How would you edit this photo?

<p>Hope I'm not out of line by asking. I took this portrait and for the life of me, can't get it to look like what I see in my head. Would anyone please help advise me as to edit this photo? I am invisioning a really dramatic scene, with the sky, etc. Something along the lines of a dragonizer, but maybe more natural for the face. Please advise!</p><div></div>

<p>I say go wild....</p><div></div>

<p>Oh that does look cool. Did you add a blur to it in photoshop?</p>

<p>Don't quite know what you want. Brought down the background left of the figure, duped the image, applied a local equalization filter to give a grainy effect, blurred and smudged flesh tones and lightened them to keep them cleaner, blended with Multiply and transparency around 60%. Drama? You da queen . . . ;-)</p><div></div>

<p>Bill applied a filter in the blur category called Radial Blur with a Zoom effect.</p>

<p>just fooling around</p><div></div>

<p>or</p><div></div>

<p>What about something like this? </p>

<p>Tom M<br>

Washington, DC</p>

<div></div>

<p>Seriously.. I knew you guys would come thru for me! I absoltuly love that last one.. mind telling me how you did it? Also, I adore that texture. Where do you come up with that one? The last one is a lot like I invisioned. The only difference is, I was seeing more deep blues (in the sky). But this is great. Thanks so much you guys!</p>

<p>I believe Tom used Topaz Adjust. You can find it here: http://www.topazlabs.com/adjust/</p>

<p>Thank you ;-)</p>

<p >Janiece –</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Here’s my take on your shot. I tried to address your requests:</p>

<p > </p>

<p >· Dramatic sky.</p>

<p >· Something along the lines of a dragonizing.</p>

<p >· Addressing your mind’s eye! :)</p>

<p > </p>

<p >To many steps to advise how it’s done lotsa steps in PS, with emphasis on color over- saturation.</p>

<p >I thought originally of cropping out the sides or deleting the poles but after working with the image, the wide angel properties of the shot started to work, so I left in. And I can safely say I did not use Topaz, never heard of it until now.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Best Regards,</p>

<p >Jack</p>

<p > </p><div></div>

<p>Hi Janiece - <br /> <br /> I'm glad I was more or less on the right track. Your statement, "...Something along the lines of a dragonizer, but maybe more natural for the face..." was the clue. Let me also say that the version I posted was little more than a quick and dirty sketch of a possible direction to investigate rather than a final product -- for example, it took me no more than 5 min to complete. Below is a quick summary of the steps that I used:<br /> <br /> 1. Opened a copy of your image in Photoshop (CS3), and duplicated the original "background" layer. <br /> <br /> 2. Used Topaz de-JPEG on the dupe layer. This step probably wasn't absolutely necessary, but (a) it's a knee jerk reflex for me to de-JPEG all JPEG images I receive, and (b), I knew that I would be doing some heavy processing steps on the image, so I wanted to start out with as clean an image as possible. <br /> <br /> 3. Did a quick pass with the patch and clone stamp tools to get rid of the visually annoying telephone poles in the LH side of the image. <br /> <br /> 4. Used the clone stamp tool to get rid of the dark patch of gravel in the lower LH corner of the image. <br /> <br /> 5. Used the polygonal lasso tool to make a quick, rough, feathered selection around the subject. Saved it for later use. Did a quick select of the sky & saved it for future use. Did a Boolean OR of the masks for the subject and for the sky, and then inverted and saved the resulting mask. This mask allows me to select the foreground, building, trees and background, without selecting either the sky or subject. I called this mask something like "Not subject or sky".<br /> <br /> 6. Duplicated the result of #5 for further work. This allows me to always go back to the result of #5 should I need to do so.<br /> <br /> 7. Used Topaz "Details" (not "Adjust") on the result of step #6, and then used the "Not subject or sky" mask to apply the effect only to those areas.<br /> <br /> 8. Brought up the "subject" mask, inverted it to select everything else in the image, and then added a "Photo Filters" adjustment layer with an orangish / sepia color to roughly match the subject's skin tone. It probably would have been more fun to do a cross processing step using "Curves", but I didn't want to take the time to do it on this first "sketch". <br /> <br /> 9. Flattened the image, brought it back down to 8 bits/ch and saved it.<br /> <br /> <br /> As is usual in situations like this, it has taken me vastly longer to write up a description of the steps I used than it did to actually go through the steps in Photoshop (ie, 5 min, max).<br /> <br /> Anyway, I hope this gives you an idea of what I did in the crude sketch that I posted. Lots of things can be (and probably should be) changed (eg, the blue sky that you want), but at least now, I think I have a better idea of what you are looking for. HTH.<br /> <br /> Cheers,<br /> <br /> Tom M<br /> Washington, DC</p>

<p>How about an Ektachrome treatment with some modular compositional cropping circa 1985 or there abouts.</p>

<p>I had a preset in Adobe Camera Raw that was developed to make a sunlit garden look normal shot in Raw with my Pentax DSLR. I didn't work on this image to get to look this way. Just clicked on the saved preset and this is what I got. I can post the ACR presets if this is to your liking. </p><div></div>

<p>I ran it thru ACR and a little Photoshop....playing with exposure, fill, darks, saturation overall and locally, cropped it a bit and a little vignetting. essentially just played with it until it looked right to me.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Hi again Janiece -</p>

<p>Another thought: I took the direction that I did because of your stated preference for a Dragan-like look for the image. However, to be honest, my personal preference for this image would be much closer to the direction that Tom Sullivan took, ie, dark, simple and dramatic, with the skyline and foreground almost in complete silhouette. </p>

<p>To me, even though I can produce a Dragan-like effect, I think that this look is too "busy" / "fake" / etc. and conflicts with the strong central focus on the young lady in this image. This is why I prefer the non-Dragan, dark/simple/dramatic look that Tom Sullivan presented. My only quibble with his version is that I really don't like the telephone poles on the LHS, and would have eliminated them. I have a couple of other ideas, and might give them a try when I get home tonight.</p>

<p>Cheers,<br>

Tom M</p>

<p>PS - I forgot to say it earlier: Nice shot!</p>

<p>oh believe me Tom Mann....if I had myself taken the shot....those telephone poles would not have been in the shot in the first place. But, they were there in Janiece's version, so I just left them there.....she didn't seem to have a problem with them...</p>

<p>Here is the improved modified picture<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/9880902">http://www.photo.net/photo/9880902</a></p><div></div>

<p>I thought it needed much more drama so i added another sky. Plus i felt it needed another element to add something more. So i put a volcano in the background. Looks good eh?</p>

<p>How's this?</p><div></div>

<p>The bigger version looks better</p><div></div>

<p>From the "less is more" school:</p><div></div>

<p>D. Beard, it's a bit better, but personally, I was hoping for symmetrically located, twin, matching volcanoes ... sorta like twin pipes on a classic hot rod. ;-)</p>

<p>Did some one say semmetry?</p><div></div>

<p>Ok...heres my hit on this...<br>

I like what I think you were trying to do with this portrait...my feeling is this a portrait of the young woman and not of the building so much....(and not the other ones in the far background as well,) to me they pull the focus away...If this was my image I would focus on the beautiful model...a snoot placed over the flash and directed only on the head and shoulders could have given this a more mysterious feel to compliment the pose. I get the dramatic sky is what you were invisioning...but it was not present when you clicked the shutter...I checked out your web site and can appreciate your photography...seniors and infants can be challenging and you do a great job! I am assuming the background is important to this client...one of the reasons I left as much as I did in...Keep up the good work! Juan</p><div></div>