Before and After 457

The game will last 7 Days 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.
Feel free to comment and/or ask questions at any time. This is a good competition for learning new methods, so let's make it a bit more dynamic. I will be judging edits, not comments. Feel free to comment on the original image as well.

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 #458."

Submissions end Friday, February 1st, 2012 at 7:30pm GMT and a winner will be announced.

Here's a RAW file for those who would prefer :-

https://www.dropbox.co​m …mzg4yft2/Alaska​%20088.CR2

this is a fun game! heres my submission:

I first edited the photo in Lightroom, dropping the exposure slightly -1.74, and then adjusted the red and green channels, and upped the clarity 25%. I adjusted the red channel 100% to make the helicopter look goldish. I adjusted the saturation to 60% on the green channel to make the foliage pop a little more. did a slight vignetting, then after that, i cropped some of the photo out, then imported it into photoshop. I made a clone of the layer (CTRL+J), then made it Overlay (adjusting the opacity slightly down) to give the image more contrast, burnt a little bit of the image, and sharpened the photo slightly (Filters / Sharpen More -- about 20%)

I like the idea; here's my attempt.

in camera raw:
contrast +18; highlights +10; shadows +7; whites -18; black -13
bumped saturation in Reds to +16; set sharpening to 0

then imported to Photoshop:
-I first used Nik raw presharpener.
-person removed using combination of content aware and clone tool.
-a level and curve adjustment layer used for the whole image, then a separate curve and saturation used to manipulate contrast and coloring on the window.
-background vegetation desaturated using saturation adjustment layer
-color tone adjusted using color balance adjustment layer
-nik output sharpener used somewhat aggressively since the image is going to be resized in 1024px
-crop & resized image
-high pass filter used as the final output sharpening.

My main thought was to make the copter pop in the foreground. Using some Nik tools, yet keeping the elements realistic and not over done, believable.

Downloaded the CR2
Cropped in PS to give the copter a place to go so-to-speak while also trying to stick to the rule of thirds. I believe that creative cropping is key to most successful images.
Cloned bystander out in PS. I usually do a much better job cloning, but I was in a rush. I'll admit that there are obvious rock duplicates.
HDR Efex Pro 2 - Tone Mapping - Grad 1 preset and added and tweaked about 40 selection points
Color Efex Pro 4 - grad fog diagonally from bottom left to upper right, grad fog on right and left sides also. This was to add drama as though the copter is coming through the fog.
Flattened image
PS Selective sharpening of copter

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Before and After 457

The setting was snow & ice or cold, so I kept the image a little darker & cooler.

Downloaded CR2 file, opened in Canon DPP 3.12.40.0. Adjusted brightness -.17, adjusted image white balance adjustment from standard to daylight. Adjusted picture style from standard to landscape. Adjusted contrast to +1, adjusted highlight to +1, adjusted shadow to -1. Unsharp mask = strength 4, fineness 8, threshold 4. Saved as jpeg. opened jpeg in Photoshop CS3 and used the blur tool = normal, strength 70, around the edge of the helicopter to help it stand out.

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Here we go then folks, :-

BrandonPerkins : I like the change in appearance on this edit, it wasn't at all like that in reality, but the darkness of the rocks appeals to me, as does the change in helicopter colour and there's good detail in the cockpit.

secwind : Natural enough edit and the colour on the helicopter stands out well.

Ynot : The rocks are a little too wishy-washy for me but I like the selective re-positioning of the helicopter.

MrGman65 : Good crop to make the most of the main subject and yes, it was cold on the Mendenhall Glacier!

Dawicka2 : Another good natural looking edit, probably nearer to mine than the rest.

However, because of the change in feel for this one I'll go with BrandonPerkins this week - good job and over to you.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

Awesome! Thanks for picking me I wish I had some great RAW files for you guys to edit, but I really dont.. lol

I do have some shots from Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan though. i'll check through those and see if I can find one that will be fun to edit

Well done, Brandon. I like the color shift.

Nice work, everyone!
Congrats, Brandon.

Great edit Brandon.

Nice job all!