Steampunk Chuck Editing

https://www.facebook.c​om …amPunkChuck/pho​tos_stream

Anyone got a idea of how this method of editing is done. I love his skills but can't afford one of his events or classes.

One option is to duplicate your base layer, maybe run some heavy NR over it, just to soften it a bit and then use the soft light (or another blend mode from that group). Yhen run a levels on the layer. With this group of blend modes a mid tone (128/128/128) is zero effect, lighter tones lighten and darker tones darken the underlying image. That at least might give you a start using just PS, its just a matter of playing until you hit something you like. I think there are some plugin type applications that will also give a similar effect.

Alan

Will surely give that a shot. If I ever hit the lotto I am going to for sure go to all the classes of my favorite photographers.

Can your steps in more detail for me? Thanks

BigAl007 wrote in post #17451464
One option is to duplicate your base layer, maybe run some heavy NR over it, just to soften it a bit and then use the soft light (or another blend mode from that group). Yhen run a levels on the layer. With this group of blend modes a mid tone (128/128/128) is zero effect, lighter tones lighten and darker tones darken the underlying image. That at least might give you a start using just PS, its just a matter of playing until you hit something you like. I think there are some plugin type applications that will also give a similar effect.

Alan

Thanks for posting..... that gives some neat effects. Just quickly playing around with a not-very-good photo I got this:

IMAGE LINK: http://i857.photobucke​t.com …wlsteamsm_zpspj​dnnxdl.jpg

Well heres a couple of mine. The effect that I have been going for is one that looks, as my daughter said, like a water colour with the outlining in fineliner. As I'm a cheapskate I have been printing them on 300gsm artists water colour paper. Most of the people who have seen them think they were painted. As I took up photography in part because I can't draw or paint I call that a success.

The first is my son (closest to camera, I'm next to him in the red jacket) back when he was just about to turn 16). It's from the 2006 Norfolk Summer County Championships, the 100 yard stage of a Double Dewar Match (Thats 40 shots at 100 yards and 40 shots at 50m with a .22 rimfire for the non shooters out there).

The processing is pretty much as I described in the previous post. In PSCS5 I First did a select all and copied the background layer for later, then duplicated the background layer. Then I ran the NR filter on it with the strength at 10 and everything else at 0. Then run the Find Edges filter, then repeat the NR filter. Now I change the blend mode to Soft Light. Still with the copy layer selected I then run the levels tool. I don't remember the exact settings, but usually I pull the white point slider down just a little, say between about 248 and 252. The mid tone slider usually ends up somewhere around .25 and the black point somewhere around 90 to 128, but this one is the most likely to vary a lot. So really it could be anywhere between 0 and 160, I think they are about the extremes. You need to keep the preview box ticked so you can watch the effect in real time on the image. Sometimes you will find that different parts of the image really need differing values here. So you might need to produce a couple of versions and then use layer masks to select which parts get which processing. If you don't use masks then each layer adds it's effect to the ones below. Once this step is finished I then use (I think it's called Stamp Visible Layers tool) Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E command to produce a composite layer on top.

This I set to Hard Light and apply the High Pass filter to it. This is your classic High Pass Sharpening, by using Hard Light it makes the effect stronger. I then create a layer mask for the layer and paste the copy of the original image in. With just the layer mask channel selected I run the Find Edges filter and then use Levels to set up the mask so that only the edge detail is sharpened. In this case you will need to pull the white point down probably somewhere between 220 and 240, I usually find that the mid tone slider ends up around .10 and the white point is up in the 190's or so. I might also have to go in and paint in some areas by hand. The final layer is a Vibrancy which I set to 100, as the processes do tend to reduce the saturation. I find the vibrancy effect better than throwing in an overall saturation boost. At times I also find that I want to add an HSL layer to make a few adjustments to particular areas. You will likely know when when you see it.

So far things have been pretty simple, and this may well be satisfactory for you. However remember that this is art. I have found that sometimes it is necessary to help things along. Where the effects are a bit too strong, then I will at this point go back to the first layer that I created, with all of the filters. You can then play with the effects by painting on the layer. You will probably have to turn the background layer visibility on and off to see just what colours you need to paint in. Blacks/whites and greys will simply adjust the amount of brightening/darkening of the background that you will see. If you use a colour then that will also be added to the image. So in this first image I ended up painting a light grey over the visible parts of the faces, as they were generally too dark. Doing this after you created the sharpening layer means that you retain a little of the edge detail that you might otherwise loose from the image. I also painted in the yellow firing point markings in yellow and the actual firing line in white, as they had lost a lot of colour in the process.

So here it is:

Very cool stuff Alan.

Thanks. The more I play with it the more I learn. Especially about what goes on when you paint on different layers to change the effects. As I said they look even better when you print them. I guess the only issue is that they do tend to take up quite a bit of disk space. But I'm glad I didn't flatten the .PSDs as I have been able to go back to some of the earlier attempts and improve them a lot with more knowledge. It would have been a right pain to have had to start again from scratch. Especially with the layer masks, they can take a lot of work to get just right.

Alan