Before & After #168

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 #169".

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

This round will end Tuesday 3/17 at 5:30pm EST

I shot this shortly after sunrise today. There isn't anything terribly wrong with it I guess other than being a little underexposed, but I thought the texture and color in the water was interesting and had a lot of potential for a creative edit. I know I had fun with it.

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Cropped it, cloned out the stray grass, levels, curves and sharpened

Like you said, it is already a pretty good image. Felt like I could just give it some 'pop'

PSE6:
Shadows/highlights - boosted highlights a bit
Brightness/Contrast - Contrast up to 100%
Nik Color Efex 2.0 (freeware) - Brilliance/Warmth

Photoscape:
Cross-Process : Low
Framed
resized a touch to get it back under 150k.

I've been too busy to play for a while, but I thought this one deserved the center of Audubon's next issue:

1. Curves adjustment to remove blue color cast.
2. Levels adjustment to bump contrast slightly.
3. Hue/Sat to adjust blues and reds.
4. Smart blur w/ gradient layer mask @ top of image.
5. Smart sharpen w/ gradient layer mask @ bottom of image.
6. USM 75%,1,1 applied to heron.
7. Ran magazine action I created a while back.
8. Resized image.

I tried to keep this a straight forward, simple edit...I have noticed that when I do an edit, I change things without a certain order or logic. I'm afraid this possibly counteracts other changes and also makes it difficult to list my edit info.

(PSE6)
Auto levels
Increase saturation 52
Shadows/highlights 15/12/-20
Cloned white spec on birds neck
Guided edit sharpen 120 (approx)
Stock frame

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duplicate layer - screen
levels, hue/sat

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Because I am a big ole’ meanie and a “starver of birds”, I took that blob of Rush Limbaugh’s neck (or whatever it was) out of the bird’s mouth. It's my feeble attempt to draw the attention back to the bird’s eye.

• Head and beak lassoed – beak copy/pasted, patched, cloned, smudged, blurred.
  
• Background water cloned.
  
• Head re-pasted.
  
• Messed with the levels, slight saturation tweak.
  
• Unsharp mask 100%, .05 pixels, threshold 0
  
• Really tight crop with a large black mat.
  

Been a while since I played....thought I'd throw something in the ring...

1. Little crop
2. Duplicated layer, multiply with 60% opacity
3. Curves layer
4. Levels adjustment
5. Warming photo filter
6. Slight bump in hue/sat
7. Some selective color enhancements to richen the colors
8. Border
9. Oops..almost forgot, I cloned out the tall blade of green grass in front of the bird

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Great edits as always...

sancho1983 - Nice edit, good job removing the grass and bringing the colors and texture out in the water.

tkbslc - Nice overall, you really brought the colors out, but I think the blue on the bird looks a little too blue (?) at least on my monitor.

SilverHCIC - I like how you cleaned up the blue color cast and how you handled the blur. Nice to see my picture published too.

MJA - Great edit, the bird really pops off the page and the colors look good..but maybe a little too saturated.

Monty - Your edit has a whole different feel to it, much more muted, probably the closest to what the scene really looked like when I took the shot.

Kendoway - Excellent job editing out the birds breakfast...but he (she?) has to eat! I like the crop too.

lhos - Your darker edit looks like it was either earlier in the day or much later. Nice job removing the grass and giving the shot it a different look.

MarineManiac - Wow, very creative edit. it looks like he's eating in front a weird forest fire and looks shocked to see it. The crop works well with that look.

As usual it is really hard to pick a winner but the one that I narrowed it down to is Sancho1983. Nice job!

Nice job sancho. ... Actually, nice job to all who participated this round. I thought this was a really good set!! Congrats to all.

Congrats Sancho!

Nice edits everybody!

Great work Sancho - looking forward to 169.

Woah, thanks guys!!

I'll get the next one up later this evening