PP C&C

mfrankpdx · Jan 15, 2011

I wasn't able to go out and photograph today, so I stayed in all day and played with Photoshop.

Here's the original, boring, average photo. At first I picked this one for it's ease of editing, then discovered getting around the grass in the foreground was actually pretty hard.

Here's the clouds I wanted to add to it. Again, a very basic photo for easy editing.

Here is the final result. Although not very interesting, I'm pretty happy with results when the before and after are compared. Blown up to 100% it's easy to see some messy areas, but at this size I'm satisfied.

Comments welcome!

Ajlista · Jan 15, 2011

I really like the second one
All of them I like
Nice : )

reznap · Jan 15, 2011

How'd you do it? Layer mask? It looks like it wasn't very easy (the busy areas around the trees look like a nightmare..).

Nice job.

sobolik · Jan 15, 2011

I like the water and the trees in the original better.

H2photographers · Jan 15, 2011

Cool, I would recommend trying to figure out a way for the clouds to be reflected in the water. Great job!!

reznap · Jan 15, 2011

H2photographers said:
Cool, I would recommend trying to figure out a way for the clouds to be reflected in the water. Great job!!

They are reflected in the water...

mfrankpdx · Jan 15, 2011

reznap said:
How'd you do it? Layer mask? It looks like it wasn't very easy (the busy areas around the trees look like a nightmare..).

Nice job.

Yep. When I created the mask around the trees, I used the "refine edge" button and added a few pixels of "feathering".

simo110 · Jan 16, 2011

What about the clouds are reflected in water? how was that achieved??

mfrankpdx · Jan 16, 2011

simo110 said:
What about the clouds are reflected in water? how was that achieved??

Again using masks. I created a mask of the water with a layer of inverted clouds below. I then adjusted the opacity of the water mask until it looked realistic. When creating the water mask, I didn't need to be very accurate around the weeds or the reflected trees because the opacity was set pretty low.

I'm sorry if some of this isn't clear. I've never read a book or taken a class on photoshop, so I'm not sure if I'm describing everything I did with the right terminology.