Before & After #197

[-Douglas-]

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 #198".

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

This round will end Tuesday June 30th 7:00 pm PST USA.

http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp49/dougle/4leaf.jpg

[shannyD]

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c239/daisydeadpeddles/4leaf1.jpg

levels, curves, desaturated a little bit, masked out 4leaf clover so it is brighter.

new layer gausian blur< mask/gradient thing. and did a faux holga.. vignette, and sharpen.

[R_Metzel]

Went for an old high contrast film look. Used CS4

-Bumped contrast way up
-Unsharp mask 50/50/0
-Bumped vibrancy up just a hair
-Darkened the corners just a tad using lens correction
-add noise at 9% uniform

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2454/3664593230_e14b54f053_o.jpg

[monty28428]

Hue/Sat - desaturated blues, USM 20,60,0
Duplicate layer multiply 50%, gausian blur 4
Flatten, Crop, Despleckle, Burn edges

[Saphire]

1. Crop,
2. Patch Tool to remove break in rock.
3. Clone around the fine detail and remove out of focus flower, then more patching.
4. Dodged and burned the petals slightly.
5 selective sharpened.

[Foxgguy2001]

PP:
Flipped horizontal, cropped.
Created depth map in alpha channel, used to apply lens blur filter.
Adjusted curves and vibrancy.

[masterwillems]

LR2:
Saturated untill you only had purple, and green, edited the "luminance."
Cropped.
Exported.

Photoshop CS3:
Saturated some purple out of the ground with the pencil -> saturation mode.
Saturated the unpopped leaf.
Did a little clean up on miss's spiders, web.
Made border of 20px.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t173/masterwillems/clover.jpg

[miket019]

contrast +10

exposure -.05
clarity +85
vibrance +13
saturation +4

luminance +25
color +65

that should give you an idea of what i did

[ColinUK]

Saturation
Cropped
Blur tool on background
Unsharp mask

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m164/vwbus1972/4leaf.jpg

[Mysticallibra]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3320/3670070011_c97f13c3a5_o.jpg
First thing, this is a really pretty picture..
I used CS4..
I duplicated the layer twice..
The first layer, I multiplied it.. opacity at 100
Second layer, I chose multiply at like 42 percent opacity..
I used the lens correction tool and used the vingette tool to darken around the corners..
I also used the burn tool on the flowers and the clovers..
I also used Kodak airbrush filter to soften the image some..
Thanks for looking... :D

[-Douglas-]

Hi folks! Sorry a little late picking a winner, but here we go :D

ShannyD: I like how you cropped and made the 4-leaf clover the main subject but I would have liked to have seen the stem to it 'pop' as well.

R_Metzel: The high contrast film look looks pretty cool, but I sure wish you would have cropped some of the extra junk out.

Monty28428: Great colors and nice crop, no spider web = good, I wish the stem was more vibrant to match the leaves.

Saphire: Another great crop and nice natural color with great patch work.

Foxgguy2001: I like this crop as well and DOF, kind of a 3-d feeling, some of the detail is missing on the stem but not too bad though. A little rough around the petal edges.

Masterwillems: Great work with the crop and selective colors, if only you would of left the color in the stem, you may have been the winner!

Miket019: Nice detail in the petals but no crop, looks better than the original though.

ColinUK: I really like the crop, blur, and the colors on this one but the mask around the clovers is really rough.

Mysticallibra: Thanks for the "pretty picture" comment. The colors look great but I'm not sure about the softness, maybe with a stronger/darker vignette, yep, I think that would have done it without a crop.

I guess it's time to chose a winner. First of all, nice work everyone, well done!

The Winner:

Monty28428, Congratulations!



Here's a little background on how I accidentally found that 4-leaf clover:
About a month ago I decided to go to the local park to try and find something interesting to shoot using my XTI/70-200. I took some shots of this and that, went home to check out the shots, and this shot is where I discovered the 4-leaf clover:
http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp49/dougle/4leaf01.jpg

So I grabbed my S3 and small tripod and went back to get some closeups!
After some shooting I dug up the whole plant, stuck it in a plastic bag, brought it home and planted it in my flower bed! Unfortunately, since the 4-leaf part of the plant is pretty much an anomaly, the stem which had the 3 petals grew quite fast and the stem with the 4 petals withered and died after about 2 weeks............:(

[Saphire]

Congratulations Monty a nice edit.

[masterwillems]

Congrats Monty! And funny background info Douglas :)

[Kendoway]

Congrats Monty - and nice work everyone.

Excellent scoring Douglas (and a funny story to top it all off).

[Mysticallibra]

Congrats Monty! :D

[NigelD]

Well done Monty - missed this one I'm afraid. Roll on #198.

[ColinUK]

Congratulations Monty! :)

I knew the clover looked rough in mine (it's because I didn't know what I was doing!:oops:). Must keep practicing!

[monty28428]

Thanks Douglas!! (Now I'm not so sure I would have noticed there was a four leaf clover in the original -- good eyes).

Great job everybody and I'll get a new one up soon.