THE PP GAME!

Ok, been out in the hills a lot so not had any time and a bit late than I anticipated but at least captured an extra entry from Raf.

All good edits and different approaches.

Jim- good to see you in here again- with or without your Simpson characters:D. Like the effect achieved on the Cannon and yes, straightening it a bit helps a lot.

Rhodese- I like the lens blur effect on the background and additional pillar. I swither on the humanoids being removed first or not and also if a bit more vibrancy on the cannon is needed but undecided.

Neil- Those are some Spinal Tap numbers there- all the way up to 11:p. I think its worked well here although it would be interesting to know if they had a particular subject matter in mind. There's certainly plenty of detail, contrast and nothing obscured via shadows.

Paul- Your colours are similar to mine although I didn't do the sky and you achieved it in a more technically proficient manner compared to mine lol. I do like how you have rescued some colour in the blown highlights

Raf- Despite lack of workflow:p I like what you have done with the sky and the B&W works well. Needs to be rotated though and like Rhodese's I'm undecided on leaving the people in.

mmm...so- tricky this- it does seem to lend itself well to B&W and colour- I had only been thinking in colour because of the cannon but either work.

From the colour world I'm taking Paul forward. B&W - been flicking from tab to tab on Jim and Neil's- it's quite interesting if you do it quickly- or maybe it's just me lol:coat:
Anyway- from B&W I'm taking Jim's effect forward.

So, tough call- it is almost flip a coin for either colour or B&W- I'm going to award it to Jim as I like the art of possible. Liked your homer version but you may not have won with that:p. Well done Jim:clap:

Here's mine:
In LR
sharpened 59
clarity 17
vibrance 52
saturation 5
contrast 10
adjustment brush -43 on highlights though not sure it did anything lol

In PS
rotated free transform
cloned out people and jacket type object
cropped
Done (might have lightened the cannon somewhere with highlights or shadows but I wasn't paying enough attention and can't see that step now)

Edit118 by Dr_Ozone, on Flickr
 
Thanks Doc, should've left homer in the barrel then I wouldn't have to set next one :) , no seriously, great honour, you're marvelous people, this is the best place to be and I did it my waaaay!

Here's a sea-scape in RAW and JPEG there's lots to do, plenty of room for pirates and monsters, sorry , that's the other thread :)
St Agnes and Gugh by Farmejim, on Flickr

RAW available here............. http://speedy.sh/TSpfG/P1020150.RW2

I'll call it on Tuesday if that suits.
 
it was a busker with a guitar, it worked well so its something i will do in the future, well done Jim too
Neil- Those are some Spinal Tap numbers there- all the way up to 11:p. I think its worked well here although it would be interesting to know if they had a particular subject matter in mind. There's certainly plenty of detail, contrast and nothing obscured via shadows.
 
LR5:

  • Crop, straighten.
  • Remove CA
  • highlight - 20
  • Export as 16bit TIFF

PS CC:
  • create black and white adjustment layer.
  • -10 cyan and -15 blue in adjustment layer.
  • blend both layers with "luminance" and reduce B&W layer to 40% opacity, then merge layers.
  • Export to LR5: apply a infra red B&W preset I made...
  • export as 16bit TIFF

PS CC:
  • Load IR B&W and copy as a layer over last exported version.
  • reduced opacity to 40% and used luminance blend again.
  • Added a slight 35mm film grain mask for a timeless feel.
  • Warmed slightly
  • removed various brightly coloured buoys and unsightly twigs etc.

Click for big and zoom
 
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Cheers Doc.
Gudun Jim .

Open in ACR, auto, open in PS.
Crop for panorama look, slight straighten.
Copy layer.
Spot out buoys, clone out twig.
I left the gull in, I know how much Jim likes them.
Move the rock from the centre with “content aware move”
New 50% grey layer, dodge and burn and add a blue grad to the sky.
On the copy layer, apply a paint daubs filter.
Apply a canvas texture filter.
Flatten.
Add border with stroke command.
Save.
Save for web.


CLICK IMAGE FOR BIG.

Rhodese.
 
Oh dear, only two entries, my choice of test image obviously not very popular :(
Never mind, on with the judging.
  1. Pookeyhead. Very nice job there David. Contrast is good and not over-done, I like the sky and clouds plus the overall colour balance is correct. both you and Rhodese have gone for the same crop and I concur, so did I.
  2. Rhodese. I like the sea colour, the cleaned up fore-ground and the crop but I'm afraid I'm not in favour of moving Cow & Calf Island! It has, IMO, unbalanced the shot and left an empty hole. The technique involved in the island move is good though. I'm not sure that the canvas effect works here either.
So the winner is......................... Pookeyhead, well done David with Rhodese in second place, only just behind.

Here's my go...
View from St Agnes & Gugh by Farmejim, on Flickr
 
Sorry I'm late :( Had to take an animal to the vets.

I'll post mine anyways, even though it has already been called

Import into LR.
Straighten
Crop
Clone out twig
Clone out a number of buoys
Exp +.66
Contrast + 15
Whites +20
Blacks -20
Vibrance +10
Saturation +10
Add a grad covering whole image with temp -15 and saturation +45
Export as sRGB qual 75%
not_mine-1020150 by PabloRosso, on Flickr
 
A worthy effort Paul, shame I'd already done the judging. It's funny that we've all got different sea colours.
Hope the animal that you took to the vet is OK.
 
Thanks Jim, it is what it is re the judging and fwiw I do like David's edit so a worthy winner imo. Yep interesting re the sea colour too. The animal is ok thanks :)
 
Coolio!

I'll fire up the random number generator later, and see what it spits out :)
 
Oops, was just editing and thought I'd check when due- doh! Oh well, wont finish off but my sea colour is currently quite deep- punched contrast up to 57 and vibrance up to 21. May have changed them right enough by finish.

Anyway, well done David:clap:
 
Ok.. random number generator turned in 3807... there were actually 3 files with those numbers, and the first listed was...

6bnC4cX.jpg


Go for it.. I'll call it Friday evening I think.

Raw file here....

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23953768/_DSC3807.NEF

Have fun.

@Farmerjim ... if you plan on adding your usual embelishments, bear in mind this is my wife... LOL. She has a sense of humour though (she's married to me after all) so it will be OK unless you make her look fat... then she'll hunt you down and murder you in your sleep :)
 
Pookeyhead said:
@Farmerjim ... if you plan on adding your usual embelishments, bear in mind this is my wife... LOL. She has a sense of humour though (she's married to me after all) so it will be OK unless you make her look fat... then she'll hunt you down and murder you in your sleep :)
Click to expand...

Wouldn't dream of doing anything like that David! You have a lovely looking wife, any alterations will be with the best possible taste :)
 
In ViewNX2.....

Decrease exposure 0.1
sharpen 2
set wb off the black off the sign behind, which warmed it slightly from the recorded setting which is what I wanted
Slight inc contrast
slight highlight reduction
slight shadow protection

Into CS2

Clone two single hairs from across forehead and between eyes
Attempted (bravely) to remove white flowers from behind
Couldn;t do it, so left them there!
Corrected the vert perspective to the pillars and sign verticals
Decided this was unflattering, as it widened the lower areas of the shot, so actually went a couple of points back the other way

Desaturated overall slightly,
desaturated BG about 50% :)
Upped sat of reds and yellows in her hair selectively with adj layer and mask
dodged catchlights in eyes slightly, reduced this adjustment by 50% with layer opacity
crop
Slight Vignette


Click for big
 
It's raining so can't get on with thistle spraying, upside is I get to play with PS :)

This contest is all the more pleasurable for having a beautiful subject.
I opened with ACR and made a few alterations, here's the screen-shot....
(I can't "upload a file " i.e. Screen shot)
settings changed were.......Shadows +50, Clarity +23 and vibrance +12
Opened in PS and ran it through a free trial program of Portrait Professional.
I let the program do it's job and then toned down some of the controls like face sculpturing and hair colouring etc, but I liked the eye brightening and sharpening, it's the sort of thing I can do but this makes the job easier.
Cloned out the bright things behind her head and cropped a bit off the right.
Selected the subject and gave her a bit of sharpening 73% Radius 3 and threshold 2
Selected BG and desaturated by -16 and gave it a Gaussian blur of 5pix.
Resized and saved for Flickr.

Click for the Flickr image,
David's wife by Farmejim, on Flickr
No Simpsons in this image!
 
Thanks Jim. (y).

Lovely edit David, welcome back and well done.

Wow this one’s popular I wonder why? :).

Me thinks there is not a lot to do with this one.


Open with ACR, see screen grab. Open in PS.

5168-1401896227-62c75c2619d6e6ba3268272e7f00d62e.jpg


Copy layer.
Remove spots and stray hair with spot healing brush and clone tools.
SAVE.
New layer, fill with 50% grey, change the blend mode to soft light.
Picking up a low value soft round brush, using black to burn and white to dodge remove any excesses of tone in the face. Burning in the eye parts and eye line, dodging the whites.
Still on the gray layer and with the same brush pick up different shades of skin and lip colour as the foreground, and paint the face to add intensity and tone to the lips and cheeks.
When completely happy with the shape and tones, the eyes and lips in particular flatten the image.
SAVE.
Copy layer.
Using the Liquefy filter, tweak the corners of the mouth to lift a slight smile.
SAVE.
Copy layer.
On the top layer, change the blending mode to “Overlay” This increases contrast and saturation.
Apply a high pass filter, (filter-other-high pass) set to 8 pixels. Hit OK.
Invert the image.
Lower the opacity, to fine tune the softness of the skin.
SAVE.
Add a layer mask and with the foreground colour set to black, the background set to white and then using soft round brush set at 25% opacity paint over the eyes, mouth, nostrils etc gradually bringing back the sharpness wanted by masking the softness. Swapping to white using the X key to paint away any errors made.
Now still in the mask
Enlarge the brush and increase the opacity, paint over the rest of the young woman leaving only the skin of the face, neck and outer parts of the image appearing soft.
Flatten.
SAVE.
Add a 30% warm photo filter adjustment layer, masking all but the subject.
Add a -0.5stop exposure adjustment layer, masking the subject.
HAPPY.
Flatten.
Add a border using the stroke command.
SAVE.
Save for the web.


CLICK THE IMAGE FOR BIG AND ZOOM.

Rhodese.
 
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sorry i didn't enter last time, i had to re instal windows and everything else too
auto raw, increasing clarity and sharpen
blur backround
smooth skin slightly
done



_DSC3807 by flying giraffe, on Flickr
 
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Right, not wishing to mistime entry again, managed to make some time tonight.

Tricky one this, as first impression on seeing raw was that save to jpeg was job done- clearly you raised your game a bit for this one David for obvious reasons:p:LOL:

Anyway in LR:
Contrast to 21
Vibrance to 40
Clarity -5
Luminance blue -100

In PS;
Duplicate layer- healing brush to remove stray hairs on face and wrist
Duplicate layer- mixture of clone tool and healing brush to remove odd hairs around rest of head. Always a tricky one as it does get quite hard and can sometime look as though the head is a cut and paste job as the main hair outline takes on a hard look.
Duplicate layer- bit of cloning on brightest areas behind head
Duplicate layer- quick selection then inverse and then lens blur but with mild settings- hexagon, radius 35, curvature 28, rotation 67, threshold 47- uniform distribution
Thought about a crop but didn't think I could improve framing
Quit while I'm ahead:p

Edit121 by Dr_Ozone, on Flickr

Edit- damn- forgot also added a 50% grey layer and tried to dampen highlights a touch on right arm.
 
Last edited:
Dr_O said:
clearly you raised your game a bit for this one David for obvious reasons:p:LOL:
Click to expand...

I know what risks are worth taking.. and which are not :)

@overbez Just to let you know... there's no colour profile embedded in yours.. looks very desaturated here on a wide gamut screen.

As viewed in forum/in PS after converting to sRGB
Nwe8sLj.jpg


Not sure which you intended.
 
Pookeyhead said:
@overbez Just to let you know... there's no colour profile embedded in yours..

Not sure which you intended.
Click to expand...

Thanks David,

I don't normally assign a colour profile at any point in my workflow, as mine normally seem to automatically have it set to sRGB once converted from RAW in ViewNX2. Something to add into / consider in the workflow methinks. (y)

And I think PS has sRGB as the "working colour space", so everything (even a file with RGB colourspace) gets worked on in sRGB colourspace.


I did slightly desat the overall image, just to avoid the subject standing out too much from the heavily desaturated BG, but not to the extent that the subject looked desaturated.


So, if I had in PS, assigned RGB, and then converted it to sRGB, (and then assigned sRGB as the colourspace), would my image look like the right of the comparison above, both in forum and in PS, on a wide gamut screen or would it become more saturated still?

I have done that >>>>> LINK HERE <<<<<< which is I think closer to what I was editing to. Wish I could say for sure .. :)


In fairness, and to avoid having 2 bites of the cherry here; I don't expect you to have to do something I should have done, so will accept judging based on the image that opens when you click my entered image. :)
 
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It may well have been the hosting service that stripped the profile away for all I know. If you have PS set to sRGB as default colorspace, then it probably was.
 
Here's my edit

Import into LR
Apply lens profile
Square crop and rotate slightly so pillar in background vertical.
Global edits:
Exposure +0.5
Highlights -30
Blacks -15
Clarity +10
Vibrance +10
Warmed slightly - Temp 4900, Tint +30​
Targeted edits:
Cloned out annoying bright spots (assumed lights?)
Adjustment brush on bright area immediately above head Highlights -100
Slight lift to eyes, adjustment brush saturation -60​
Export as sRGB qual 75%

not_mine-3807 by PabloRosso, on Flickr
 
Gonna have to call this in the morning.. sorry folks... something urgent has just cropped up.
 
OK.. here we go... let's see. As usual.. I crit in a matter of fact way, so please don't be offended.

  • Graham: First of all, I'm judging yours once put into sRGB, as I have a screen that shows almost 100% of Adobe RGB, having no profile is stretching your colour palette across a wider gamut, and desaturating it. I'm not letting that effect judging though, as it may not have even been your fault. I liek the desaturated background, but perhaps 50% is a little too much? It becomes noticeable instead of subduing it just enough to give prominence to the subject. It works however. Nice image - quality is high, and nothing destructive going on, with perhaps the exception the adjustment brush work in teh hair, which makes it look a little flat above her forehead... it almost gives a cut and pasted look against the very dark background. There are still some vestiges of full colour left around her head.

  • Jim: First thing that struck me about this was the sharpening. Very aggressive. The plug in/program you used seemed to have sharpened it, and then you added +73 sharpening further. It's just made it look incredibly processed at print res. Cloning out the highlights was a good idea, but it has left a halo around her head, and destroyed some of the fine hair detail. Same with the background blurring - it's left a soft halo around her... particularly around the shoulder area. Great crop, good balance. Great colours. I even like the levels of retouching the software gave, which is rare for me. The masking issues and aggressive sharpening intrude a bit though.

  • Rhodese: A contentious one as you've altered facial features without knowing the subject. A risky venture. Fortunately, what you have done absolutely reflects what she looks like when smiling, but you never knew that... so took a risk. For all you knew, could have thought... "why's he made her mouth look weird?" :). You got away with it though. A good logical process. Good use of layers in PS.. good tones. Perhaps slightly compressed tones in the face - it's lost a little of the light's modelling, but not in a unflattering way. Again... no colour profile embedded. It looks fine on screen in the forum, but when assigned sRGB in PS, it looks over-saturated. Looks like imgur strips ICC profiles. It may well look fine on your screen if it's not wide gamut, so you'd find it hard to judge. A very pleasing image though. Not a fan of the border :)... I'll not be judging it on that though.

  • Neil: You say you smoothed skin, but looks like you did so after adding lots of clarity and lots of sharpening. The result is skin that shows the flaws more than the original did when viewed at print res :) Background blurring is well handled, but still a few tell-tale soft areas on the subject. Overall I like the effect. The use of clarity and sharpening doesn't work well with a portrait though. Good colours and tones... slightly cool... but not unpleasantly so.

  • Dr_O: I like everything about this except the cut and pasted look due to the hard edge around the head, and the wobbly masking around the chair. -100 blue has crushed the tones in the top a little... made the fabric look a little flat. If I wanted it darker, I'd have probably done some selective burn brushing on a grey layer to preserve tones. On first impression it looks fantastic, but at print res, the masking and PS work lets it down :(

  • Paul: Can't view this at print res, but the large view on Flickr looks fine quality wise. I really can't decide on this crop. On one hand I think she needs some space to be looking into, so want to move her left, but then I think that the whole thing is too closely cropped. it solves a messy background, but not sure at what expense it does this. Nice reduction in distracting highights. Rather that try to completely remove them, you've reduced them to make them look like naturally occurring OOF highlights. This has avoided the need to try and mask off hair entirely, as that was the issue with some of the others. (note to all: Need to mask hair? Refine Edge is your friend :)) Nice tones.. maybe a little bright, but has a pleasing effect on skin tones.


Ok.. it's between Paul and Rhodese. I like the logical, skilful processes Rhodese has used... and the results of course, but I like the feel of Paul's, and the intelligent way he's managed the distracting highlights, but not sure about the crop.


I'm giving it to Rhodese, as out of all of them, this is the only one that wouldn't give issues if printed (once assigned a colour profile :)) I like Paul's very much, but just can't decide on the crop, and going in so tight will have reduced overall quality, and hence printing options.

Over to you Mr Rhodese!
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the crit David, and glad you like the feel, if not the crop :) Well done Rhodese.
 
Thanks David- some good points to dwell on as always:). I do find hair a double edged sword- it can be nice to tidy stray hairs but does often look a bit unnatural as though the head has been pasted in. Is it just a case of being much more meticulous or am I using the wrong tool or are they best left alone?

Well done Rhodese:clap:
 
Last edited:
Hello everyone.

A jolly good turnout “what“. :banana: It makes such a difference to see how others tackle things.

Thank you David it’s always nice to gain a win, especially when it’s from you.

Well done everybody, “You all did very well”. Cough, cough, that’s enough brown nosing.

David re the colour profile, I always use sRGB, in camera, processing and saving to the web. The screen grab is the upload to imgur, the one for TP is at 1024 pixels and 235kB again with a sRGB profile. What can I do to rectify the mismatch? Remembering, I am a shaky old computer duffer.

5202-1402147170-dae4dbfad16e62b55ce8515a7a82f264.jpg


My tester this time is a bit different in as much as it’s three photo’s that, I hope, make a complete picture.

I won’t put up a preview :( but here is the link to the files. :).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pqulohc4v8an5o5/AADZHrq6TALsiPV39VN4OLLKa

Please have a go, it’s just a bit of fun that we all can learn from, so off you pop, “Tally ho” and good luck.

I will call this one Wednesday PM.


Rhodese.
 
Cool, liking the concept. I've been there too- they certainly don't win any prizes for quick construction- 2026 or thereabouts I think it will be finished
 
Rhodese said:
David re the colour profile, I always use sRGB, in camera, processing and saving to the web. The screen grab is the upload to imgur, the one for TP is at 1024 pixels and 235kB again with a sRGB profile. What can I do to rectify the mismatch? Remembering, I am a shaky old computer duffer.
Click to expand...


It must be Imgur stripping the profile out then... in which case there's not much you can do except stop using it. I'm sure they never used to, as I used to use it all the time.
 
Thanks for the critique David and well done Rhodese:banana:

I'm crewing a narrow boat across The Wash tomorrow and Monday so will prob miss next chalenge, good luck guys n gals!:)
 
adjusted all the files to the same in raw, pretty much auto plus lens correction and sharpen
save and photomerge
warp to straighten
clone out cranes, topaz clarity "brick"
done
edit, had a go at cloning out the green net on the right hand side, and also the tree at the top

spain not.mine by flying giraffe, on Flickr
 
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LR5:

lens profile and CA
+25 sharp
+35 shadow
-45 highlight

Exported all 3 as 16bit TIFFs


PS CC:
Photomerge
Straighten and correct distortion manually with free transform + grid.
Retouch cranes
85C warm up filter
Curves adjustment layer
slight high pass on grey layer with soft light blend.
slight grain added

CLICK FOR BIG & ZOOM
 
Last edited:
Opened 3 files in ViewNX2
Created 3 exposures from each at -2, 0 and +2 EV
WB 5400
sharpneing 2
everything else 0

Loaded these into SNS-HDR to blend exposures

Then three exposure blended versions into Microsoft ICE

Stitched version into PS
corrected some barrel distortion (from the stitching I think)
Cloned out the dog
straighten
crop

Click for bigger
 
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This didn't turn out well for me- partly because it's not something I do, which is fine and good to try something new but it just wasn't working out so the ability to pay a lot of attention to cloning etc did dwindle quite quickly:oops: :$:LOL:

In LR
clarity 10
vibrance 57
saturation 7

In PS
photomerge
attempt to fix perspective but wasn't really happening
flatten layer anyway
clone out cranes
crop
layer via copy some of the blue sky and badly spread it about:p
save before I make it any worse:LOL:

Edit122 by Dr_Ozone, on Flickr
 
The hour is upon us, 5-30pm, 6pm is my witching hour so oft we jolly well.

Neil.
The merge is ok the exposure is ok.
The cloning is ok except at full size I can see ghosts on the centre left edge and edge lines in the sky above the left hand spires.
The perspective is a bit wonky; the middle seems pinched distorting the turrets.

Topaz clarity “BRICK”, what is that.

Overall, I like it.

David.
I have no criticism, only questions.

Correcting the distortion manually with free transform, is this done all at once or several selections?
Or is it akin to using the perspective crop tool.
Retouch cranes, does that mean clone, spot healing, patch?

Overall, it’s top hole.

Graham.
It is nice to see different programs used; I don’t know what SNR is.

It was brave of you to leave the cranes, then I guess that’s what everybody who visits Barcelona sees and it is what every photographer tries to erase.

The removal of the dog was inspired, who would have thought that such a little thing would make such a difference to the foreground.

I have mixed feelings about the exposure and the perspective.

Overall, I like it a lot.

Doc.
When viewed at the full size original 3175 X 4445 pixels on flickr, there are cloning and other mismatches visible.
The exposure is ok and looking at the windows at the bottom level their perspective looks ok, but moving up, cough, cough, things seem to go somewhat astray.

Overall, it is not your best work. :).


Which leads me to who do I go with.

David’s as always is technically right on, Graham’s however is more of a how it was/is type of picture, and I do like the removal of the dog, it kinda makes the foreground less awkward.

So I’m going with Graham, well done old chap, over and out.

Rhodese.
 
Thanks Rhodese- it's fair to say my patience was straying so not wanting to let the side down with a non-appearance- I did some stuff:D

Well done Graham:clap:
 
Well done Graham! Nice work

@Rhodese I merged them first, then used transform, distort, to manually straighten against the grid overlay... literally as simple as that. Similar to the perspective tool, yes, but gives more control laterally, as the perspective tool tends to affect both sides simultaneously. It was done in one section.

I retouched using clone tool initially, then the heal tool to remove any residual artefacts left by the clone tool
 
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Thanks Rhodese... Removing the cranes would have been a lot of work, and would then have really meant all the other scaffolding and nets should go too.

The half dog was what kept pulling my eye, more so than the cranes.

No comment on the motorbike? :D

Sns-hdr is an HDR / exposure blending software. I tend to use it when I can't retrieve enough shadow and highlight detail using only viewnx2. All my software's are free versions too.

I'll dig something out in the morning.
 
Good morning all,

It’s a lovely sunny morning here in downtown Wolves; let’s hope it stays that way.

Doc, making an appearance the taking part, keeps a thread alive, goodonya. (y).

David, thanks for clarifying, I had thoughts of new weird and wonderful processes.

Graham, motorbike?

Rhodese.
 
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