Second Photo Touch-Up Project

Kroz

2[H]4U
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Jul 13, 2002
Messages
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Hello;

I used a couple tutorials and added my own touches, I did my own border and I like the way it turned out. I took this picture with my Canon A70 on a recent trip to Stratford, Ontario for the Shakspeare Festival. What to you think of the post production? I can post the original as a comparrision if you like.

york4.jpg


Kroz
 
Likes
* The perspective
* The desaturated colour
* The subject material

Dislikes
* The border

Comments
I've never been a supporter of ruining a good photograph with a rushed border, if you intend
to age a photograph of your best friend's dad wearing WWII pilot gear, then go the extra
mile and study the borders and silver-salt decay of authentic photographs.

If you absolutely must have a border ... I think this border by Dubtastic is a tad
more refined, and indeed unique.
 
That is an amazing border!! No where near my skill at this point. :p

Thanks for the feedback, I am going to get into borders more as I dont like the straight 4 lines of a photo. Can you point out any reference sites to creating borders? As its my first border It's so far below redementery its not funny, but it is a start. :)

Thanks

Kroz
 
Hmmm, you could try alt.skillz.use.right.brain ... just kidding! :D

I don't use tutorial sites, since they cripple your ability to think for yourself, from what I see
you have an artistic eye, rather look around your home/office for ideas and try to think how
you would implement them in a raster tool. ;)
 
Thanks again. I think that I will take your advise...first I need to do some reading on Raster tools

Kroz
 
Here is the original. It has been resized to fit. I also added another edit of the picture...just an addon when I was playing with PS.

Original
yorkCafe.jpg


More editing.
Caferaining.jpg


Kroz
 
IMO i agree w/ above. border == no and the new 'edit' i think detracts from the image. negatives aside its VERY VERY VERY smooth (the picture you first posted in this thread.) i'm way impressed. nice work.
 
If you're trying out effects, that's fine. I haven't seen the 'rain tutorial' but if I had to achieve
that effect here's what I'd do (let's see how my graphics guesswork is):

1. Create clear new layer.
2. Add gaussian noise to taste.
3. Motion-blur till streaky.
4. Set layer blend mode to "Hard Light".
5. Set layer transparency to around 50%.

Please tell me if I'm very far off. ;)

Anyway, you were clever enough to obscure the pavements, since dry pavements in a
rainstorm that harsh would have made even the thickest of viewers frown. The more subtle
visual paradox, is the rain that seems to be coming from the direction of the buildings,
which does not make sense, unless the walls are sweating profusely! :D

Perhaps you could consider something akin to this treatment of your photograph:

York.jpg
 
Lord Hyperion - You hit it almost exactly...I used Screen instead of hard light. And the perspective was to have the rain being pushed down the street. I hadnt thought of it blowing off the building. :)

Your treatment is AWESOME!!! What did you do alone the right side? It looks like a tiny bit of noise?

Thanks, I like the way you added a caption to throw off the look of a solid border (does that make sense?) It just seems softer to me than the original.

Kroz
 
Lord Hyperion - You hit it almost exactly...I used Screen instead of hard light.
And the perspective was to have the rain being pushed down the street. I hadnt thought of
it blowing off the building.


Yep, and I didn't do the tutorial, I used alt.skillz.use.right.brain. :D

As for the rain ... I stared at it for quite some time (and yes I saw that you intended for it
to rain 'down the street') however due to perspective distortion the left side looks correct,
the top right however looks less comfy! ;)


Thanks, I like the way you added a caption to throw off the look of a solid border (does that make sense?)
It just seems softer to me than the original.


You're making sense all right, however, I did take short-cuts (the result of 20 minute photo-
editing), the paper should have had some grain ... and perhaps some fibre impurities, that
would have broken the 'solid border' even more. :(


Your treatment is AWESOME!!! What did you do alone the right side? It looks like a tiny bit of noise?


Since I use CorelPhotoPaint I'm not even going to try to explain in PS CS terms. Here we go:

00. Add a soft transparent angled white gradient on the top right. Makes the scene look foggy.

01. Flatten image.

02. Convert 24-bit RGB JPEG image to 24-bit Lab image

03. Copy the Lightness (Luminosity) channel as a grayscale image. (The reason for not
simply desturating is that this method produces much 'crisper' results that simply 'Convert
to Grayscale' or 'Desaturate').

04. Add soft Gaussian intensity noise (20% intensity, 100% density). Simulates the noise
created by silver film-emultion grains in older (or high ISO) photograps.

05. Add soft Spike noise (20% intensity, 100% density). Simulates dirt in the lens/shutter
system.

06. Create an elliptical gradient to use as a mask for following effects.

07. Use said gradient to 5px Gaussian blur the edges of the image. Simulates imperfect
optics of older cameras (with dust on the outskirts of the lens).

08. Use said gradient in conjuction with 30% multiply blend mode to darken the edges of
the image. Simulates imperfect optics of older cameras. (with dust on the outskirts of the
lens).

09. Crop image to a more pleasant composition.

0A. Add some white margin.

0B. Add a caption set in ITC Garamond to create a classic feel. Claude Garamond (the
designer of the Garamond typeface), Max Miedinger (the designer of the Helvetica
typeface) and Hermann Zapf (the designer of the Optima typeface) are my heros!

0C. Flatten image.

0D. Use Tone curve to punch Red and pinch Blue. This creates the Sepia effect.

0E. Down-sample to obscure any errors.

And voila! ;)
 
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