PS (Photoshop) the POW (Photo of the Week)--GO! 7/25/11

[picturesque]

<p>Here's a neutral image for you to work on.<br /><br />You may post one reworked image, so make it your best effort. Any explanations about why and how you did what you did are encouraged and appreciated. Any critique is also welcome. Please remember to make your image 700 pixels wide and post a caption.<br /><br />For those of you wondering what this thread is about, this is part two of an exercise called Photo of the Week, in which an image is chosen from submissions to be critiqued, or, in this case, 'photoshopped' by others. You may find the thread with image submissions by looking for the most recent one with a similar title.<br /><br />Have fun!</p><div></div>

[peter_cohen]

<p>Just a quick job here. I found the original to be a little flat. I used Topaz Adjust on a duplicate layer with a mask so I could erase the effect on the skin of the B&G. Also removed distracting elements such as bouquet on the wall, stains on the wall, the domed building in the background and the sailboat in the harbor. Finished off with a vignette. Although speed was not the goal, I didn't have much and spent less than 10 minutes on this. (The low quality of this image makes the colors more saturated and the dress more dingy than it looks on my monitor.)</p><div></div>

[randallfarhy]

<p>I'm not a wedding photographer, so I'm not up on the latest methods or preferences, but thought I would give it a go anyhow. Considered a B&W conversion, it works but wanted to stay with color.<br>

Cropped with an 8x10 format in portrait to bring attention to the couple while still offering a view of the vista behind them, eliminated some minor distraction on the left treeline (probably of some signifigant geographical importance knowing my luck).</p>

<p>Pulled down the highlights a touch to add detail to the brides dress, then bumped contrast a notch or two.<br>

Put some saturation into the blue channel to punch up the sky a little bit, then warmed the overall image for effect on the skin tones and scenery.</p>

<p>The slate patio was still a bit too cold, so I used a feathered white vignette to lessen their impact and throw attention back to the couple.</p>

<p>Straightened the horizon to better align the arbor top, then used distortion to better align the flower box sides with the border. This also has the effect of bringing the couple a little closer to the viewer from the mid torso up.</p>

<p>Pulled down shadows a notch in tone curves to give depth and separation to the tree line in the background.</p>

<p>Removed an imperfection on the brown patio wall stone to the left. </p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>I'm in a hotel, using a laptop with no photo editing program, so I thought I'd give it a shot using one of the on-line photo editing programs, www.pixlr.com. It doesn't have a lot of the tools that I'm used to working with, but I thought this would be fun ... sort of like a potato sack race for Photoshop geeks ;-).</p>

<p>My basic idea was to crop out lots of the useless background, clone away distracting elements in the trees, at water's edge, and ooze on the stone fence, and darken the sky a bit. For yucks, I tried their version of the "glamor glow" filter on just the B&G. Because I'm on an uncalibrated laptop, I have no idea what the colors really look like, so I left them alone. Also, couldn't immediately see how to numerically set crop dimensions, so I just guessed.</p>

<p>Anyway, here's what I came up with. While limited, I was pleasantly surprised that pixlr had as many tools as it does.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>PS - Given the extreme crop that was needed, it sure would have been nice to work from an image bigger than 700 px wide.</p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>PS - I just saw Randall's tweak after I posted mine and realized that I forgot to mention that I also attempted to straighten out the horizontal perspective distortion of the arbor a bit, ie, so the (viewer's) left side of the arbor doesn't look shorter than the right side, bring the (viewer's) LHS of the horizon up a bit, etc..</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>This was fun!</p>

<p>Instead of trying to make it look like sunshine with bright colors I went the other way. The couple and the flowers still have some colors though but the background is subdued. It took some work to get the colors the way I wanted so I can't remember anymore how I did it :-)</p>

<p>Anyways, hope you like it.</p><div></div>

[peter_cohen]

<p><strong>Pete S:</strong> Love the texture overlay.</p>

[fuccisphotos]

<p>Nadine,<br>

In the future could the shot that is selected for PS POW be provided as a larger file as well so that people can really do the types of manipulations they normally would. Thanks!</p>

<p>-Vail</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Here is my take on it...</p>

<div></div>

[fotografz]

<p>Perspective and distortion correction, 1/3 blue grad filter and 2/3 warming filter, select exposure adjustments, vignette edges, slight fix of Bride's awkward facial expression.</p>

<p>I did not severely crop because IMO people don't pay to be at these locations to have them eliminated in the photos.</p><div></div>

[wedding-photography-denver]

<p>Messed that up, sorry Nadine.</p>

<p>Bit of saturation, straightening, burning etc</p><div></div>

[alexandrutunschi]

<p>My take - straightened, +contrast, + brightness, +vibrance, little vignette, sharpening etc.</p><div></div>

[picturesque]

<p>Peter--the image was low contrast for a reason! Since no one posted any images, I put up one of mine from a few years back. The image is largely straight out of the camera, save for basic sharpening.</p>

<p>Vail--I will send a higher res image to anyone who asks.</p>

<p>Marc--Exactly. This spot is a scenic point on San Francisco's Presidio. The water is SF Bay and the dome is the Palace of Fine Arts.</p>

[peter_cohen]

<p><strong>Nadine</strong>: In my final sentence, I meant the low resolution of <em>my </em>final image, not yours ;-)</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Peter--Ha ha...sorry. :^)</p>

[sagacioustechie]

<p>I felt that this shot might look better in heavily contrasted B&W w/ some strong vignetting and here's my attempt at accomplishing that:</p><div></div>

[pete_s.]

<blockquote>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=6029620">Peter Cohen</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub2.gif" alt="" /></a>, Jul 27, 2011; 11:03 p.m.<strong> </strong><br>

<strong>Pete S:</strong> Love the texture overlay.</p>

</blockquote>

Thanks Peter!

[richardsnow]

<p>OK, here's my take...several adjustments here...<br>

The original seemed a bit hazy and blown out, so I did what I could to recover some of the shadow detail and bring out the beauty of the scene.</p><div></div>

[fuccisphotos]

Marc W, I love it and you are so right about the cropping. Taking just a few seconds on scene to remove the rogue

bouquet or a few minutes of cloning in post can make a huge difference.

[fotografz]

<p>Thanks Vail.</p>

<p>It is amazing all the different approachs one can apply to the same basic, out of the camera image. Mind boggling.</p>

[nathangardner]

<p>all the colors of the landscape were too distracting for me so I converted to b/w. Simple Blacks and Highlight Recovery adjustments and tone curve in LR. Also, cropped out the flowers that someone left on the ledge.</p><div></div>