Before & After #158

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 72hrs 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 #159".

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

I took this on my recent trip to Argentina

This game will end Wednesday, February 4 at 9PM CST

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cloned the person out
rebuilt area from other parts of photo
gaussian blurred to blend with background
flip horizontal
noise reduction
added a gradient sky
made a selection of background and decreased brightness/contrast
made a selection of dogs and brightened
Lucis exposure #2 at 50%
sharpened

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

Crop
ReDynamix (default settings)
Added Flare
Cloned out guy
Applied niki Glamour glow
Applied niki photo stylizer\Variton Style #7 Strength 90%
Added frame

OK, I played way too long on this, but I wanted to have fun with it. I thought those little doggies should be on a stage.

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• Swiped a few pictures off the web and tweaked them to get a stand and background, each as new layers
  
• Selected the dogs (and their flyaway fur) and copied to a new layer
  
• Hid original picture layer
  
• Shadow/highlight adjustment on dog layer
  
• Selective dodging & burning on parts of fur to even out
  
• Applied some texture and blur to stage and background layers
  
• applied a few smudge adjustments on fur edges
  
• Selective blurring around edges of dogs
  
• Added type for fun (with drop shadow/bevel & emboss blending)
  
• Added frame
  
• Resized
  
• Decided I needed to get back to work...

This was fun one (but I don't plan to mask dog hair again any time soon...)

- Adjusted the exposure to brighten it (might have tweak the wb also)
- Ran Boutwell Magic Glasses action to pop the dogs out of the background (was kind of flat)
- NN w/ some sharpening just to blur the background a little
- Selective Shadow/Hightlights shadow adjustment on the dogs
- Lots of painful cloning
- Merged up and added dup masked layer, screen blend mode, then lightly exposed some areas on the dogs that were still darker than I wanted.
- White vignette and a frame

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

frenchfx wrote in post #7241164
Applied niki Glamour glow
Applied niki photo stylizer\Variton Style #7 Strength 90%

FrenchFX, what are these and where can I find them? Thanks

Great job everybody! I enjoyed all the edits. Alrighty then...

MJA- Nice clone job removing the guy from the shot and I like the gradient sky.

frenchfx-Wow! Very psychedelic. Is this what the world looked like through Timothy Leary's eyes? Nice job Richard

lavanut- Funny! Clever take on the picture.

Ocron- I like this one the best. All that cloning wasn't for naught. and I like the action you used on the background to separate it from the subject matter. It really makes the pups pop. You're up Sean!

Thanks Ed. I'll get #159 up shortly.

Nice job ocron. I liked your edit a lot. I was in a silly mood when I did mine (or could you tell?).

very nice, clean edit ocron, congrats!!