Before & After #228

[marcoj70]

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 #229".

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

Contest ends midnight on Thursday the 22th.
Full size image: - http://www.marcojona.com/ba228_hr.jpg

http://www.marcojona.com/ba228.jpg

[givtu]

This one basically needed boosting in the shadows while not blowing out the highlights in the clouds or mountains. There was also a distracting rope or cable line at the bottom of the image.

Levels (to set white and black points)
Shadow/Highlights adjustment (to bring up the darker areas and increase dynamic range)
Dupe layer > soft light > adjust with curves to protect shadows and highlights (for midrange contrast)
Clone out rope with healing brush
Sharpen (custom sharpen action using edge mask and unsharp mask)
http://www.garvinworks.com/images/potn/potn228.jpg

[Kendoway]

I actually managed to restrain myself this time, and do a NORMAL edit.

Are you shocked? :shock: :p

Levels, curves, brightness, contrast.
Crop + image reduction
High pass filter (radius 75)
Flatten - curves again, saturation.

http://i38.tinypic.com/103vcic.jpg

[bdbox]

The sky is amazing, but the mountain, trees and pond need some works.

Crop the photo. I said I love the sky, but for balancing purpose, I have to cut a little bit of sky.
then I created 3 adjustment layers in photoshop, and I used "calculation" to make selecting easier.
1. curve layer to bright the mountain, trees and water.
2. H/S layer to increase the saturation of the greens.
3. brightness/contrast layer to make these trees stand out.
at last, resize to 1024px, and apply smart sharpen.

http://www.cctvdiy.com/upload/228.jpg

[spitfire23bc]

GIMP:
Increase saturation
Cloned out fence at the bottom
Duplicate background, overlay, mask to show sky
Duplicate background, screen, mask out sky, 70% opacity, max saturation
Vignette, 20% opacity
Resized


http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1901289/ba228_edit.jpg

[Lore]

CS2 - Crop, Color, Contrast, Levels, Curves x's 2, Clone, Saturation Sponge on Tree Greens, Channel Mixer
Water Layer - Gamma/Exposure
Mid Picture Moutian/Tree Layer - Brightness/Contrast, Burn
Merge Water Layer & Mid Picture Mountian Tree Layer - Unsharp Mask
Sky Layer - Shadow/Highlight
Flatten Image, Resize, Vignette

http://www.eideticmemories.com/ba228.jpg

[chrisa]

Cropped to simulate pano, Curves, lots of dodging and burning.
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n147/chrisa62401/ba228_hr.jpg

[MJA]

First I made a psuedo HDR out of 7 images
Then brought it into pse6
Saturation -23%
Darken highlights 7%
Noise removal
Crop
Resize

http://www.cornbread.com/~ratta/ba228.jpg

[BitterSweet]

-Sharpened
-Edited the contrast and saturation of main colors using Nik Vivera
-Bleach Bypass filter
-Dodged and burned parts using black/white on a soft light filter layer
-vignette
-border

[Jason C]

CS3-Camera Raw-curves-levels-color correction-selective saturation boost-masking-crop-add boat-levels on boat-eraser tool-upsize-add border...oh well.



Jason C

[marcoj70]

OK, first of all, sorry for the delay.. work is taking so much time off me later :(
Some general observations:
AS bdbox said, "The sky is amazing, but the mountain, trees and pond need some works".
There isn't a "right way" to do it, and also results can be quite different and still very good, so it comes out a lot as a matter of taste. However there are some technical considerations that can be made:
When working on areas that are too dark, if you're not aware of it, you usually end up under-saturating the colors: this happened to givtu and MJA. On the other end, spitfire23bc pic is too much saturated, both in the sky and the vegetation. KEndoway, Lore and Bittersweet didn't address the problem enough, and the trees there are still to dark. I like both Bdbox & chrisa colors results.
Composition: Nice work to everybody that took the rope at the bottom out.
Bdbox & chrisa, you cut too much of the bottom. Kendoway actually did the best job in this area, cutting just enough of the bottom to render the rope irrelevant, and respecting almost perfectly the rule of thirds: a third water, a third earth and a third sky; almost philosophically perfect! ;) However, I usually prefer to keep proportions when I crop (if possible): it's easier to print, and I think the human eye (or brain?) is used to 2/3 or 3/4, and other formats look "strange".

In the end I give the win to bdbox, for the best colors and retaining of the details both on the trees and on the clouds. Congratulations!
And here's how i did it:

http://www.marcojona.com/ba228a.jpg

It's the same HDR approach I've already described in BA211, so go there for the details :)

[spitfire23bc]

In the end I give the win to bdbox, for the best colors and retaining of the details both on the trees and on the clouds. Congratulations!
And here's how i did it:
It's the same HDR approach I've already described in BA211, so go there for the details :)

Nice work bdbox! And, Marco, your version is lovely. Is there any way of doing that without CS3 to create the hdr image?

[Kendoway]

Marvelous work bdbox!

Rocky training music for everyone else ;)

[marcoj70]

Nice work bdbox! And, Marco, your version is lovely. Is there any way of doing that without CS3 to create the hdr image?
Not that I know of :(

[Lore]

Great job everyone!

Congrats bdbox :cool:

Beautiful photo Marcoj70

[Jason C]

Congrats bdbox...way to go! Good edits everyone. Thanks for the challenge, Marco.

Jason C

[NigelD]

Shame I missed this one - great edit bdbox. Job well done everyone.

[bdbox]

Thanks Marco!
Also thanks to Chris, spitfire23bc, Lore, Jason C, NigelD and everybody else, your edits are very lovely either.

Now the "Before & After #229" is up.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=772251