Before and After #98

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 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 #99".

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

This game will end on Sunday, August 24th at 11am (Eastern).

I enjoyed working on this photo, but would like to see what you guys come up with.

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I didn't do much at all with the people. Instead I focused on simplifying the background.

1. Selected couple, dock, and pole (behind legs) copied & pasted as a new layer. (I didn't get the pencil in her hair as part of the selection.)
2. Found another pic I had of a mountain lake, copied part of the water and pasted as new layer.
3. Set layer order so couple was on top of new water layer.
4. Cleaned up edges of couple selection & smothed out pencil remants in hair.
5. Smoothed edges of couple layer with blur tool to better blend with the new lake layer.
6. Copied part of dock and pasted as new layer between water and couple to extend the dock some more.
7. Used Transform->Skew to distort new part of dock to make it match a bit better.
8. Used slight surface blur on guy's face to smooth it a bit.
9. Used healing brush to remove a couple of freckles.

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-duplicate
-adjust colors using selective color, curves and saturation
-used blur tool to blur everything except their faces and some of the bodies
-added two layers one for the flares and one of the gritty texture
-both textures set to soft light blending mode
-cropped
-added vignette
-turned photo clockwise
DONE

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My computer is still broken, but I thought this picture had so much potential I just had to play. (Still borrowing my daughter's old laptop ). I had about six ideas, but decided to go with the following:

1. Softened entire image GB @ 2 pixels
2. Levels adjustment to reduce harsh lighting
3. Significant crop to focus on a beautiful couple in a wonderful setting
4. Vignette
5. Dark-transparent border
6. Selectively burned portions of image
7. Copied layer several times
8. Successively rotated each layer by 7.5 degrees
9. Successively increased size of each previous layer by 10%
10. Merged all layers
11. Resized canvas to square aspect ratio
12. Filled void with dark-muted green (matched from shadow of original image).
That's all. ... The image was already conveying quite a personal and intimate message. I just wanted to enhance the feeling of two people lost with each other.

Duplicated layer
used quick selection to select couple
used noise reduction
on background layer used gaussian blur
merge layers
change to b&w
upped contrast

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This was fun to work on. I went overboard, making it look like a portrait.

duplicated layer
selected out the people with the magnetic lasso
cleaned up with the eraser
added a solid black fill layer
applied fresco filter from the filter gallery
applied the spotlight lighting effect filter to brighten the center of the image
used the rectangular marquee tool to select everything except a border, then selected the inverse
use the fill bucket to fill the border with a color selected from the skirt

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Nice work everyone

Thekid - you're up! Very different and unexpected

Here's mine for interest.

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Squip, how do you get those scratches like that? I love that.

Congrats Jared, nicely done. I've seen you use similar techniques before, and they always turn out great. Congrats to everyone else as well. Even though there weren't many entries this time, those that did play all did a nice job.

Look forward to the next one!!

thanks ! but bad news again gang, i was outta town. I really dont have anything to use. runner ups turn. I need to stop posting entries if i cant have a photo to post myself...sorry guys.

Thanks Christine, the scratches are just on overlay with a low opacity and some erasing.
No worries, Justin - won't put so much pressure on you as last time , but keep posting.

KAb, you can take this one (between you and me....I think Justin is holding out for #100). I liked everything you did, except maybe the smokey blur....

woooo hoooo!!!!!! I really get to post one?!?!?! haha I'm so excited... I will have to find something quick. Sorry I've been gone all day. If I would have known this fun was here waiting for me I would have been home in a heart beat! haha

SQuiP wrote in post #6169360
Thanks Christine, the scratches are just on overlay with a low opacity and some erasing.
No worries, Justin - won't put so much pressure on you as last time , but keep posting.

KAb, you can take this one (between you and me....I think Justin is holding out for #100). I liked everything you did, except maybe the smokey blur....

#99 is up!
I can't believe the next one is 100 already!!!

I couldn't decide about the blur myself. I tried and tried to do something to clone out his legs cause I thought they almost had a plastic look to them.... please don't come back saying they are artificial because then I'll feel like an idiot. After many failed attempts I decided to go with the blur.


I also like that overlay layer you used with the scratches. I've tried to find something like that myself before but couldn't. Is it a layer I could make myself or find a copy somewhere? I've searched and searched and searched before.....

kab8715 wrote in post #6171297
I tried and tried to do something to clone out his legs cause I thought they almost had a plastic look to them.... please don't come back saying they are artificial because then I'll feel like an idiot.

...Now that you mention it......

It's a steel texture overlay, not too hard to find. But why don't you go take a few photos of textures you like? ...it's really much easier.

SQuiP wrote in post #6172277
It's a steel texture overlay, not too hard to find. But why don't you go take a few photos of textures you like? ...it's really much easier.

Because I always look for the more difficult solution! I never think of the obvious!