Photoshop and other stuff

klauskunkel · August 31, 2014

Taking pictures is fun, until your feet hurt...then you sit down in front of the computer, trying to improve nature.

So, this threat is about what happens after you pressed the shutter release button. Before and after pix with explanation would be nice..., thanks.

klauskunkel · August 31, 2014

This is at a Dolphin Park. My goal was to make it look like a nature shot. Use of landscape orientation gives me lots of space to work.

First come the tools:

- rotate to straighten the horizon. - crop the crap, and in so doing make it a tight portrait. - clone stamp to get rid of all the artificial stuff, also take care of their reflections and shadows. - healing brush to get rid of patterns introduced by clone stamp and minor blemishes.

Now comes the filters"

- tonal contrast to put the drama in, tweak it! - a bit of warmth to balance the cold. - sharpen, not too little, not too much, just right. - denoise, if you have to, but without extra sharpening.

finished.

...ahm, save the bugger!

sunshine51 · August 31, 2014

^^^ Bit more anti ailiasing so the bkgnd doesn't look so "shopped"....just a thought there KK...

klauskunkel · September 2, 2014

start by correcting vertical alignment, crop, fill in resulting gaps with clone stamp, cosmetic fixes with healing brush, sharpen

Bleach Bypass, Graduated Neutral Density, Reflector Effect Silver

denoise

Edited September 2, 2014 by klauskunkel

MJP · September 2, 2014

A workflow thread!!

sunshine51 · September 3, 2014

^^^ That would be a good idea M however...out of say 100 photogs you'd have 100

different ways of achieving a good end result. Then many would copy each others

stuff and in the end...there would be little individual creativity...just mass duplication.

!00 eyes see the same subject matter differently...

Tips & tricks would be nice...to an extent...because one ends up just copying

anothers work/workflow in the end.

As in your submissions...personally I like the end results, how you got there is

really no concern to me & I'd rather you keep that to yourself...or many of us would

be duplicating your work/work style....you see?!

Take my strange "Blue Chair" pic...it begs to let the viewer know what little was

done to get it to pop...and that's just it...very little was done. Folks who spend

some time in the digital darkroom will know just how litle was done and doing

so little is what I like best of all. Mind you I'm not saying I get it right "in camera"

100% of the time however...coming from the ancient daze of film...we who shot

heaps back then had to get it right in camera at least 90% of the time...without

using the motor drive!

I'd definitely go for a knobology/clickology thread on todays software as it can be

rather daunting learning something new...not to mention time consuming.

How U say sir?

Edited September 3, 2014 by sunshine51

klauskunkel · September 3, 2014

^^^ That would be a good idea M however...out of say 100 photogs you'd have 100

different ways of achieving a good end result. Then many would copy each others

stuff and in the end...there would be little individual creativity...just mass duplication.

!00 eyes see the same subject matter differently...

Tips & tricks would be nice...to an extent...because one ends up just copying

anothers work/workflow in the end.

As in your submissions...personally I like the end results, how you got there is

really no concern to me & I'd rather you keep that to yourself...or many of us would

be duplicating your work/work style....you see?!

Take my strange "Blue Chair" pic...it begs to let the viewer know what little was

done to get it to pop...and that's just it...very little was done. Folks who spend

some time in the digital darkroom will know just how litle was done and doing

so little is what I like best of all. Mind you I'm not saying I get it right "in camera"

100% of the time however...coming from the ancient daze of film...we who shot

heaps back then had to get it right in camera at least 90% of the time...without

using the motor drive!

I'd definitely go for a knobology/clickology thread on todays software as it can be

rather daunting learning something new...not to mention time consuming.

How U say sir?

Well..., it's about Photoshop and altering pictures to achieve an effect. The manual is endless and the tutorials are tiring. I would rather discover a before/after result here and get the idea of applying the same to my unique picture and composition and maybe it works for me, and maybe not. I doubt it will create clones of somebody's style..., however, it seems a bit tedious to remember and recreate a particular workflow on a forum thread, and there doesn't seem to be much interest, so the thread either lives, or dies and I will not shed a tear either way, sniff.

MJP · September 3, 2014

^^^ That would be a good idea M however...out of say 100 photogs you'd have 100

different ways of achieving a good end result. Then many would copy each others

stuff and in the end...there would be little individual creativity...just mass duplication.

!00 eyes see the same subject matter differently...

Tips & tricks would be nice...to an extent...because one ends up just copying

anothers work/workflow in the end.

As in your submissions...personally I like the end results, how you got there is

really no concern to me & I'd rather you keep that to yourself...or many of us would

be duplicating your work/work style....you see?!

Take my strange "Blue Chair" pic...it begs to let the viewer know what little was

done to get it to pop...and that's just it...very little was done. Folks who spend

some time in the digital darkroom will know just how litle was done and doing

so little is what I like best of all. Mind you I'm not saying I get it right "in camera"

100% of the time however...coming from the ancient daze of film...we who shot

heaps back then had to get it right in camera at least 90% of the time...without

using the motor drive!

I'd definitely go for a knobology/clickology thread on todays software as it can be

rather daunting learning something new...not to mention time consuming.

How U say sir?

Well..., it's about Photoshop and altering pictures to achieve an effect. The manual is endless and the tutorials are tiring. I would rather discover a before/after result here and get the idea of applying the same to my unique picture and composition and maybe it works for me, and maybe not. I doubt it will create clones of somebody's style..., however, it seems a bit tedious to remember and recreate a particular workflow on a forum thread, and there doesn't seem to be much interest, so the thread either lives, or dies and I will not shed a tear either way, sniff.

I have got a few books recently on using CS6 because I was/still am clueless.

They're written for people with learning difficulties, people like myself with step . . . . by . . . . step . . . . instructions.

I think worth it.

sunshine51 · September 4, 2014

^^^ I remember reading a tip given on this one website from Ming Thien...not the website but the tip,

and I liked the effect...so I tried it with one of my old Kampooch scans. Yeah...it looked good...however,

it also looked like a Ming Thien pic and I didn't like that one iota. So I scrapped the workup and began

from scratch again. I couldn't get the tip outa my mind & ended up duplicating again the shot I deleted.

In the end I quit, had a few pints, went to sleep and the next day I went for a long MTB ride in the bush.

In the end...and at this moment...that pic still needs some help...just a little bit...but I'm leaving it as it is.

That's what I mean by duplicating anothers work in my earlier post. Mind you...I really do like the warp

function in PS! And how many plugins are available for PS? Heaps...huge heaps.

That's just PS though...blimey...there's LightRoom, P1C1, DxO, ACDSee (dirt easy), Corel, and heaps

of plugins/add ons from the likes of Topaz Labs, Nik Efects, OnOne & so many others...seems to me

this software deserves it's own sub thread if we decide to persue it since there's so much stuff available.

Something akin to a Tell & Show thing? No miswording on Show & Tell either...tell then show...howzat?

Somewhere in my mind...don't know exactly where though...we may end up in the dark depths of

workflow management...and my workflow management system is rather fluid...hah! Except on deadline.

Let's table this eh folks....what say y'all?

klauskunkel · September 4, 2014

Let's table this eh folks....what say y'all?

Ok, na kap

MJP · September 5, 2014

Sunshine I'm talking about the bare bones mechanics of Photoshop. I learn from other peoples work flows, i.e., what button does what.

sunshine51 · September 5, 2014

^^^ OK M...How about these links to help you out as a start...they're fairly easy to

understand & implement and cover a whole batch of PS can do's...and IMO...are fun!

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/

http://design.tutsplus.com/series/photoshop-tutorials-for-beginners--psd-12643

http://mashable.com/2010/08/12/12-beginner-tutorials-for-getting-started-with-photoshop/

http://www.pegaweb.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-adobe-photoshop/

https://creativemarket.com/blog/2014/04/21/20-photoshop-tutorials-that-you-never-knew-could-be-so-easy

Take care of that pancreas ok....that's not advice...it's an order...I want you to

stay around this forum matey...sincerely.

Edited September 5, 2014 by sunshine51

MJP · September 5, 2014

^^^ OK M...How about these links to help you out as a start...they're fairly easy to

understand & implement and cover a whole batch of PS can do's...and IMO...are fun!

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/

http://design.tutsplus.com/series/photoshop-tutorials-for-beginners--psd-12643

http://mashable.com/2010/08/12/12-beginner-tutorials-for-getting-started-with-photoshop/

http://www.pegaweb.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-adobe-photoshop/

https://creativemarket.com/blog/2014/04/21/20-photoshop-tutorials-that-you-never-knew-could-be-so-easy

Take care of that pancreas ok....that's not advice...it's an order...I want you to

stay around this forum matey...sincerely.

Ta! I'm rattling like a pill box!!!

I've got loads of tutorials, books and wotnot. Trouble is old Kee-kiat here has to read them. Youtube vids are good.

I really need to get it together on CC. Recently got Adobe Creative Cloud for Photographers annual subs of £89. It's not bad really, I mean eighty nine quid doesn't even fill the old VW up with diesel these days.

sunshine51 · September 5, 2014

^^^ Good M...I can hear the rattle down here despite the rain we're having!

Do the subs make way for any tutorials? If so that would be the way to go IMO.

Or do one of the pages I included on a pic and see what happens...kinda akin

to not reading an instruction manual on a Kamat high pressure water pump

(+500-3500+ Bar) and seeing where things go...hah! BTW...have you asked

around in the UK if any PS savvy folks can help? Back in the days of PS3xx

I knew a lady in Singapore who was a "certified" PS artist...I had never heard

of that before...pestered her enough and she gave in & taught me a few things

I was too scared to try before. Her words..."you can't screw up the original &

if you still have paranoia have PS make a copy of a copy and work on that

last copy. Today...afaic...I still do that for frames I'm a bit skiddish to try. I mean

PS is almost foolproof...but then...never underestimate the power of a fool!

Cheers M!

MJP · September 5, 2014

^^ You know I always manage to miss rainy season and end up trying to dig the garden in the dry.

MJP · September 5, 2014

. . . and other stuff . . .

https://www.flickr.com/photos/donthomaso84/15141694735/in/pool-70411415@N00/

rhythmworx · September 6, 2014

Working on a duplicated layer is always a good idea, if you over do things you can just back off the opacity slider in the layers panel to tone it down a bit and merge it with the original.

Providing you've not cropped or moved anything around that is.

It works well with plugins like topaz adjust, sometimes I will create 3 copies add different plugin settings to each layer and set their opacities at what I think works best.

You can take it even further with layer masks.

MJP if you want me to add some videos to my google drive give me a shout.

MJP · September 6, 2014

Working on a duplicated layer is always a good idea, if you over do things you can just back off the opacity slider in the layers panel to tone it down a bit and merge it with the original.

Providing you've not cropped or moved anything around that is.

It works well with plugins like topaz adjust, sometimes I will create 3 copies add different plugin settings to each layer and set their opacities at what I think works best.

You can take it even further with layer masks.

MJP if you want me to add some videos to my google drive give me a shout.

Layers and opacity no probs. Need to make content aware replacement tool work. No joy thus far.

rhythmworx · September 6, 2014

Working on a duplicated layer is always a good idea, if you over do things you can just back off the opacity slider in the layers panel to tone it down a bit and merge it with the original.

Providing you've not cropped or moved anything around that is.

It works well with plugins like topaz adjust, sometimes I will create 3 copies add different plugin settings to each layer and set their opacities at what I think works best.

You can take it even further with layer masks.

MJP if you want me to add some videos to my google drive give me a shout.

Layers and opacity no probs. Need to make content aware replacement tool work. No joy thus far.

I've not even touched that since I upgraded and TBH haven't even got a clue what it is.

I must watch them videos I spoke of.

I want to learn Lightroom more, I can use its sliders and stuff but need to suss out it's workflow and other tools I haven't even tried to use, again must watch them videos.

The thing I need to do more than that though is take some decent photos to process.

Hoping to get back to the promised land in new year after which at that time will be 5 years of abstinence from the country.

Thai people lock your daughters up!!!

klauskunkel · September 26, 2014

Cut her out.... remove blemishes to face and whiten eyes and teeth ...find nice background to fit... ( I made a mistake in the BG photo because it has the lighting from the right whereas the original has lighting from the left... should have flipped the BG photo)

she blends in nicely with the background on her left side, her right side and the lower arm edges may need some more blending.

e2x10 · November 21, 2014

phuketrichard · November 21, 2014

Dont know about others but i start my workflow with Bridge/camera raw to do minor corrections

than go to CS5

Never ever crop

thats done in camera when i shoot

Klaus;

Shame shame on you for visiting a dolphin park..

klauskunkel · November 21, 2014

Dont know about others but i start my workflow with Bridge/camera raw to do minor corrections

than go to CS5

Never ever crop

thats done in camera when i shoot

Klaus;

Shame shame on you for visiting a dolphin park..

shame on you for visiting...phuket