Before & After #34

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 800 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 48hrs 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 and After #35)

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

This game will end on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 10:00PM EST.


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crop
bump in saturation
canvas
sharpen

1. Selected sand (not rocks or seaweed), layer mask, gaussian blur
2. Bicolor gradient filter Blue to Brown, 3/4 opacity
3. Select seaweed, boosted hue ~+15, saturation ~+10, lightness ~-10.
4. Applied another bicolor gradient, darker blue to light gold. Went back to original image and selected the bird - deleted the bird out of all the layers except the original, to remove the color cast from the gull.
5. Selected the water, blurred it multiple steps higher than what I did to the sand. Used the blur tool @ various opacities to blend it with sand blur. The final result here was the bird, rocks, and seaweed unblurred, sand lightly blurred, and background heavily blurred - an awkward DoF if you will.

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Decided to take a simple approach this time:

1. Remove color cast to reduce yellow
2. Added blue to sky & water
3. Reduce noise in sky
4. Clean up beach by removing seaweed, tire tracks and most of rocks
5. Selective sharpening of seagull only (USM 40,1,1)
6. Adjust colors of seagull (brighten white & darken gray)
7. Add border

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I cloned the water so the shore line went more evenly behind the seagull. Then I duplicated the seagull, turned it and made it a tiny bit smaller so it would not appear to be exact.
Cropped.
Upped contrast and darkened the photo overall a little bit.
Desaturated the yellow a tad.
Noise reduction everywhere except the wave and the seagulls.
A little sharpening.
Added the border and the text (not very creative in the wording department, I know).

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Yay first post! Haha bout time =]

1. Cropped so that bird was centered.
   
2. Messed in Curves to make it brighter, add more blue, and contrast it a bit.
   
3. Set Curves layer to 75% opacity and used a soft brush with the eraser tool on 44% opacity to fade the Curves on the ocean.
   
4. On original layer, used filter>sharpen>sharpen.
   
5. Used the blur tool at 100% on the background (ocean).
   
6. Added a Brightness/Contrast at -4 brightness and +13 contrast.
   
7. Added new layer, filled with ffbce0, set layer to Color Burn, and 20% opacity.
   
8. Image>Canvas Size and increased it to 565x830 pixels.
   
9. New layer, filled with white, dragged below all other layers.
   
10. Saved on a lower setting so it'd fit as an attachment.

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-added contrast
- a high pass filter
- a monday morning filter
- a polaroid transfer filter
- added alittle color
- added bored

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I got creative and tried smudge painting not sure how well, but I gave it a go. Lol Only thing I did beyond that was the levels and hue/saturation level. Yeah I had a hell of a time with the sand couldn't figure it out

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As has been said before, the most difficult part about this thread is the judging. So, not being able to make a decision on my own, I called for the assitance of my lovely wife.

This was a close one between BitterSweet and suzyb. Still not able to decide, we arm wrestled for it, and the winner is: suzyb!

I won't tell you who won the arm wrestle, but I will tell you that my wife really liked the creativity of what you did, while I think you really nailed the colors perfectly - Nice job!

Congrats Suzyb. I thought yours was really cute

I take it you might have lost the arm wrestle huh azsteve-o

Congrats to all. ... As soon as I saw Suzyb post hers, I thought it was a winner. ... Very nice!! Congrats to everyone who participated. Look forward to the next!!

Congrats Suzyb. As well as to everyone else.

Thanks!!

I decided to duplicate the bird when I fouled up the cloning job trying to get rid of the seaweed. I don't know how you did that so smoothly, SilverHCIC.

I'll get the next one up in a little bit!

Congrats Suzyb