[Banded Drake]

Hey yall this is one of my favorite photos that i have shot. this is my 2 babies , so be kind.. I really like the picture but want it to " POP"!! . I did a little to it and want to see some of the cool stuff yall can do. I am so new to PS that i have no idea of what all can be done ......
The picture is big ( maybe a little too big ) but yall know more about that stuff then i do.







Thanks, Shawn............

[noisynoodle]

Hi Shawn,

I had a quick play with it and came up with this:



I'm sure though that there are plenty of others that can do a better job than I have!

Just for the record, I found the background a problem as it seemed a little blown out top right and too close to the young lady's skin colour, so I selected it and took the levels down and reduced the sturation. (Maybe I ought to have blurred it a little too, but didn't thik at the time).The dog seemed underexposed, so I boosted the dynmaic range on him. Then I adjusted levels again for the whole picture, used the highlight and shadow tool to bring the shadows up a little more, adusted the hue slightly as I found it too pink, increased saturation a tad, and then sharpened with smart sharpen and usm before saving and uploading. Might be all abit overdone now though

Jan

[Petographer]

Hi Shawn. Great shot for this forum. I found the dog very difficult to do anything with. Because it is a scanned image when trying to bring out any detail too many reflections come out. However, the rest of the image took on some fairly good results from a simple contrast boost to get rid of the cloudy look and some sharpening. I added a dark border fade to help reduce distracting elements in the photo and to help to focus more on the faces.

[Irma]

Lovely picture to work with, Shawn...

I went for a light sepia... IMO the colors are not matching and the background a bit distracting... I think the conversion would look a bit better with the original file...

Hope you like it.

[Banded Drake]

Thanks to you all , They are all great. and give me an idea on something to play with.
I really HATE the background ( but it was free and its all that i have for the moment ) . It is very " see through " and i cant seem to put anything behind it that helps. The wall is kinda white and i am having a hard time gettin it right.

I think that i will play somemore with the photo and see what else i can come up with . Thanks again.

Anyone else???




Thanks, Shawn

[Schellamo]

Here's my go Drake...


Its such a lovely photo!

[Irma]

Splendid Schell! I like it a lot!! Great work you did on this picture... Your idea of the frame is great!! Could you share how you manage to get rid of the milky colors ? I couldn't get them right... As you said this picture is really lovely, and I would like to try again...

[shuttertalk]

I really like what everone has done, but Michelle, yours seems the clearest!

If we could get the same clarity in colour, I think it would be awesome too!

[byrt_001]

hi everyone

i really like what shell, nice work!!!

this is my try



regards

Christian

[Irma]

Oh God!! Mine is ugly... I don't like it anymore....

I will try again...

Edit...

Hey Christian... what did you do to get detail in the dog??

[Schellamo]

Irma, here’s what I did…
•First thing, a levels adjustment
•Then I corrected the flared part of the bd. Layer>duplicate, then Image>adjustments>selective colour. I turned up the greens, blues and reds. Then I erased the girl and dog back in. then flatten.
•I lassoed her smiled, and again used selective colour>white> turned down the yellow a tad.
•I lassoed her eyes (hold down shift to get both in the same selection) and increased the contrast.
•Then I used the OpticVerve plug-in (on a separate layer) I think it was the diffuse or halo effect and then lowered the layer opacity to about 30%. Then flatten
•For the frame, I duplicated the layer again, did a 30.0 gaussian blur on the bottom layer, then pressed Ctrl-T to make the top layer smaller (Edit> free transform). Then used a crayon type eraser tool to soften the edges and make it look like teared paper. Then right click the layer, select blending options and add a shadow and bevel/emboss. Then did the same on the bottom layer.
•For the B&W I used Mitch’s method of conversion (for which I’ve made an action- if anyone wants a copy you can PM or email me) but I turned off the contrast and soft lighting and I turned up the tint.
Here is my version before the conversion...

[noisynoodle]

Had another go! Got rid of the milkinss, but maybe now it's a bit harsh? That can easily be corrected though as it's mostly over enthusiastic sharpening!! (Typical of me ).


--NN

[Irma]

Both look great!! The color one looks superb as well... In the original I really didn't like the colors... you brighten them up and it lookes great... I have to try...

Thanks Schell...

[noisynoodle]

Last attempt:



--NN

[Irma]

Very nice NN.... you are right you don't have that milky color anymore... I like the colors you got as well...

Girls... you are doing beautiful things... I have to try again... definitely...

[EnglishBob]

Great work Schell, I love your effort, almost looks like an emulsion transfer.

[Banded Drake]

I think they are all great !!! Irma yours isnt ugly , mine would get that responce after seeing all of these.

I know now that i have A LOT more to learn about PS then i thought at first. Great Job yall

[Schellamo]

Thanks everyone for your positive comments *blush*
I love your final result too NN!
Bob- I'm afraid I don't even know what an emulsion transfer is but thankyou anyway.

Drake- don't worry, we've all been there, it just takes time! Plus, you've got some nice friendly people here to share their secrets with you! my advice- just play. if it looks bad, just use the history palatte to undo!

[shuttertalk]

Like your last attempt NN! Milkiness is definitely gone and I love the punch of the colours...

Just a suggestion - perhaps try dodging the hand in front of the dog - that's a bit white from the flash...

[Banded Drake]

Like your last attempt NN! Milkiness is definitely gone and I love the punch of the colours...

Just a suggestion - perhaps try dodging the hand in front of the dog - that's a bit white from the flash...

the main reason the hand is infront of the dog is , he is "MY" dog and kept on running to me ( he thought that i was tryin to play with him ). He listens to me except when he is front of a camera ( go figure ) :o

[shuttertalk]

Like your last attempt NN! Milkiness is definitely gone and I love the punch of the colours...

Just a suggestion - perhaps try dodging the hand in front of the dog - that's a bit white from the flash...

the main reason the hand is infront of the dog is , he is "MY" dog and kept on running to me ( he thought that i was tryin to play with him ). He listens to me except when he is front of a camera ( go figure ) :o

Whoops, bit of a miscommunication methinks. By "dodging", I meant: to selectively darken the highlights so that it's more evenly coloured/lit...

Nothing wrong with the placement of the hand...

[Banded Drake]

LOL , see i told yall i didnt know all the terms on here .
Not a problem ST

[stargazer]

I see it's been a couple months since anyone posted here, so hopefully someone sees this



I blurred the background, then changed the hue and saturation to create more definition between the girl and the background. Then I took another copy of the photo and erased the background. I then put that layer on top.

[shuttertalk]

Good job... I like the vibrant colours. I see you've done some work with the background too... much better!

[slejhamer]

Nice work Stargazer. Welcome to ST.