Before & After #172

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 #173".

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

This round will end Wed 4/1 at 12:00 PM

Well, I wanted to post something that was a little different for this round and I think this qualifies. Hopefully it doesn't turn anyone of from doing the edit (as I know it would my wife if she were into these things).

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levels
curves (black, mid, white) tried to fix color cast
smart sharpen
3:2 crop

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PSE6:
Added Canvas
Adjusted Levels (moved white point left) until floor was mostly blown out.
Erased around shadows to blend into added canvas
Added two more layers as copies from background
First layer changed to multiply and Opacity 25% to darken highlights a bit
Second layer was soft light opactity 50% to improve textures

resize, fill light with picasa.

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adjusted Levels
made 5 exposure HDR
overlaid HDR onto levels edit at 39% opacity
deleted all but spider on HDR
merged visible
nik reflector effect at 48% opacity
nik tonal contrast
cloned/smudged small imperfections and dirt
vignette
tiny bit of sharpening
noise removal
time for a beer

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healing brush, curves, sharpening, burn, brightness, contrast, grayscale, background blur,vingette, border

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Ok I almost didn't do this one because I don't like fuzzy spiders and the eyes were creeping me out but I did it ^_^

-Sharpened
-Color Contrast Filter
-Lighted up the white background.
-Cloned the shadows a bit so they're not 100% noticeable but not completely gone.
-Blurred the flower
-Duplicated and flipped the flower
-Added more brown color to the spider
-Cropped
-Border

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Bloom, heavy vignette, Cross processing filter and bumped contrast

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changed WB
cropped
put a glass texture overlay
used nik's darken/lighten center
used glow
saved for web

I love this weekly challenge, as I try to force myself to learn something new. I’ve never done an “Out Of Bounds” before (here’s the POTN OOB thread: POTN OOB if you would like to learn more), and this spider was a perfect set up for my first attempt.

Photo Edits Only:

• Adjusted curves.
  
• Adjusted levels.
  
• Saturation +10%
  
• Slight color adjustment.
  
• Unsharp mask 100%, 0.5 pix, threshold 0
  
• Cloned out a few specks.
  

Well I'm glad the spider didn't scare anyone away. Here we go...and remember this is all just my opinion.

Monty - Nice job fixing the exposure on the spider. The only thing missing is the spots in front of the spider and the one on the flower need to be cleaned up.

tkbslc - I really like the blown out white surface, that looks really good (in fact I'm going to try this on my version of the shot). I would take down the highlights some on the spider itself, and crop it a little tigher but not too much; I do like the added lower right space.

MJA - Great edit. The exposure and detail on the spider is great and bonus points for cleaning up the spots. What does the Nik reflector effect do?

Lore - I like how you brought attention to the spiders face by blurring the background and adding the vignette. I'm not sure about b&w for this shot because I like the colors on the spider, but it does give it an interesting look.

Tracey - Nice job bringing the spider out of the shadows, yours seems to have a 3d look to it, probably because of the blurred flowers and the fact that there are more of them. The spider probably could have taken a little more sharpening.

Krystle - The thing that I really like about your edit is how the shadows connect up to the heavy vignette. That gives it a cool look. I like the dark look to the shot but I would like to see the spiders face more. This is one that the more I look at it the more I like it.

Permagrin - I like the way the broken glass looks over parts of the flower and the floor, but I don't really like it over the spider. I can see that you brought out the details nicely, but it's hard to see them.

mattograph - I can't put my finger on it but there's something different/real about how the spider looks in your edit. Maybe you didn't do as much sharpening? Anyhow, looks good but there's something up with the coloring in the flowers.

Kendoway - You know what's funny, just now my wife came over and asked to see the edits and as I'm scrolling down (and before I got to yours) she says this would be a good one to do an 'out of bounds' on, and i agree. Yours came out great, esp considering it's the first one you ever did. The only nit I have is that the shadow from the leg on the far right should be on the other side since the light source is on the left.

As always there really is something to like about all of them but for this round I'm going with Mr. HDR , MJA.

Superb job MJA - congrats!

Good call on that Ocron, and thanks for the valuable feedback. Actually, the INSANE part was those front spider legs. All the lasso'ing and magic wanding the in the world wasn't going to preserve the hairs on those legs.

A well deserved winner. I really enjoy an HDR that doesn't scream "Hey, I'm HDR!"

Kendoway wrote in post #7644891
Actually, the INSANE part was those front spider legs. All the lasso'ing and magic wanding the in the world wasn't going to preserve the hairs on those legs.

I thought of that while I was looking at it (as in holy crap that must have been tough to deal with) but I thought you did a good job of leaving enough to make it look real. I ran into the same thing with an oob fly I did a while back, it was maddening.

Wow..lots of great edits!

As far as the reflector effect..it does what it sounds like. You can add a light source from any of the 4 sides (choose from gold, silve or soft gold) I chose gold from the left to brighten the flowers a little and the gold helped show off the brown in the spider.

Kendoway, I REALLY like the OOB you did, I will have to try the technique.

On one hand, i'm happy I won and yet on the other hand, I am dreading having to judge the next contest..I will have it up shortly.