Before & After # 148

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 & After #149".

This is all about having fun so have at it!!!
Any edit, over-the-top creative or subtle, is encouraged!

This game will end on Monday, January 5th at 8 am EST

I found this wild flower while hiking along a stream. It was a typical overcast day, so the lighting was flat and the image turned out this way.

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Some contrast and color work, usm 42/37/8 , Added a basic border via expand canvas 103 percent custom color to add attention to the greenery....And then things went downhill!

I tried my first page curl. I'll admit I got frustrated and quite. I'll have to think about this teqnique in my head for a couple days and then give it another try. I would tell you what i did but I doubt anybody wants a result like mine so I would recomend google.

To make matters worse the page curl was an after thought I had already saved for web so I was working with a small file and we all know what happens when ya start mangling a 150kb file...But since this is a learning thread, My mangled attempt.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Since this picture came out so flat, I decided to focus my editing only on the lighting, contrast & depth (mainly for practice). I figured I'd leave the cropping, color conversions, and artistic stuff to others!

1. Created three separate layers, one for the rocks, another for the creek, and one for the flower.
2. On each layer, applied a different Levels and Hue/Sat adjustment to address the flatness of the lighting.
3. Applied USM 75,1,1 to water layer only, to improve clarity of water.
4. Copied flower layer, converted to black, flipped vertially, skewed & distorted 80% height, GB @ 2 pixels, reduced opacity to about 60% to create shadow
5. Lots of burning on bottom edges of several rocks to give proper shadow/illumination

I think it needs more contrast, but to keep it looking realistic I went with a crude selective coloring. Hope you like it!

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

First I ran the entire image through ReDynamix which added the contrast, de-hazed and it really cleared up the image. I almost Stopped there.
I created a second layer and brightened up the flowers with RedPawMedia's RPM beautifier plugin.
I didn't like the effect over the entire image so I created an adjustment layer and painted in the flowers leaving the rest of the image untouched by the RPM plugin.
I cropped the image a bit.
Added border.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Since this is the first time I've had to select a "winner", I am surprised at how difficult it is (especially with only 4 entries). All four edits improved the image, but I narrowed it down to the two edited by SilverHCIC and frenchfx. I felt they both did a very good job working with the flat lighting to bring some dimension to the picture. I thought the rocks were handled better by SilverHCIC, but frenchfx did the best job with the flower. The water on both of the pictures is cleaned up very nicely, except that some of the rocks in the stream turned yellow in frenchfx's edit (probably occured while fixing the flower??). Truly, I think this is a tie between you two. SilverHCIC's is a little more true to the actual scene, but frenchfx's is just plain beautiful.

Well, since I generally try to keep my images as accurate as possible, I'm going to give the nudge to SilverHCIC, with frenchfx a very close second.

Whoa ... I wasn't expecting to come close to consideration after seeing Richard's edit. It turns out I'll be away from the computer for a while and won't be able to play the next round, so since I think Richard's turned out better than mine, I'm going to pass this one on to him. The flower is the focal point of the image, and his flower is fantastic!!

You're up Richard!!

Congrats Silver!!
..and no problem posting the next image. however, I can't post until this afternoon.

PictureDisk - it's usually a tough call here, we all see things a bit differently.

Happy new year everyone.
-rich

I know its over but here is mine anyways,

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

Congrats Silver/Richard! Nice edits everybody. Mine looked pretty much like Silvers sans the kick butt shadow!

Fstop, VERY nice edit.

Next pic is up!