Mother and Child

[jocose]

Hey gang,

I am looking for some honest feedback. For those not following along, I've been playing with Photoshop Elements, and I know f***all about Photoshop...but I'm having fun, so no comments I should give up

Anyway, I think it's pretty evident which is the one I manipulated and which is the orginal.

I forgot the code, but please feel free to make changes to the original picture (I can post a higher res if anyone wants to futz with the original).

Oh, and if anyone cares, it was taken in Forest Park in St. Louis, MO on Oct 1 around 1:30 in the afternoon. I took it with my PowerShot S2 set at 1/125 f8, 72mm. As far as manipulation, I copied the boat onto a new layer with a 30px feather, the rocks were also each on their own layers with the same feathering (I moved the rocks b/c they seemed too evenly spaced, and I was trying to do that 3rds thing I've been hearing about here on the Forum), then I merged all, did the auto smart fix, then cut the shore and above onto its own layer with the same 30 px feather and boosted the master hue and saturation. Finally I did the same with the lower half.

Anyway, 'nuff talking...here's the pics:

 

[jocose]

really? No one has a single comment to make? Come on folks, you are usually good about offering great advise and suggestions.

Anyway, I'm sure that it's just cuz it's a holiday weekend here in the US, and everyone is away from their computers

Right? ... Right?

 

[hobbes28]

It looks like your tinkering with PS is really good. Upon early examination, you can't tell that the rocks had been moved at all. It only looked like the saturation had been bumped up. If you hadn't said that they had been, I wouldn't keep scanning the shore line over and over again, looking for the places it was to begin with. The only thing that I notice is the oar on the right side looks pretty fake. I would do a little blur tool around the edge so it looks more like the original and appears to be motion blurred. Overall, I would say its a great manipulation and could make some users jealous...myself included.

 

[jocose]

Hobbes,

Thanks for the comments. If you look real closley on the far right, you can see where the shoreline dips in and out again. When I moved the boat, I grabbed the shore as well and the rocks, so I had to get rid of one all the way on the end

Don't be jealous--it's totally beginner's luck and I still have a long way to go to get as good as the folks on the Forum--but I'm encouraged that if I'm doing well this early in the game, I can only get better!

I'm not sure what you mean about the oars. I assume you don't mean the one with the water coming off of it, right? I didn't actually do anything to the boat (except color). I moved it as a whole. Could you explain a little more please.

I have learned a valuable lesson with this photo--DON'T DELETE THE PSD FILE There is absolutely no way I could recreate this even if I wanted to. I promise that the next picture I post, I will hang onto the PSD so I can play with it and repost.

Thanks again for commenting--I was beginning to get a complex--no one has responded to most of my posts from this past week (not that I have a complex or anything, really, honest, I swear!)

 

[jocose]

Oh, BTW,

How does the balance work on the manipulated one? Is it more interesting or is it too obvious that everything is so well balanced (if it even is)?

Thanks again.

 

[hobbes28]

The shore on the right could easily be mistaken as the actual shore line. That's the pleasure of manipulating shore lines because they are seldomly consistantly straight. It looks more like erosion than a clone stamp.

The balance works very well for the edited picture. It just looks like you took the picture at a different time than the original. It looks pretty serine.

The oar I am talking about is on your other right. I think when you edited it, the saturation boost or if you sharpened any makes the oar stand out a little too well to me so it makes the edges look very defined. Usually when the edges are that well defined where two objects meet, it looks a little fake. I think that if I saw the edited picture by itself I wouldn't notice that much but seeing the original picture, I notice that the right oar isn't that sharp and looks a bit blurred and it seems that the edited one isn't as blurred. I don't know if that's making any sense or not... To me it's where the oar meets the water but it's probably just me.

 

[jocose]

Just to make sure I'm getting it

blur where the oar and the water meet so there isn't as sharp of line betixt the two? sort of like blending the oar into the water? That makes sense, I just can't figure out how it changed from one to the next. I did play with the hue and saturation of the water/boat half of the pic, so I guess you are probably right that boosting the saturation of the oar made it more noticable.

Thanks again. See, I wasn't lying when I said you folks offer great advice

 

[eydryan]

ummm... snapshot. that's what i feel, no real subject and although you did some good photoshop work it's not that magical to actually make something out of it. please excuse my harshness but it's my opinion.

and don't forget, screw me if you think i'm totally wrong, ok?

 

[jocose]

please excuse my harshness but it's my opinion.

Naw, You've said some nice things to me in the past so I will let this one slip Seriously, though, I value all opinions, and I wouldn't post if I didn't want them.

I think really like this pic, mostly because of what I did with it in PS, rather than the shot itself.