How'd you do that?

[Spacy]

I would but I don't really know how to edit! lol

 

[nolatome]

The original is on CD so only had access to this adjusted one. I shot this with D70 28-80mm. First made two copies of image. Opened Layer 0 on all copies. Adjusted blk&Wht tone in "layer effects" to a green shade. Thought it went with the half-tone theme. Then on 2nd copy magnetic lasso'd bride, cut her out, pulled her onto the green copy over herself. Now that bride cut out was full color. Then I went back to 2nd copy with the lasso'd bride and desaturated the image (bl&wh) Then cut out bl&wht bride to put over top of color bride layer, then faded bl&wht opacity till I got the color you see her. I used this image as background for an album and put full color images on top. This is a cool effect, simple start would be to just make copy image and desaturate on image make layer and drag over original color image, hen adjust opacity of top layer. Hope you like. I have been watcching this forum for few days and I like what I see here.

 

[Peanuts]

This thread has me dying to understand how to use the liquify tool. That will have to be my next PS project.

 

[Jazz]

I guess this thread is really a postprocessing thread. Regardless, it’s a great idea and I applaud Elsaspet thumbup for starting it. So here’s my contribution.

I shoot RAW. The first photo is with auto adjustments turned ON in the ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). When I first started shooting Raw, I wondered if the auto adjustments was going to be useful for me. Answer is nope. I never use it. Here’s an example of the reason why. After seeing what auto adj did, I turned them OFF and started fresh. The exposure was 1/80 sec at 5.6 with fill flash, with the flash compensation on my Nikon SB800 turned to minus 2/3 stop. The flash is on the hot shoe of my Nikon D200, but is pointed up into a bounce card.

After processing through ACR, in Photoshop CS2 I switched into cmyk mode (just because I’m more familiar with how to get good flesh tones in cmyk than in rgb). I used the eyedropper to determine that the magenta was too high as compared with yellow, so I used curves to lower the magenta, then switched back to rgb. Then I used curves to brighten the image. I’m no expert (far from it), but I was taught that curves is the only non-destructive method of color correcting and brightening, as it doesn’t discard pixels. Also, I’m more comfortable with curves because we used them in my previous career in the printing business. While levels gives you (basically) three divisions (hilites-mids-shadows), with curves you can create your own brightness sub-divisions. Okay, enough of that.

So I thought, what do I want to do with this image? I’ve got two sisters here, a wedding dress, and lots of light streaming in the window. I want light, and lots of it. I want bright happy light that gives a positive and upbeat photo. Muddy midtones and shadows wouldn’t do. Only thing that bothers me is the direct splash of sunlight blowing out the flesh on the right. What are you gonna do? Instead of faking a fix, I let it go.

Hope this is helpful.

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[neea]

Wow Jazz.
That's awesome.
You can definatley see the difference and advantage of shooting RAW. I've never shot raw (although i dont imagine my films been cooked in anyway. err dont mind me... lack of sleep).
But I definatley know this could NEVER be done with a jpeg and come out looking so fantastic.

Everyones pictures look so great!!!

 

[Stevedevil]

We need some more posts on this please

 

[Peanuts]

Jazz, would you mind giving a short tutorial on your colour balancing with CMYK? I have seen you mention it several times and have been very curious

Thanks everyone

 

[Jazz]

Peanuts - I'd be happy to. But it'll be tomorrow before I get it done, as I'm just heading out.

 

[lulu]

This is great, I am new to photoshop and still have lots to learn so please keep posting.

 

[elsaspet]

Great job Jazz. I'd like to see how you did that too.

 

[Big Mike]

I've been wanting to contribute to this thread...so here it goes.

Here is the original image without any adjustments at all.

As you can see, it's a little underexposed and doesn't have any 'pop'.
I always do my shoots in RAW, so I made some adjustments in the conversion stage. I increased the exposure and may have given a few small tweaks to some other settings...but not anything worth remembering. This one is just a sample the I did on my work computer...on my home computer, I use Raw Shooter Essentials and turned up the noise suppression a little bit. I think the default on the program is none at all and if I don't add a bit, the shots look a little noisy, even at ISO 100. The important part is that when making the RAW adjustments, I was concerned with the exposure of the subject, not the background.

Once I got the image into Photoshop, the first step is make a duplicate layer. Then I 'extract' the subject from the background. There are several methods to doing this. The Extract Filter is a good one...but for this, I just used the magnetic lasso and traced around the subject. To make it easier, I make an adjustment levels layer and make it very contrasty. After the loop is complete, I switch to Quick Mask Mode and use the brush to paint the selection in and out to get it as close as I can. The spiky hair was the hardest part so I went over it a few times with varying sizes and opacity's. Then I switch back to regular selection mode, inverse the selection and create a layer mask. This gives me the backdrop layer so that's what I change the name of the layer to. To finish this step, I delete the levels adjustment layer. *edit* It probably would have been easier to just use the magic wand and select the white background. I do that fairly often but I like to switch it up from time to time so I don't get complacent.

I cropped the image...I could have done it before the first step as well.

To get the background how I want it. I use the healing brush and/or the clone stamp to get rid of the distracting folds in the sheet. Then I use levels to make the background white. Then I make the backdrop layer b&w, so that any color cast is eliminated. Sometimes levels cant make the backdrop look just how I want, so just paint it white with the brush. If I do want to keep parts of the sheet, I use a low opacity & soft brush and just add a white vignette to the edges.

Now on to the subject. I duplicate the background layer and name this new layer...Adrien, in this case. First I see if there is any work required on the subject...blemishes etc. I think I missed a few spots between his eyes on this one...but I did touch up the bags under his eyes (he probably bumped his face in the last few days). I also make sure there is one, and only one, catch light in either eye. Usually, I clone out the fill catch light...but in this case, the main was too high so I just kept the fill. I usually use the burn tool to make sure the whites of the eyes are nice and bright. For an older subject, I'd also whiten the teeth at this point.

Then I use a levels adjustment layer, then a curves adjustment layer. Levels to adjust my darkest and lightest points and curves to add mid-tone contrast. Sometimes I use adjustment layers for color balance and saturation as well. The advantage of adjustment layers is that I can go back and fine tune each adjustment without changing the original layer.

Once I have the subject looking like I want, my next step is sharpening. I tried the LAB sharpening method (found somewhere on this site) but it doesn't seem to play well with a layered image...so I used the High Pass filter technique. It's basically the same sharpening as UnSharp Mask...but I like it because it's on it's own layer. I duplicate the Adrien layer and set the blending mode to overlay or soft light, run the High Pass filter with a radius of about 10. Then I adjust the opacity of the layer to get the right level of sharpening. Somewhere between 20-60% is usually good.

That should be the final look of the image. I save it as a PSD (I will have saved along the way as well). Then I flatten all layers and save a different copy as a JPEG for printing.

I hope I got all my steps in there. Here is the web version of that image.

 

[shachr6]

I have one for you how do people make it so the background is totally white, without photoshoping it?

 

[elsaspet]

That is KILLER Big Mike.......Lovelovelove!

 

[Big Mike]

I have one for you how do people make it so the background is totally white, without photoshoping it?

It's just a matter of putting more light onto the background than onto the subject. For this shot, I should have had another light or two that would be behind or off to the side of the subject...pointing directly at the background. That would have really helped to make the backdrop white from the start.