THE PP GAME!

Ok, time to call this........its just come flooding back to mi why I don't like winning
shakehead.gif
:D

Seeing as the main subject is Lynn, we've made a joint decision on the winner.

As ever, great edits, we all seem to have done something very similar (y)

We've discussed each image and I'll tell it just how we see it as a lot of the techniques used, are lost on me :)

Rhodese - Good edit, not too sure on the crop, think you've lost too much sea to the left, the horizon still needs a cw rotation to straighten, good cloning (y)

Graham - Crop's certainly more how I saw it, you've got some good colour in the sky, as you say, where there was very little, again good cloning (y) just looks a little hazy :thinking: :confused:

David - Good crop, cloning, colour (y) Looks like an image develop from film ( I know you've mentioned this process before :thinking:)

Dr O - :clap: we were both very impressed with your edit, Lynn say's a special thank you for making her look 10 years younger, you even managed to get rid of a few wrinkles :clap: :D colour in the sky ( where there looked to be very little) is great, skin tone looks good and natural without being over the top, good cloning and crop (y)

Paul - Good cloning, like the crop off the bottom(y) but like Rhodese, think the crop is a little tight down the left and it just looks a little cold :)

Jim - Jim, the open sea to the left quite appealed, but your flock of gulls certainly brought a smile :) the colour looks a bit over the top, good cloning and pp though (y)

So, by a unanimous decision, Dr O is the winner, great edit, well done :clap:

Here's what I did,


Lynn, Poole Chain Ferry Edit by Phil D 245, on Flickr
 
Thanks Phil/ Lynn, glad you liked it:)

I'll have a rake around but might be tomorrow evening before I get a chance to post
 
Thanks for f/b and critique Phil (and Lynn :)) Well done Doc:banana:, a very restrained effort!
 
Looks like my cat! Well... looks like my cat did before she became so fat she's almost spherical :)
 
Lol, she's a bengal although hard to see her stripes as she's so black. Was a bit impromptu so could have been framed a bit better etc but I've always quite liked how it turned out as hard to get her not being a mass of black curled up or disappearing from frame:D.
 
I'm having problems downloading the raw, it gets to 99% complete the just freezes :banghead: any ideas please ? :confused:
 
Phil-D said:
I'm having problems downloading the raw, it gets to 99% complete the just freezes :banghead: any ideas please ? :confused:
Click to expand...

Not sure Phil- I just tried it for it to decide there was some error downloading in chrome but that was before 1%. Pretty sure I would have tested that whenn I initially set it up (not for this image). Ironically I then switched to IE but it was IE8 which I never use- Mega said ' your browser seems a bit outdated' then recommends chrome lol

Just working out this dropbox stuff...hang on:)
 
Dr_O said:
Lol, she's a bengal although hard to see her stripes as she's so black. Was a bit impromptu so could have been framed a bit better etc but I've always quite liked how it turned out as hard to get her not being a mass of black curled up or disappearing from frame:D.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. mine must be too. She's black, but in the right light you can see her "stripes". I never knew... she was a rescue cat.
 
Cheers Phil. :).
Congrats Doc. (y).

Now for that cat.

Open in ACR no edit. Open in PS.
Re open in ACR, Hit auto, open in PS.
Drag the darker image on top of the lighter.
Change blend mode to multiply. This to darken the sky. (Cats and night)
Add a layer mask to the darker top layer. By painting black in the mask with a low opacity brush, show detail of the cat from image below, painting with white to correct any mistakes.
New 50% gray layer, dodge and burn to bring out more detail.
Flatten.
The spot removal brush was used to get rid of the stray white hairs and the white spots.
SAVE.
Make a rectangular selection of the R/H side, from the edge to the cat, copy and paste into a new layer.
Move it in to bring the trees closer to the cat.
Using scale from the transform options, stretch it up a little to give the trees extra height.
Again, with an added layer mask, paint out the overlap and the messy splodges at the lower quarter.
Flatten.
Crop to the line created by the edge of the moved selection layer.
Add the border with the stroke command.
SAVE.
Save for the web.


CLICKFURABIGUN.

Rhodese.
 
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I had problems with this one, it looks to have been shot through the window and there's lots of dust if you go down the " Let's brighten and sharpen this image" route.
Here's the screen grab from ACR
View attachment 8478 click for big.

I selected puss and sharpened then selected BG and applied about 6% Gaussian blur to get rid of the marks.
Then I could see all the dust so tried various methods of removing it but the only partial success was using the dust and speckles filter in PS. (Who'd have thought it! I guess the clues in the name, dust and speckles filter:))
Anyway it sort of worked but at the expense of sharpening.
I added a mouse 'cos that's what cats do.

 
Jim, I edited in CS6 and couldn’t find the “"Dusty Cat" Vacuum Tool”. :thinking: I’m sure there used to be one in previous versions.;)
Maybe the Doc should have Hoovered him/she before posting. “Ha Ha Ha.” :whistle:.

It’s probably grass pollen or similar.

Are you there Doc?

Rhodese.
 
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Here's my attempt. When I saw this I thought of black cats in a cellar, then the idea of cat's eyes ... well it made sense to me at the time:confused:

Import into LR
Crop
Global@ Contrast +30, Shadows +20
Adj brush in the rt ear exp -0.5, highlights -30
Adj brush inner rt ear exp -0.25
Adj brush on sky, exp -0.75, sharpness -50
Adj brush on cat (excluding rt ear) exp +1.0, shadows +25
Convert to B&W
B&W mix Red +30, Orange +35, Yellow +40, Green -15, Aqua -15 rest @ 0

Export as sRGB qual 75% and sharpen for screen std.

Hopefully clicking on image should open a bigger version (via flickr).
 
Just been doing some Googling.... surely this is a Bombay.. not a Bengal?
 
LR5:
lens profile
remove CA
+35 shadow
Desaturate blues

PS CC:
Remove dust from coat
Blur soft light layer
Local sharpening on out of focus nose

Pretty much it.

Click for big and zoom
 
Pookeyhead said:
Just been doing some Googling.... surely this is a Bombay.. not a Bengal?
Click to expand...

Nah, defo a Bengal- only black one of litter though so some weird recessive gene stuff at play- this is her mum, poor qual phone pic unfortunately. Part of the attraction was she was different- likes dogs/ water and hunting

 
Some good efforts so far guys(y)

Jim like the mouse- rabbits/ squirrels (grey ones only allowed;)) and birds are her thing- although really anything that moves:D
Cat was shot with window behind- this is her looking at the birds on the bird table - the tail starts to go and her eyes get that focussed stare lol

I had not realised the cat was so dusty-oops:D- no idea what she would have been doing
 
Dr_O said:
Nah, defo a Bengal- only black one of litter though so some weird recessive gene stuff at play- this is her mum, poor qual phone pic unfortunately. Part of the attraction was she was different- likes dogs/ water and hunting

Click to expand...


Ahhh... I understand now.
 
Righto,

Apologies for dusty cat guys- part of the challenge:p:D

In order of appearance:

Rhodese- Like the rich sky colour:). You've also managed to contrast her stripes a bit more. Bringing the trees in closer works well- like that

Jim- Mouse is good touch:D- although here, the window is stopping her attacking the birds at the bird table. I did try the dust and speckles too but it did something funny with her eye that I would have to fix but it did take them away - I undid it though as wasn't satisfied with the overall look. Can see the stripes which is good but you are right, maybe a bit too speckled though

Paul- Wasn't expecting a B&W here but then no one expects the Spanish Inquisition...:p Can see her stripes, controlled the dust well so that's all good. The only negative I have is that the sky maybe doesn't suit the B&W but even then I'm not totally sure of that statement either

David- You've cleaned up the cat well:). Her stripes have come up well too. Not much more I can add- I am torn on the desaturation of the sky- a bit like Paul's sky- I'm swithering.

Ok, good stuff, great to see the different approaches- a bit of an extension in time but looks like Phil isn't going to make this one after all so we'll crack on.

I'm down to David and Rhodese but it's a bit trickier now.

mmm...can I merge?:p

Right, there can only be one winner unfortunately and I do like bits of both- I like David's cat but I like the mood of Rhodese's picture. Ok , so basically if I don't decide we'll be here ages- at least I have already typed my bit up below, though you wont be able to tell that when I post:rolleyes:. Anyway at 20.54 I'm going with David as winner although I may change my mind again at 20.55:p

So well done David:clap: and thanks everyone else for taking part


This is mine-
- upped the blues and yellow
- sharpened a little
- added some clarity
- brushed some contrast on her chest area
- used the spot healing brush on one grey hair on chest and couple of other bits and that was it- I was a bit lazier on the dust:D

 
Cheers Dr O.

Was undecided about the desaturated blue or not. The eyes looked better with a blue sky, but the coat better with a grey sky.

Ok.. time to load up the random number generator!!!

Today's lucky number is 0090... which turned up this.

Can't even remember shooting this... probably something for a lighting tutorial.

kVn67Tq.jpg


RAW file here....

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23953768/_DSC0090.NEF


Good luck!
 
Pretty much a straight forward conversion to monochrome as I think the contrast lends itself to this style. I was very tempted tp
go for the aged (antique look) but opted for a little more contemporary style.

- Cropping
- Levels
- Increase detail
- Curves
- Contrast
- sharpening

I think I did it in that order, got pretty much halfway through it and then thought, what have I done !



Good subject by the way ! :-)
 
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Thanks Dr_O for the feedback, I wasn't expecting to do a B&W either ... it just sort of turned out that way... Well done David, I liked that edit too, and what an interesting subject you've chosen :)
 
Here is my effort



cropped-levels- a touch of tone mapping- boosted contrast added frame

Les :D
 
Forgot to say... I'll call it Tuesday evening.
 
Thanks for the comments Doc you made a good choice. :clap:.
Well done David. :clap::banana:.

On to the skull.

Open in ACR, no edit, open in PS.
Reopen in ACR, auto, open in PS.
Drag the darker onto the lighter.
Close the original import.
Create a new layer and fill with black. Add a layer mask.
Drag the lock from the background layer into the bin.
I now have three layers, from the bottom… 0, 1, and 2.
SAVE.
On the lighter layer, 0 make a selection of the skull with the quick select tool (It was made for this type of image.) Remove the holes in the nasal cavity from the selection.
Save the selection.
Click on the top layer, 2, (the black fill layer), with a largish black brush at 100% paint black over the selection, revealing the skull below. Switch the other two layers off to check if anywhere has been missed. Switch them back on after checking.
Deselect.
SAVE.
On the darker middle layer, 1, add a layer mask and using low value brushes paint black to reveal light and texture from the auto corrected layer bellow, paint with white to repair mistakes.
When all is OK, flatten.
SAVE.
Crop to 1X1 square, moving the centre spot of the crop to the mid point above the lighter bone that is over the nasal cavity.
Reload the selection, feather by 50 pixels, copy and paste into a new layer.
Move this layer to a position to the left and up of the main image.
Using the scale command from transform, holding down the shift key (to retain proportion) resize by pushing the bottom right corner in.
SAVE.
Drag guides in to the top and side of the copy, note their position then pull out guides to the same positions on the opposite side.
Back on the background layer again reload the selection and repeat the procedure as per the first copy skull. The exceptions being before moving it into the positions marked by the guides flip it horizontally and push the left corner.
When happy with the position and sizes, merge the two resized skull layers.
Invert and set the blending mode to linear light.
Drop the opacity to 50%.
Flatten.
SAVE.
Add to the edges of the canvas to give a bit of extra space.
Add the border using stroke.
SAVE.
Save for web.

Well I think that’s it. :thinking:



CLICK4BIG&ZOOM.

Rhodese.
 
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Very creative Rhodese(y)

So, lots of options here, like Rhodese I went a bit creative at first and attempted get people thinking- had to borrow a pic as my own spaceship is currently in the garage;). Tried with skull not filling the planet and then stretched to fit as much as possible. Fixed broken tooth as well:)



That was okay but I wanted a bit more- tried some colour injection:



Really wanted something a bit different though so decided to take a different perspective and only show half the skull:

In LR moved tone curve to obscure RHS of skull or LHS as you're looking at it:p
Sharpened a bit
In PS, added grey layers, levels but turned them all off in the end
Cloned out remaining skull with black
Tried to burn out some of the more reflected light on skull but not that effective (was trying in conjunction with grey layers too but didn't help)
Decided on some adding some noise- tried with and without- perhaps more mystery with.

 
Which one is your official entry?
 
Trying out Lightzone so thought I would give this a go.

1. Opened in Lightzone
2. Opened tools I don't understand
3. Randomly twiddled tool settings and sliders
4. Got bored
5. Posted image to thread

 
Opened in ViewNX2
WB, 5000 (I think), exp +0.5, sharpening 4, contyrast +20, shadow protection 25

Lightzone,
Local contrast and NR on skull only

PS
Created desaturated layer
Layer mask with angled gradient top right (of skull) down to left centre (of skull) to fade out colour on lower left side of skull.
Opactity of desat layer to suit.
Clone darker couple of bright spots by teeth

 
Here's my attempt at this one. I don't have the PS skills to do what I wanted to, so went for a simple, old look.

Import into LR.
Hit the B&W with the following colour mix
Yellow +70
Green +35
Aqua +66
Blue +30
Magenta +66
All others 0.​
Adj brush on the background - exposure -3 (wanted it black)
Adj brush on highlight on forehead and teeth - highlights -15
Global: Exposure -0.83, Contrast -50, Blacks -30

Export as sRGB, qual 75
 
Here's me. Running out of time....................!

Opened with ACR
View attachment 8709
Then in PS went for B/W conversion and added lots of contrast, selected the skull and sharpened it then the BG and gave it some blur but it looked boring (to me) and so I decided to give the skull something and got a photo of Elsinore Castle (as mentioned in Hamlet) gave that the B/W treatment and a bit of blur. Then added Shakespear's words. Resized and Flickr'd it.

 
OK... well well well.... I very diverse bunch of stuff!

As usual... I call it as I see it. Don't take crit too harshly.

  • Blank Canvas: A simple edit. No unnecessary steps. Perhaps slightly too much detail extraction if I'm fussy, but a powerful edit nonetheless. I really like this. Good crop too.

  • Les: Good crop. Too much tone mapping for my tastes.. starting to look too HDR. I can't get to a full resolution image to check quality, so can't comment on whether quality has been maintained. That much tone mapping usually extracts a price in noise though.


  • Rhodese: Quite a complex workflow. Inventive edit though. Still undecided if the inverted eye socket's work, but I like the feel of this very much. Not my style at all, but I appreciate it a great deal. Good use of layers for this workflow.


  • Dr_O: Very dark. I quite like it though, but perhaps too dark. Also, the noise just looks like noise, not film grain. It's far too fine, sharp and digital looking. I like the crop, composition and I even quite like the dark feel, but that noise is overkill.

  • Bailout: Nice clean image. Good tonal range in the skull. I'd have cropped some of the slack space away as it seems to be doing nothing. What ruins it for me though, is

"2. Opened tools I don't understand 3. Randomly twiddled tool settings and sliders 4. Got bored"

I can't reward such a workflow :) The idea of the thread is to exercise skill and technique, and have others be able to learn something from it, so that ruins it for me, sorry.

  • Graham: Nice clean workflow, clearly using the right tools to achieve what you wanted to, but the processing has almost negated the lighting and made it look like it was lit 1:1.. almost.. but with unbalanced white light sources.


  • Paul: Very dark and very yellow here. Was that your intention? You've reduced exposure my almost a stop. Certain aspects of the workflow are confusing too. +35 green, and +66 magenta. Green is the opposite of magenta, so it would have been easier to dial in +31 magenta. Removing the detail in the black cloth is working well though.
  • Jim: As entertaining as usual. Simple workflow. Too much sharpening for me. Finished black and white, cool toned image works well though.

I've narrowed it down to Blank_canvas and Rhodese... but I think for impact, simplicity and efficiency of workflow, and overall evilness of the skull... I'm giving this to Nick.. Blank_Canvas.

Well done.. nice work....


Put up a RAW :)
 
Well done Nick:clap:

Thanks for feedback David- what do you think is the best way to get a good film grain look? Not really many options with 'add noise' in PS. Should I be converting to 8 bit and then using 'Grain'?
 
Dr_O said:
Well done Nick:clap:

Thanks for feedback David- what do you think is the best way to get a good film grain look? Not really many options with 'add noise' in PS. Should I be converting to 8 bit and then using 'Grain'?
Click to expand...

The grain feature in Lightroom does an OK job if set right.

PS's grain filter is a pain in the ass. Personally, you can get reasonable results if you create a grey layer over your image (create new layer, then go to Edit/Fill and select 50% grey) and apply noise (Gaussian) and then blur it back a little with Gaussian blur, then set blend mode to Soft Light... you can then scale that layer to soften it out and alter the size if you wish as well.



I've also got hi-res scans of 35mm and 120 film that contains a blank, mid grey exposure. They're calibrated to exactly mid grey, so you can add these as a layer and soft light blend it. These are real film grain scans. I can't release these as I'm planning to release them as a commercial product possibly... but they're easy enough to create if you know anyone with a film scanner and a film camera. I have a collection of various film stocks.


Here's a real, reasonably hi-res scan of an image on ISO 100 35mm colour negative film to give you something as a reference point to aim for when creating realistic film grain.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23953768/7.tif
 
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