Photography Your Photography: Photoshop Before & After thread

[Beemer B773ER]

As many may know, a good handful of members on GermanCarForum and TheByte have a keen interest in Photography. Whether it be the simple enjoyment of happy-snaps to it being a more serious hobby (even being a pro and making money from it) many of us enjoy photography, and even more importantly, we all want to improve our skills.

Credit has to go to Dominix for suggesting this idea of creating a 'Photoshop: Before & After' thread where the purpose of the thread is learn more about Photoshopping (and other Post-processing photo programs) so that we can get better at enhancing our photos once we've transfered them from the camera. The idea's very simple: you post 2 photos -- one of the final version after editing, and of course the original shot from the camera. With these 2 shots should come a brief explanation of the steps you took in Photoshop to transform your photo...this way everyone can see exactly what you did, understand how each of your editing steps lead to the final image..and most importantly give them direction in improving their own photos.

Here are some simple rules:
Image size: Similar to the other photography threads, photos posted should be limited to 1024 x 768 resolution
Number of photos: In terms of a 2-photo combination (ie: before and after photos), each member should be limted to a maximum of 4 combinations per week
Level of enhancements: Anything goes! Whether you've just enhanced the colors, or gone crazy and transformed a monkey into an armchair... whatever level of editing you've done can be posted... just remember, you should explain the key steps in your editing process for others to learn from.

Without further adieu, I now welcome the beginning of this new idea...here's hoping the idea is successful, and that we all learn many things from each other!

Post away folks!

 

[cawimmer430]

Ok, here goes!

One of my classmates is in love with my dog Frankie and she desperately wanted a "picture" with him. So I got this neat idea of snapping a photo of her where she pretends to hold something and I would photoshop the dog into her arms.

I already had a suitable picture of Frankie licking my face which I used to cut him out (can't find this picture right now...) and insert him here. The result can be seen below.

PHOTOSHOPPED IMAGE



HOW WAS IT DONE?
This is a very simple technique that is far easier than it looks. While the final picture might look like it took hours to perform, this specific photoshop operation is actually just a simple cut-remove-shade-blur task. The most important factors in making this image as real as possible lies in two factors: your brushes and shadowing. We'll get to this later.

First, you want to bring a cut-out copy of Frankie unto the image of the girl. By doing this you will have two layers: first the original layer with the girl and second the newly introduced layer with the dog. Notice that we should distinguish between the original layer and the other newly added layer(s). We shall call the layer with the dog the "Frankie layer" Proceed to remove out the non-essential background from the Frankie layer but refrain from cutting near his fur because that's where the brushes will come into play as finer details are needed.

The final image is shown on the left while the "Frankie layer" containing the dog is shown on the right.




Once this is done, you will need to remove all further non-essential background from the Frankie layer near the dog's fur. In order to do this as realistically as possible you will need to select a star brush under the eraser tool. The important thing here is to edit the flow power of the brush in order to create the illusion of realistic fur in an unkempt fashion. If you do not edit the flow power of the eraser brush with the star shape then you will be erasing more surface area in a cleaner, more unrealistic format. Therefore, play around with the flow. I used a mixture between 37-60%. Assigning different opacity values (ADOBE PHOTOSHOP: Opacity -how much of the layer will be visible after erasure) can be helpful, but I refrained from using it. With the proper brush and flow selected, erase all remaining non-essential background on the Frankie layer.

It is also useful to switch to a soft-round eraser brush for removing unwanted background around the tongue of the dog. Remember to edit the flow power appropriately.

IMPORTANT! You don't need to select the star brush but I have found its rough nature to be very useful when dealing with hair / fur.

Encircled in red are the brushes I used to erase all non-essential background while above are the opacity and flow options for the selected brush.



Once this is complete, you will move on to shading and blurring. Shading will vary depending on where the light is coming from, but in this situation shading will help make the photo more realistic in certain sections. What requires shading are the parts of the dog that are located more in the background such his right foreleg. Don't forget to shade sections of the dog's body near the arms of the girl to create the illusion of his fur being pressed in. Shading will also need to be performed on the arms of the girl and her face where the Frankie's tongue is licking her or where his left paw is touching her neck. You can select from a range of shading types such as shadows or midtones. I used a mixture of both and a soft-round brush to perform the shading. Keep in mind to play around with the exposure of the shading brush. You will want to use something relatively weak but also visible such as a 23-30% exposure factor.

Description of shading and its options tool.



Lastly, blur certain sections of the combined images that would be blurred in real life in such a photo. The tongue of the dog is the first starting point. It is also useful to blur the inner side of the length of the girls arm. Remember, use an appropriate strength factor for the blur brush such as 17% or higher. You don't want to overblur - just a slight indication of blur is what we are aiming for.

Blur tool...



That's it. You're done.



ORIGINAL IMAGE

 

[VroomVroom]

Very neat and clean photoshop but one thing you have forgot to do!!!

Put the rest of frankies body in, look under your friends arm and Frankie has no body

You should just crop the picture up to her arm so it ides the fact frankie has no body

 

[cawimmer430]

Very neat and clean photoshop but one thing you have forgot to do!!!

Put the rest of frankies body in, look under your friends arm and Frankie has no body

You should just crop the picture up to her arm so it ides the fact frankie has no body

I know.

This isn't the final image I gave her by the way. It was cropped in a way that the sections where his body doesn't show are not included. I apparently deleted that photo after giving it to her and then posted this image here thinking this was the final image (because I labeled it as). Silly me!

 

[Beemer B773ER]

Very neat and clean photoshop but one thing you have forgot to do!!!

Put the rest of frankies body in...

That was absolutely HILARIOUS!! A real LMAO moment!!

 

[dOmInIX]

Replacing the sky

OK, here is the original image (10 mm, ISO 200, F10, 1/50 sec)


This photo was pretty bland and washed out so I decided to give it a new sky - obviously I was pretty bored lol..
I opened this photo in Photoshop CS4 and I opened another photo of the sky I took earlier. I selected the sky and copied it to the photo.
You can set the blending mode as you wish, I think the best is Overlay, but it depends on the photo.
Then I took 'History Brush tool' and deleted the new sky from the parts of the church - this took almost 2 hours as I was doing it on 200-500% view.
Then I selected Burn tool and passed the whole photo with it.
Replacing the sky is really easy to do, you can find many tutorials on how to do it.

And here is the edit:

 

[cawimmer430]

Actually, VroomVroom, look at the Photoshopped Image again. I guess I did have the image I sent her that I properly cropped so that it would look realistic.

Jesus, I don't even know what I am uploading these days!

 

[Beemer B773ER]

Damn Dominic, that's a freakin' awesome edit of that church photo!! Amazing!!

I think I might have to try that technique of replacing the sky with something more dramatic and eye catching!

What enhancements did you do the church layer? It seems like an increase contrast and some more color saturation.

Then I took 'History Brush tool' and deleted the new sky from the parts of the church - this took almost 2 hours as I was doing it on 200-500% view.

Dontcha just love this part of editing photos?
But in the end it's well worth it...layers, layers, layers!

 

[Beemer B773ER]

Earlier this year (in February) I went to a NASCAR race in near Los Angeles. Hell of a lot of fun!!!

Of course I was armed and ready with my Sony A300, and I made sure to pay a little extra to get the pre-race Pit Road pass so I could see all the teams roll out their cars on to pit road. I ended up trying to create a horizontal panoramic of one of the cars, and I had to do this purely by hand (no tripods allowed).

Firstly, here are the original individual photos, and they are then followed by the final panoramic image.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

--
Final version:

Now to the explanation.

First and foremost, a little trick when it comes to shooting panoramics. Before you take the first photo, just take a quick shot of the scene with your fingers in the frame, and also do this once you have taken the last photo of the panoramic series. The reason behind this is simply to make it easier for you to find your panoramic sets once you've uploaded all your photos. Without this technique (or something similar) you'll be using up a lot of time trying to figure out which photos are part of a panoramic set, and which are just individual photos. Commit this top to memory if/when you decide to try panoramic shots.

As stated, I had to take this series handheld, so I needed 2 things to give these photos a chance of merging well in post-processing.
1. Keep a fairly stiff body when doing hand-held panoramic, especially your elbows and feet. Simply twist your hips around so your body becomes somewhat of a make-shift tripod.
2. Try to find a constant level horizontal line in the scene so that you can use that as a guide to getting an even level and alignment between your photos. In my photos, I focused on the grey concrete wall right near the bottom of those photos. Without this wall as a guide, the photos would not align-up right, and the panoramic would not work (unless you really wanted it to work, then you could manually crop each photo to get them to align).

After uploading my photos, I then used Photoshop Elements to quickly create this Panoramic. I'm guessing it's a similar process in Photoshop CS, so what I did was:

Go to File > Create Photomerge, and then I selected the 4 photos that I wanted to merge (I didn't include the 2 'finger' photos since their purpose is simply to be markers). Then I let Photoshop do its thing in automatically merging the photos to create a very wide panoramic.

Once this was done (very easily for you by Photoshop) all I did was crop the top part of the panoramic just a little bit to get the car in the complete center of the frame. I haven't bothered (yet) to do further enhancements like contrast, saturation, color burn and other little things I do at times to give my photos a more dynamic look.

The most challenging aspect of panoramics is not merging the photos together, it's making absolutely sure that you've taken the photos in a way that they are aligned-up very very well. Of course using a tripod is your best bet by far, but if you don't have one or can't use one, then the best way to learn panoramics is to practice, practice, practice. I still haven't fully haven't developed the skill of getting aligned photos for a panoramic, but with each practice I learn something more.

Here's another panoramic I created of Sydney Harbour at night (this one combined about 9 photos together..and for anyone who's every been to Sydney Harbour, they'll know just how much scenery I covered in this shot..very very wide angled panoramic!):

I hope that helps for any of you guys who are trying panoramic photography, and also I hope it inspires others to give it a try.

 

[dOmInIX]

Damn Dominic, that's a freakin' awesome edit of that church photo!! Amazing!!

I think I might have to try that technique of replacing the sky with something more dramatic and eye catching!

What enhancements did you do the church layer? It seems like an increase contrast and some more color saturation.





Dontcha just love this part of editing photos?
But in the end it's well worth it...layers, layers, layers!

Thanks man! I think I only passed the church with the burn tool (which essentially darkens the area you pass on). Maybe I did something more but this was about 5 months ago, so I don't remember.

Hahah, yea. But in the end, if you are pleased with the result, it's all worth it.

Earlier this year (in February) I went to a NASCAR race in near Los Angeles. Hell of a lot of fun!!!

Of course I was armed and ready with my Sony A300, and I made sure to pay a little extra to get the pre-race Pit Road pass so I could see all the teams roll out their cars on to pit road. I ended up trying to create a horizontal panoramic of one of the cars, and I had to do this purely by hand (no tripods allowed).

Firstly, here are the original individual photos, and they are then followed by the final panoramic image.
--
Final version:

Now to the explanation.

First and foremost, a little trick when it comes to shooting panoramics. Before you take the first photo, just take a quick shot of the scene with your fingers in the frame, and also do this once you have taken the last photo of the panoramic series. The reason behind this is simply to make it easier for you to find your panoramic sets once you've uploaded all your photos. Without this technique (or something similar) you'll be using up a lot of time trying to figure out which photos are part of a panoramic set, and which are just individual photos. Commit this top to memory if/when you decide to try panoramic shots.

As stated, I had to take this series handheld, so I needed 2 things to give these photos a chance of merging well in post-processing.
1. Keep a fairly stiff body when doing hand-held panoramic, especially your elbows and feet. Simply twist your hips around so your body becomes somewhat of a make-shift tripod.
2. Try to find a constant level horizontal line in the scene so that you can use that as a guide to getting an even level and alignment between your photos. In my photos, I focused on the grey concrete wall right near the bottom of those photos. Without this wall as a guide, the photos would not align-up right, and the panoramic would not work (unless you really wanted it to work, then you could manually crop each photo to get them to align).

After uploading my photos, I then used Photoshop Elements to quickly create this Panoramic. I'm guessing it's a similar process in Photoshop CS, so what I did was:

Go to File > Create Photomerge, and then I selected the 4 photos that I wanted to merge (I didn't include the 2 'finger' photos since their purpose is simply to be markers). Then I let Photoshop do its thing in automatically merging the photos to create a very wide panoramic.

Once this was done (very easily for you by Photoshop) all I did was crop the top part of the panoramic just a little bit to get the car in the complete center of the frame. I haven't bothered (yet) to do further enhancements like contrast, saturation, color burn and other little things I do at times to give my photos a more dynamic look.

The most challenging aspect of panoramics is not merging the photos together, it's making absolutely sure that you've taken the photos in a way that they are aligned-up very very well. Of course using a tripod is your best bet by far, but if you don't have one or can't use one, then the best way to learn panoramics is to practice, practice, practice. I still haven't fully haven't developed the skill of getting aligned photos for a panoramic, but with each practice I learn something more.

Here's another panoramic I created of Sydney Harbour at night (this one combined about 9 photos together..and for anyone who's every been to Sydney Harbour, they'll know just how much scenery I covered in this shot..very very wide angled panoramic!):

I hope that helps for any of you guys who are trying panoramic photography, and also I hope it inspires others to give it a try.

I love this, I never used this method for shooting some objects like cars, only landscapes. It works great, nice alignement!

When I first saw the photo of the finger I thought ***. Then I read and it's a useful advice, thanks!

 

[DaSilva]

Hmm... Not very good at this but I'll try

Key w o r d s

Adjustments
Shadow / Highlights

Adjustments
Selective color

"Use the Polygonal lasso tool to
mark headlamps, sky, ground..
and make them often different from eachother when it comes to
how dark og lighten up the parts are supposed to be,
I very often make the headlamps dark also to get a
much more nice finish on the mirror effect."



The ORG.

DaSilva's DreamFactory

 

[ree]

Just play with this photo:

Changed contrats, the deep of the colour, chroma and played with the function "deeps/lights" and this is the end result!! Quite like the new style:

 

[Itzkirb]

Combination of tools...Healing, Spot and I forget what else. I'm no expert, I'm still learning new tricks everyday.

Before

After

 

[ree]

Well, it isn't the best photo but perfect to try out to remove thinks out of a photo. Still try to get the M3 bumper better and more detailed but quite difficult…so right now, this is the result…

and here it is:

 

[cawimmer430]

I would have simply asked this SOB to get out of the way.

 

[VroomVroom]

A good trick Itz when using the heal tool (clone tool) to take out something (the wing mirror) is to use the blur tool to blend in colours so that they dont stand out so bold

I do it quite often and you can adjust the setting for the blur strength

 

[Beemer B773ER]

Directed at Vroom Vroom and Itzkirb,

Could either of you give a detailed explanation of how to use the 'cloning' tool to do such thing as remove objects seemlessly from the photo? (or maybe post a link to an informative website on this topic)

 

[ree]

I would have simply asked this SOB to get out of the way.

A good idea - took this photo with my 80-200mm lens at 200mm though. Didn't really had the chance to shout at him without making a spectacle of myself.

 

[ree]

Directed at Vroom Vroom and Itzkirb,

Could either of you give a detailed explanation of how to use the 'cloning' tool to do such thing as remove objects seemlessly from the photo? (or maybe post a link to an informative website on this topic)

How to use the clone stamp tool in Photoshop CS4 | Wonder How To

Well not the best video, but short discription though.

 

[Zonda]

Directed at Vroom Vroom and Itzkirb,

Could either of you give a detailed explanation of how to use the 'cloning' tool to do such thing as remove objects seemlessly from the photo? (or maybe post a link to an informative website on this topic)

Use the lasso.
If you can, try to use a large brush as often as you can. Copy and paste, partial curve adjustments, dodge & burn (or in older versions, 50% grey technique). Sometimes I paint by hand as well, or clone in a new layer and use the blending options to make the colours fit. It's just a lot of fiddling. But one of the most rewarding tools to use.

For curved shapes use the pen tool to select. Using the pen tool to stroke can also aid in getting that flawless look sometimes.