Before and After #225

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 #225".

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

Contest ends 12pm EST on Sunday the 11th.

This is my friend Yan, and she will be very happy to see your creative edits on the photo.

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CS2 - Levels, Contrast, Colors, Curves x's 2, Channel Mixer, Brightness/ Contrast
Shirt Layer - shadow/highlight, Color Balance, Gamma
Face - Clone Blemishes, Clone stray hair out of face, dodge uneven skin color, dodge dark circles, dodge heavy face shadows, Blur Tool
Eyes - dodge, color balance, sharpen
Lips - Saturate, sharpen, clone, burn
Make up - Cheek Color layer & Eye Shadow Layer, lighten opacity, burn eyelashes

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OK... Lets see if i remember everything.
curves and levels for exposure and white balance.
curves again for a little contrast.
cleaed up skin with heal tool, and cloning, and patch tool. a long with bags under her eyes.

from there, i used a blank later. went to select>color range>plus dropper, and clicked on her cheek till her skin was all white.. press OK.
control J >filter>liquify just to reduce some of the roundness of her face.

erased everything that was not skin including hair. eyes, and eye brows. then control J turn off all layers, including the cnrol J you just made, and only work on the laye you started to erase on..I ran surface blur at 3% looked ok. then turned everything back on.. the second layer that i had made the copy of.. i turned that back on. and lowered the opacity to about 25%.
Then from there i lightened up her face.. did some minor burning on her upper eye lids of 6% opacity on the brush. on the corners of her lips, and hernose, and around her face.
then i dodged in the whites of her eyes a little more.
from there i did a little levels in her eyes to brighten them up just a tad.
flattened image..in an adjustment ayers >hue/sat> desaturate 100% >ok. blendmode overlay to 35% opacity.
flatten again.. then control J >filter>blur>gaussian blur at 3% blendmode.. soft light. masked her out so she was not affected by it.
then flattened again bumped up saturation by 35%maked out skin, and greens.. just for the pinks, and then added some color into the stones behind her.
flattened. contro J last time.. unsharp mask 175% 1 radiues and 18% threshold.
flatten and finish.

Cloned some stray hairs off of the face.
Curves, white balance
vignette
crop

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it's been a while since I played this.

cropped
used viveza to selectively adjust light
used nik color efex darken/lighten
added catchlights to the eyes,
mcp eye doctor
skin smoother
adjustments to contrast
highlights to hair
on one photo tools warm portrait
saved for web.

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- Smoothed out her skin a bit
- bleach bypass then lowered the opacity
- fixed the contrast
- added some color
- brighten/warmer filter
- cropped
- brightened

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Wow, portraiture always seems to bring in the finest of company! (Hi Permie, long time no see! :mrgreen

• Playing with selective color this round.
  
• Desaturated background + Levels + High Pass.
  
• Lassoed face, arms - skin smoothing, blemish removal.
  
• Change of color to blouse, bracelet, lips.
  
• Some additional levels + curves + saturation.
  

GIMP:
Increased saturation and contrast
Wavelet sharpen
Duplicate layer
Desaturate, invert, blur, layer mask (inverted greyscale), soft light mode

I'll play - I'll change my Image Editing thing in a moment.

CS2
Brightened it a bit (curves)
Added some warmth (curves)
Dodged circles under eyes (didn't use the dodge tool though, if anyone wants more details, I can share)
Softened skin (duplicate layer blurred and masked in)
Brightened eyes, especially catchlights - yes, they were there (mostly just selected eyes and used curves, also some dodging of the catchlights)
Saturated slightly
Dodged hair (same method as above)
Cropped
Sharpened (USM, 500%, 0.2, 0)

Hmmm, could maybe done with some more warmth but oh well

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Opened in Camera Raw, smart object, some healing, 2 gradients to focus light on face, and recovery, fill & contrast adjustments. Moved to CS4, Hue-Saturation layer with Pin Light blend mode, more healing and color adjustments, levels, brightness and contrast, clipping mask.

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Duplicated background, cropped, improved skin base and spotty bits, Put small highlights in eyes and lightened slightly. Put on make up, slightly liquified cheeks, Used gaussian blur to put background out of focus. High pass filter in overlay mode to sharpen up.

Lets see, this wasn't easy ... I used Gimp to edit the photo.

Started by doing some cloning on her face, using skin from her neck. made thwo copies in two layers, and made one dark and one bright mask with the curves, to get lower contrast on her face and clothes. Marked her face, and made it a bit darker with the curves. Edited the eyes with the same technik, painted more white in the eyes. Selected the stones and clothes, and made the contrast 5-10 level stronger. Copied back the original colour on her hair.

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Thank you very much, everyone! I love them all.
The final judgement is made between Permagrin and spitfire23bc, because I love their works more.

Permagrin is WINNER!

bdbox wrote in post #8806877
The final judgement is made between Permagrin and spitfire23bc, because I love their works more.

Permagrin is WINNER!

Thanks bdbox, and well done Permagrin! Lovely work.