My Photoshop challenge for ya

[invisible]

OK, so I admit I'm a Photoshop zero. I have these two images below, straight out of the camera, and can't find a way to make 'em shine. (I know, the WB was set to shade or cloudy and the horizon on the second one is tilted.)

The challenge: if you think you've got what it takes to make these guys (or just one of them) look great, send me a PM with your email addy and I'll send you the RAW file(s). You just need to promise you'll post the results here and also email me the high-res jpg back.

1.

2.

Thanks!

 

[max3k]

Here goes.

 

[invisible]

That's very nice, about 20 times better than my best PP attempt

Do you happen to have an uncropped version?

 

[max3k]

sure will email

 

[musicaleCA]

Here's what I did, to the benefit of all:

On import with ACR:

Cooled it down a little, increased fill light by about 40, increased clarity to about 80, and bumped up vibrance a fair bit to bring out the shore's colours. Also bumped contrast up quite a bit. About +3-6 magenta (can't remember exactly how much).

In Photoshop:

1. Hue/Sat layer, colourize, at H 213 S +33 L 0
2. Layer mask the above
3. Paint in with low opacity brush on the water.
4. Once roughly painted, blur the mask with a gaussian blur, large radius, previewing it by Alt-clicking the layer mask.
5. Brush-in some more blue on the water with a very tiny, very low opacity brush.
6. Add a curves adjustment layer.
7. Click the hand icon, drag up the levels on two spots on the rocks where I got decent results (about mid-tone and lights locally on the rocks).
8. Layer mask that.
9. Paint bucket the mask black, and start painting-in on the rocks and shoreline.
10. Blur that.
11. Took the blur tool to give extra blur to the mask in a few places.
12. Hue/Sat layer. Reds S +10. Yellows S +33 L -21. Greens S +16. Cyans S +28. Blues +52.
13. Go back and paint in a little more blue on the first mask of the water, to clean it up and make it a bit less patchy.
14. Flatten the image.
15. Topaz Adjust to give it a bit more punch. (Pretty minor tweaking. Nothing radical.)
16. Very reserved unsharp mask.

...Oh for the love of. Fracking...hell. Photoshop borked and Photobucket is being weird. Gimme a bit while I make sure my colour spaces are in order. Grrrrr.

Edit: Fixed. Heres the result:

And for kicks I threw it through Topaz Clean. I think this looks cool.

Could do with a saturation bump, but meh...

 

[manaheim]

Send me the RAWs, dude. I'll rock your world!!!

chris001

at

wickedtiki

.com

 

[manaheim]

Ok. I did most of my work in ACR, which is actually rare but I didn't think the shots needed that much adjustment beyond it...

So in the first one...

In Adobe Camera RAW...
- Temp 5450
- Tint +1
- Exposure 0
- Recovery 0
- Fill Light 5
- Blacks 0
- Brightness +50
- Contrast +25
- Clarity 0
- Vibrance +57

In Photoshop...
- Smart Sharpen, 75%, 1 pixel
- Blue saturation + 10


I got this...

I'm working on the second one now.

 

[manaheim]

I actually did the same settings on the second one, except I increased the exposure by 1.65 and I increased the saturation of the ENTIRE color range by about 12 points and THEN the blue by about 12-15 more.

I came up with this...

In retrospect I think the whole-image saturation boost was a good thing. Brings out more of the red in the sand, which is nice and a lovely counterpoint to the blue of the sky.

 

[manaheim]

btw, I didn't bother to fix the horizon as I figured you could do that... and as much as I was tempted to try to crop them, I actually like them the way they are...

EDIT: Whoa, I just looked at what music did. Holy CRAP dude. BTW, doing more than MAYBE 5-10 points on fill light does some really wonky crap to images. You have to have a very light touch with that slider.

 

[invisible]

Great work everybody, thanks for spending time on these! Really cool to see everyone's own vision for the PP of the same image.

Michael, I haven't received the jpgs... Would love to have them!

Chris, RAW has saved my butt many times!

 

[manaheim]

No problem, man, glad to do it. I love photoshop challenges.

You gotta tell us which you like best, btw. My fragile ego demands stroking! (or horrible abusive thrashing... whichever works for you... I'm flexible)

Oh yeah, and RAW saves me constantly.

 

[musicaleCA]

Manaheim, you're pretty cool. Pretty darn funny on the forums too.

But your work stinks more than a skunk that's been dead for three days!

...

Two in one?

Your JPEGs are in the mail.

 

[invisible]

Two in one?

He knows I'm easily impressed, is all!

 

[Nicholas James Photo]

MusicalCA and Manaheim - I hate you both, LOL, great work guys

 

[musicaleCA]

Wanna pay me to edit your photos? I will accept ramen noodles or good glass. :lmao: