Before & After 60

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 #61).

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

This will end on Thur, May 22nd at 10pm (my time).

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thekid24 wrote in post #5566056
The participants must have their "Image Editing OK" turned on

Probably a good idea if you do as well!

Just went with the first thing that came to mind:

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red hot sheep wrote in post #5566171
Probably a good idea if you do as well!

Yes, very good.
I felt the need to hide that permission cuz some feel they can improve my photos when they are fine as I posted them. And most time they couldnt,

Thanks.Fixed

When I first saw this I thought...MATRIX! And I sorta let my imagination run wild with this one!

First I extracted both figures on to their own layers
then I erased the shadow of the left figure and cloned in the blank spaces on the background layer.
Then I fixed the clouds (they were pixelating for me no matter how I processed the shot) and then converted to B&W IR.
Then I added an outer blue glow to the figure on the right and an inner yellow glow to the figure on he left.
Then I rotated and flipped the figure on the left, and then liquified him just a bit.
Then I converted both figures to B&W IR and added another shadow for the figure on the left.
Then I used a matrix overlay on linear light at about 40% and flattened.

-High Pass Sharpening layer
-Burn layer on mask with a layer setting of soft light and burned the buildings
-Cooling filter
-Hue/Saturation layer desaturated some of the colors
-Surface blur on a mask to get rid of some of the noise in the sky
-Two texture layers one on the building itself and one on the overall photo
-With the sticks I wanted to make them flames so I took a white brush went down the length of it, then smudged out, rendered lighting effects, then to add to it I added an outer and inner glow to them
-With the eyes I just put a white brush on the eyes and gave it an outer glow of red and duplicated this layer
-Border

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I had no idea where I was going with this when I started...but here's what I ended up with.

I wanted to see the photo without the guys, but thought I shouldn't take them out altogether, so one's hanging out in a window and the other is "walking" down the street.
Cloned over where they were. Then I just adjusted the levels, brightness/contrast, highlights & shadows. Selected the sky and darkened that up a little bit. Added a lens flare. Made a selection along the building to the window that I feathered quite a bit and then made that a little lighter. Then did some burning here and there. Sharpened. Added a border.

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Well when I saw the picture the first thing that came to mind was Grand Theft Auto so that's what I kinda tried to do.

-Tonal contrast
-Bi-Color Filter
-Added bats and a car
-Cropped
-Added color to dirt, grass, sky, the two guys and building
-Bleach Bypass layer (very low opacity)
-Blurred image just a little to try and smooth out the pixels.
-Solarization layer for building
-Brightened
-Added slight vignette and border

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- Opened 2 versions from ACR, one with the exposure bumped, one with the blacks pulled up to darken the building. Used a layer mask to expose the darker building using overlay blend mode.
- Made another copy of the darker image and used a layer mask to expose the ground, overlay blend mode @50% opacity.
- Merged up then high pass filter layer (5px if I remember right), opacity 20%.
- Merged up then gaussian blur layer (radius .5), opacity 20%
- Graduated filter just on the buildings in the background, overlay blend @75% opacity.
- Brightened the area around the "fighters"
- Vignette centered around the "fighters"

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Did a lot, but changed my mind so many times in the end it wasn't much at all...
Layered grafitti onto building as well as in the back- and foreground - cutout grafitti clouds
Curve and contrast boost
Hue adjustment
Duplicate layer with pen scetch, opacity aprox 35?
Lightened/darkened selected areas
Vignette and border

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ZeroOne86 wins this. Thanks everyone!

Take'r away Z

Congrats ZeroOne86.

SQuiP- neat ideal for the building

I was going to try, but after witnessing the "matrix" variant, I knew I couldn't compete!

Nice win with the flaming swords, Zero.

congrats Zero

Nice edits everyone!