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Photo Editing Challenge

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scorch

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I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
 
scorch,
I'm sure others in here can work miracles using PS. Here's my feeble attempt.



Contrast mask @ 80% opacity, manually adjusted levels (downward), contrast +8, used curves to get a little better contrast, color balance red +12 for high and mid, +8 for shadow (to warm it up a little), used the heal tool under the right eye (to lighten some of the shadow) USM 100% .8 radius, 1 threshold.

I had fun, thanks :-)
Steve
--
http://www.pbase.com/slo2k
 
Nice job Steve.

Thanks for the contribution.

heres mine.
http://www.pbase.com/image/4796520

PI: created layer, strong soft edge, bumped gamma, inverse mult blend
Regards,
Ken
Steve Cavigliano said:
scorch,
I'm sure others in here can work miracles using PS. Here's my
feeble attempt.

...>

Contrast mask @ 80% opacity, manually adjusted levels (downward),
contrast +8, used curves to get a little better contrast, color
balance red +12 for high and mid, +8 for shadow (to warm it up a
little), used the heal tool under the right eye (to lighten some of
the shadow) USM 100% .8 radius, 1 threshold.

I had fun, thanks :-)
Steve
--
http://www.pbase.com/slo2k
Click to expand...
 


The first thing I did was to look at the histogram to see where we were exposure-wise. First impressions is that the image is over exposed a little bit.

So into levels with Photoshop Elements we go:
I moved the blue channel black point input to 11.
I moved the green channel black point input to 16.
I moved the red channel black point input to 10.
That helped to color correct and also make the black point look good too.

The skin still looks blown out, so I will try to restore some detail there:
Copied the image and pasted into a new layer
Set the blending of the top layer to multiply

Looks like I will be able to get much of it back, but will need to get rid of the newly created dark areas.
use the magic wand with a tolerance of 75
click on the brightest portion of the skin
feather the selection 15
inverse the selection
delete the selection

now the newly created darkened areas are gone, but the original shadows are still a little too much, so I will try to lighten those next

Copy the original image and paste into a new layer, this should be the uppermost layer.

use the magic wand with a tolerance of 75 and click on the darkest area of the image on the top layer.
feather the selection 15.
inverse the selection.
delete the selection.
set the top layer blending to screen.
we now have shadows that are not as dark.

Flatten the image

adjust saturation:
master saturation +15
red saturation -5

The image looks a little on the harsh side, so I will try to soften it by copying the image and pasting as a new layer
On this top layer apply a gaussian blur of 11
set the blending to hard light and the opacity to 50%
flatten the image


scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
--
Shay

My Sony F707 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp



I miss my camera
 
I went the multiply route too and tried all sorts of levels, hue & saturation efforts and couldn't get rid of the blue in the shadow. I finally gave up because I wasn't happy with my results...yours looks pretty good...but I still see the blue.
Isabel
Shay Stephens said:


The first thing I did was to look at the histogram to see where we
were exposure-wise. First impressions is that the image is over
exposed a little bit.

So into levels with Photoshop Elements we go:
I moved the blue channel black point input to 11.
I moved the green channel black point input to 16.
I moved the red channel black point input to 10.
That helped to color correct and also make the black point look
good too.

The skin still looks blown out, so I will try to restore some
detail there:
Copied the image and pasted into a new layer
Set the blending of the top layer to multiply
Looks like I will be able to get much of it back, but will need to
get rid of the newly created dark areas.
use the magic wand with a tolerance of 75
click on the brightest portion of the skin
feather the selection 15
inverse the selection
delete the selection
now the newly created darkened areas are gone, but the original
shadows are still a little too much, so I will try to lighten those
next

Copy the original image and paste into a new layer, this should be
the uppermost layer.
use the magic wand with a tolerance of 75 and click on the darkest
area of the image on the top layer.
feather the selection 15.
inverse the selection.
delete the selection.
set the top layer blending to screen.
we now have shadows that are not as dark.

Flatten the image

adjust saturation:
master saturation +15
red saturation -5

The image looks a little on the harsh side, so I will try to soften
it by copying the image and pasting as a new layer
On this top layer apply a gaussian blur of 11
set the blending to hard light and the opacity to 50%
flatten the image


scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
--
Shay

My Sony F707 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp



I miss my camera
Click to expand...
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipets/?yguid=11497599
 
scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
These are my steps:

(1) Convert to LAB mode.
Reason: To preserve color integrity during subsequent edits.

(2) Create contrast mask layer, gaussian blur = 9.9 pixels.

Reason: To reduce the high contrast between background and foreground, as well as reduce the subjects contrast, i.e. reduce very light skin tone, bring out hair and lighten the facial shadow parts all in one step.

(3) Create Color balance layer, HiLi: +5 magenta, +6 yellow.
Reason: To warm up the overall cool color appearance in this mode of edit.

(4) Use healing brush on background layer
Reason: To get rid of smudges on the subjects chest.

(5) Save with all layers as psd document.
Reason: To be able to re-access in the future for further edits and conversions.

(6) Flatten layers and convert to RGB mode.
Reson: To be able to save as JPEG.

(7) Unsharp mask: Amount: 500%, Radius: 0.2 pixels, Threshold: 0 levels
Reason: To re-introduce the smallest amount of zing.

(8) Save as JPEG quality 6 for posting on my favorite newsgroup.
Reason: To participate in a photo editing challenge.

Greetings,

bernd



--
Bernd Taeger
 
Think I like this one the best so far.

Thanks for detailed info.

Ken
Bernd Taeger said:
scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
These are my steps:

(1) Convert to LAB mode.
Reason: To preserve color integrity during subsequent edits.

(2) Create contrast mask layer, gaussian blur = 9.9 pixels.
Reason: To reduce the high contrast between background and
foreground, as well as reduce the subjects contrast, i.e. reduce
very light skin tone, bring out hair and lighten the facial shadow
parts all in one step.

(3) Create Color balance layer, HiLi: +5 magenta, +6 yellow.
Reason: To warm up the overall cool color appearance in this mode
of edit.

(4) Use healing brush on background layer
Reason: To get rid of smudges on the subjects chest.

(5) Save with all layers as psd document.
Reason: To be able to re-access in the future for further edits and
conversions.

(6) Flatten layers and convert to RGB mode.
Reson: To be able to save as JPEG.

(7) Unsharp mask: Amount: 500%, Radius: 0.2 pixels, Threshold: 0
levels
Reason: To re-introduce the smallest amount of zing.

(8) Save as JPEG quality 6 for posting on my favorite newsgroup.
Reason: To participate in a photo editing challenge.

Greetings,

bernd



--
Bernd Taeger
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for your feedback (humbled).

bernd
scorch said:
Thanks for detailed info.

Ken
Bernd Taeger said:
scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
These are my steps:

(1) Convert to LAB mode.
Reason: To preserve color integrity during subsequent edits.

(2) Create contrast mask layer, gaussian blur = 9.9 pixels.
Reason: To reduce the high contrast between background and
foreground, as well as reduce the subjects contrast, i.e. reduce
very light skin tone, bring out hair and lighten the facial shadow
parts all in one step.

(3) Create Color balance layer, HiLi: +5 magenta, +6 yellow.
Reason: To warm up the overall cool color appearance in this mode
of edit.

(4) Use healing brush on background layer
Reason: To get rid of smudges on the subjects chest.

(5) Save with all layers as psd document.
Reason: To be able to re-access in the future for further edits and
conversions.

(6) Flatten layers and convert to RGB mode.
Reson: To be able to save as JPEG.

(7) Unsharp mask: Amount: 500%, Radius: 0.2 pixels, Threshold: 0
levels
Reason: To re-introduce the smallest amount of zing.

(8) Save as JPEG quality 6 for posting on my favorite newsgroup.
Reason: To participate in a photo editing challenge.

Greetings,

bernd



--
Bernd Taeger
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Bernd Taeger
 
Nice job Bernd. Your image is the nicest IMO. It's not oversaturated, the skin tone and lighting remain natural looking.

I also think this was a pretty good image to begin with!

BTW - it's been said that conversion to Lab and then back to RGB is mildly lossy. Don't believe it? Try viewing your histogram before and after going RGB-> Lab-> RGB. If it were completely lossless then the final histogram should be exactly the same as the initial histogram. Lots of people do like to use Lab, including myself. I used it to sharpen on the L channel. But since learning of this I try to restrict myself to RGB as much as possible.

--Steve
 
Stephen,

Thanks for the input. Now that you mentioned the histogram, I checked all three of them, the original, the LAB-one and the LAB-RGB converted one.

I noticed a funny thing, in LAB mode the histogram was tight and after conversion now I find that the histogram is emty by a touch left, in the black region. I never bothered to re-check in RGB last night. So as I applied a final correction just a few minutes ago in 8 bit RGB mode, the histogram came out chopped with vertical lines all over. So I converted to 16bit RGB and moved the black slider to the beginning of the pixels and went back to 8 bit. The result was, the curve now has no empty white lines, but is fully black albeit with some spikes. I replaced the the old picture with the new one in my original post. So next time you reload the post, the new version will load.

bernd
Stephen Waits said:
Nice job Bernd. Your image is the nicest IMO. It's not
oversaturated, the skin tone and lighting remain natural looking.

I also think this was a pretty good image to begin with!

BTW - it's been said that conversion to Lab and then back to RGB is
mildly lossy. Don't believe it? Try viewing your histogram before
and after going RGB-> Lab-> RGB. If it were completely lossless then
the final histogram should be exactly the same as the initial
histogram. Lots of people do like to use Lab, including myself. I
used it to sharpen on the L channel. But since learning of this I
try to restrict myself to RGB as much as possible.

--Steve
Click to expand...
--
Bernd Taeger
 
I just had to give this one a try... it was fun. I think the boy is much improved, but at the expense of the background. That's because my corrections were done "globally" without any local selection at all:



The main problem with this pic is the child's skin tone. The values are way low... almost white in many places. I wanted to bump the values into normal skin values. I went into CMYK mode and with curves, made the skin more normal: roughly 10 cyan/40 magenta 40 yellow.

While in curves i adjusted the highlights and shadows. Then i went into LAB mode and steepened the L channel in the top half of the curve (just slightly). I then unsharp masked the L channel. While in LAB mode, i also steepend the A and B channels by dragging the end points in, in equal amounts, so as not to introduce a color cast.

Done. The grass went brown, which is not good. I guess a work around would be to select just the child and correct him separate from the background. But I wanted to do a quick fix without local selections.

John
scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
 
That could be true... but i was going just by the numbers. I know the rough value of skin tones (cmyk values), and i brought it up to it. But because there was VERY little skin info to begin with, the results are not the best. The technique is best used when skin tones have lots of data in them, but are the wrong colors.

I tried blending channels into each other, but it was getting messy and i just couldn't get it right. So i resorted to brutally forcing the very low skin values higher.

On my monitor (not calibrated), it looks pretty good, considering there was almost no skin tone at all. I'd love to see it on "your" monitor... i'd probably be very shocked! :)

John
Stephen Waits said:
John,

I think our ideas of skin tones might be different, or else your
display device or color management workflow is out of calibration.

--Steve
Click to expand...
 
Hi Ken,

I always have loved a challenged, and for the first time in a long while I actually have a little time on my hands to take one on. ;-)
So, straight off I want to thank you for the invite.
Here is what I did:

Cropped, and blurred the background, to bring the little boy more into the focus of the picture.

I then took out the water droplets...I hope you don't mind. I wanted that smile, and the cute little dimple to take center stage.

Most of all my photo editing is done in layers

I copied and pasted a layer for a reverse contrast....layer on as overlay{40%}, desaturate, negative color it, and then did a Gaussian blur {4.5}
flattened the layers

I then copied the picture again, and pasted one layer on as screen, and one layer on as multiply, and played with opacity until I had what looked like the best exposure.
And then flatten layers again.

I warmed up the photo by adding an empty layer, flood filling it with a nice orange brown color, and then fixing the layer on soft light at around 34%

The hair was still a little overblown and the face was still too dark to me.

So, I added another empty layer used the marquee tool to go around the shadow on the face, and shoulder, flood filled that with white, and set the opacity around 3% on soft light, and then used the soften effect to blend any possible hard lines that might show.

And for the hair, you guessed it, I added another layer, marqueed the hair, and put in a dark brown, set the layer to overlay at around 5% or so, used the blend tool to even out the color a little, and then merged all layers.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but in truth once you get the hang of it things go pretty quick. The main advantage is you have total control over your image, and you need that when you have a photo that has as much contrasts as this one did.

Thanks again, and I hope you like the way the picture was fixed.
ttyl
merry


scorch said:
I found the thread asking Shay's opinions on improving Gar's
picture very interesting and educational.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=3367750

So I'd like to see if anyone is interested in improving this pict:
http://www.pbase.com/image/4792380

(a picture of my friend's nephew).

Should you decide to take this challenge, pls provide the pict with
details so others can learn from you.

I would also be interested in working on anyone else's pict.

I've been using Photoimpact for 2 years, and trying to decide if I
want to take the PhotoShop plunge.

Regards,
Ken
Click to expand...
 


I thought the water droplets would have to go. The problem is that there is a shallow color depth to begin with so you end up reconstrocting what should be underneath, which is bad because it can look painted on. Also with a lower resolution shot pixels when averages tend to fall one way or the other quickly.I tried to make up for this by adding noise to better match the random nature that photos have.

Also felt the shaddow did some strange things to the childs face so I striped it like window blinds or tree limbs to minimise the shadow as a shape.
Not real pleased with the result. Neat idea for a challenge, though.
-EL
 
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