Before & After #217

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 #218".

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

Time to hit the 'Pets' section - Edit my kitty Horatio I did a quick shoot with this morning, there were better ones than this, but I liked on this one his 'cattitude' with the camera. Time for Kitty Portrait Edit

This game will end Wednesday September 9th at 12:00pm CST

Full Size Image Link http://www.eideticmemo​ries.com/bna217.jpg

ACR white point, exposure +1.2, blacks 5, clarity 10
crop/rotate, saturation +10 on greens & yellows, USM 20,60,0 + mask, USM 50, 0.3, 0

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KITTY!!
okay,
LR2 B&W conversion(touched every grayscale slider), wb adjust, upped exposure,
CS4- increased canvas size,used the clone tool & Liquify to fix tail, dodged eyes, burned pedestal, nose, mouth, & outer ears on cat. Levels adjust midtones(lightened), curves, sharpen, image adjust photo filter sepia 7%
Back to LR- leveled photo and cropped(kinda awkward size crop I messed up on the canvas size)

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

Levels, curves, color balance, converted to black and white, played more with curves a few different times fpr exposures, WB, and contrast.. duplicated layer, upped exposure/flattened.

new copy, fill 50% gray blend mode soft light, burned in fur< eyes> then dodges in the lighter parts of the eyes. Sharpened/flattened.

Well a fun entry as it's rainy & windy here this weekend

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Cropped image
Played with curves
Increased saturation
Darkened eyes
Added a border

Opened in Camera Raw and set white point and straightened
Duplicated background, adjusted levels, copied eyes on to separate layer
Created vignette on new layer using colour of coat, sharpened

Going for a high-key portrait look

Bumped brightness for high-key look and to blow out whites
cloned out/erased shadows around/under pedestal
desaturated and burned highlights on pedestal
desaturated color cast shadows around kitty
Slight saturation boost layer.
Crop

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This is 5 minutes under the wire Lore, so feel free to disqualify me entirely.

Just more of my ongoing quest to learn more features in Photoshop (typically things I rarely touch), so this was an opportunity to play with the Liquify Tool, and Transform/Warp. So many experiments, many of which failed – and a lot of steps that I won’t bother to enumerate.

This was fun, and I wanted to go for sort of a “Midnight Cheshire Cat”. Still needs work, but hey – practice makes perfect

hmm

I think Lore fainted when she saw the price of the 7D 15-85 Kit and has yet to recover

lol.. how much is it.. i havent even looked at it.. ( i cant afford to want something else right now) lol.

According to the "Find More Posts By Lore" thingy, she hasn't been online in 4 days. That's not like Louri, so I'm guessing there's been some sort of crisis.

Maybe if she's not back by 12:00 noon tomorrow, we can borrow some past/present judges from the LMSYS. Maybe Ed, Geno, Tony (or any combo of judges with no entry here) and let them make a pick.

Hope you are OK Lourie!

I hope she's just on holiday or something Chris

Lore, where ever you are – I hope everything is alright.

Ok, I hope nobody objects to this, but I’ve asked some folks over in LMSYS to lend us a hand. They are the only dynamic and solvent pool of judges we have on POTN, with rotating winners/judges on a weekly basis. Hopefully, we should get an unbiased and thoughtful response (I’ve disqualified myself from the contest by the way).

If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to set up a poll – flip a coin, draw straws, or declare this a 7 way draw.

Lets see what happens over in LMSYS. I've asked to to try and give us a winner by 12:00 Noon Sat EST USA.