks guys. There were some really good edits on this one, I'm glad I didn't have to judge it. I'll get new pic up tonight or tomorrow morning.

[MJA]

There were some really good edits on this one, I'm glad I didn't have to judge it.

You got that right! There were too many good ones and I wish I didn't have to pick just one.

[monty28428]

Congrats Sean!

[Ocron]

Congrats Sean!

Thanks Monty, I was honestly surprised.

New one is up here: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=7373336#post7373336

[SilverHCIC]

Way to go Sean. ... As always, good stuff from you. Nice job by everyone else as well. This was a hard one to work with.

[mäger]

i know i shouldnt post here, but what do you think of this?:P
http://vull.planet.ee/9/komp/banda162large.jpg