Hello all! I'm a relatively new contributor to DPC and to photography in general. My early attempts haven't done well, but I've learned a great deal along the way and have definitely enjoyed the journey.
I really murdered one of my entries in the post processing. The original .jpg and my submitted version are below. While I really liked the selective desaturation (and it looks great as a print on my wall), it didn't fair well. More importantly, I really blew it with USM and learned the limitations of viewing on a laptop screen without checking on a better monitor before submitting!!!
Anyway, I upload the original to see what others might have done with it. It was submitted to a Free Study, so Advanced Editing rules apply.
Show me how guys ... I thought this might be a great way to get a thread going about post processing ideas and tricks.
That's not bad, Barry. People here sometimes don't like selective desat because they claim it's overused. If you enjoy it, use it.
As far as the sharpening, it looks like the radius was a bit large, and the amount a bit much. PP is often about subtlety - still being believable. I'll have a go at it in a minute...
The other thing is, people here often don't like flowers because they're overdone. Unlike selective desat, they really are overdone. =) But I think all of us have taken flower shots, because they're pretty. Actually, 5.4 is pretty good for a flower shot. Still, any flower you enter in a challenge must be phenomenal, or it'll be passed off.
I was hoping I'd get some people to play with the original .jpg and see what they can do!
Yeah, it was a radius issue - at least in part. I used some settings I found on somebody's website and when i saw it for the first time on a real monitor I literally shrieked! That's definitely one lesson I'll tuck away for the future!
The way I did this was to mask off the flower, and apply a toned black & white over it, so the background still has a semblance of mood & tone, but not void of all color. Some selective color adjustments were done to punch the colors a bit on the main flower, mostly adding yellow to the yellow channel without making it look over-saturated, and bumped the black level as well.
I agree that it didn't look good with full black and white desat in the background. I actually selectively took channels down and left some green channel on mine.
So your "toned black and white" is applied as a layer?
I agree that it didn't look good with full black and white desat in the background. I actually selectively took channels down and left some green channel on mine.
So your "toned black and white" is applied as a layer?
With a mask layer, I would do it in two steps:
(1) black/white gradient map, fill scaled back to, say, 80%ish so it's only a partial desaturation
(2) photo filter, sepia, playing with the slider until it looks right
There are 3 ways I could accomplish this with exactly the same effect:
Mask the flower, and apply the toned b&w over in a new layer, adjusting the opacity in the blending or edit, fade and adjust.
or
make a new layer via copy, edit, fade and adjust (or adjust blending, normal, and use the slider) convert to the toned b&w, then erase back the flower and/or whatever you want back.
or
Open the image, make the image the toned b&w, edit, fade to suit, then use the history brush in normal mode to bring back the flower.
Could have been done by making a new layer via copy, adjusting the normal blending to 50% did the toning, erasing back what I didn't changed, in this case the keyboard, then flattening.
Used a toned layer like brad, but more dodging burning was applied, and I didn't mask off the entire flower- just the center, to give it a glowy effect. Is glowy a word?
Toning b&w images is so easily done and infinitely variable.
Make your b&w conversion (not duo/tri/quadtone), making sure it's still RGB, then go to Image, Adjustments, Color Balance. There you can fiddle to your heart's content. You can tone the highlights green and the shadows red, leaving the Midtones alone, or any combination your sliders can slide, or do all 3 the same, making an even color cast/toned, black & white.
Toning b&w images is so easily done and infinitely variable.
Make your b&w conversion (not duo/tri/quadtone), making sure it's still RGB, then go to Image, Adjustments, Color Balance. There you can fiddle to your heart's content. You can tone the highlights green and the shadows red, leaving the Midtones alone, or any combination your sliders can slide, or do all 3 the same, making an even color cast/toned, black & white.
A more granular approach can be had by using the Selective Color tool. Depends on how anal you want to be about it.
Toning b&w images is so easily done and infinitely variable.
Make your b&w conversion (not duo/tri/quadtone), making sure it's still RGB, then go to Image, Adjustments, Color Balance. There you can fiddle to your heart's content. You can tone the highlights green and the shadows red, leaving the Midtones alone, or any combination your sliders can slide, or do all 3 the same, making an even color cast/toned, black & white.
Actually, I do this to nearly all my b/w pics. Shadows <5 pts to blue, highlights <5 pts to yellow. It really makes a flat picture pop, and the change is nearly imperceptible unless you stick it next to a pure grayscale.
Hue and saturation should have a "colorize" box. Just click and, and it tones your image. Use the hue slider to change the colour of the tone and the saturation slider to adjust the strength.
Not 100 percent sure if this is available in elements, but its very basic, so I expect it should be.
EDIT: Elements has layers and layer masks, so you should be able to get the same partially toned effect. I love this type of editing, it works well with moody shots.
P.S. LanndonKane sounds so formal. From now on, just call me Larison IX
Originally posted by brayburn:
Ok, this is good!
LanndonKane - I really like the "glowy" effect.
The thread on toning is interesting also. Brad, or others, do you know if there's a way to accomplish a similar look for us PS Elements peasants?
