The before/after thread that Hackbone started actually gave me the idea for this one. A similar thread, only the processing details are to be posted as well.

It is not meant to be a lengthy discussion on post processing, but rather to give other people a glimpse in to your kitchen so to speak. Everyone uses different methods, tools, software and tricks; Let's see if we can share some of those with each other!

And I guess I'll kick it off;

Before:

This image to me said "black and white".

Sometimes I mix my own black and white, but I have a few presets that I use as well. I used "B&W platinum" (in Lightroom, didn't come as a standard preset, i'll see if I can figure out where it did come from) for this one:

It's a start, but it is missing something.

I played with the curves a bit and I brightened his eyes a bit (brush in Lightroom, up exposure 0.2 just a bit less on his right eye to match them better):


Then I did something that I rarely do, I took the image to Photoshop (I really rarely get out of Lightroom). I took away the arrow pointing up his nose and the corner-plastic thingy. I also blurred the wrinkles in the canvas a bit.
A little bit more curves in LR, a small crop, et voila:

Nice work. I guess photoshop has its own advantages in some ways compared to lightroom. great shot Ivar!

Anybody?

I think what I like best about your process, is [This image to me said "black and white".]

That Speaks!

Forgive me for not looking over here Sooner Ivar. I have to watch my bandwidth since my move to the land of _insert label here___?

Anyway. My 16 y/o visiting and well boys being boys, we got right to it!
Face paint, and three mornings in a row getting out and into the lake. 54'f air temps and 74'f water, so lots of cool fog!

Photo 1 SOOC:



Did my crop in LR2 and then brought the photo into After-Effects.

Below this text is the box with the layers I used to create the final image. Bob is the images name ( not my child's name), I put a black solid layer behind him, Clouds in front of him and then added a light.

Below is a SS of the AE console. The star looking thingy to his right and off onto the gray console is the light. In this case it is a point of light. You can describe the type of light as: point, spot, and ambient. Also you get to color the light. As you may have guessed, I colored the light to the best of my ability to imitate morning thru-the-fog-light.




Below, I moved the light and annotated such to see where and how the effect somewhat works





Above, easy (?) to see how the light affects this image! Also a lesson in planning where I'd like the final light to work from. And in this I failed! When I veiw this image, I'd prefer him coming from the shadows and into the light, but using adjunct light on-set means that light ought to have been in front and at least to the right a bit, versus back and his right, which is where it was!

Below is the Paint console in AE. I used the cloudy movie to layer over him and then reversed it horizontally to get the effect I was after. Then erased thru the clouds to reveal the black solid behind him, giving him more of an appearance of coming out of the darkness (fail!) And just to more clearly present his visage.


Final image...actually I went back and got rid of the pin-lights in his eyes!


Thanks for reading!

Originally Posted by angevin1 Thanks for reading!

Cool

OOOooo, I'll play!!!

This is fresh out of Photoshop so I actually remember what I did to get there! :)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkmadison/5132183892/" title="Phoebe Before&amp;After 2 by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/5132183892_86da183229.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="Phoebe Before&amp;After 2" /></a>

It's obvious which one is the edit and which one is SOOC...

Opened image in Camera RAW, bumped two stops in exposure, changed white balance to 6000K...

Used a brush tool on just her eyes with clarity and saturation all the way up (that brush tool has saved some shots, if you don't know where it is, pull up a shot in RAW and search for it... I'll wait....)

Used another brush on her face (sans the eyes) with clarity turned all the way down... if you click the "show mask" toggle, it makes this job a lot easier.

Opened image in PS CS4... which is where the real magic happened...

When I sharpened her eyes, I noticed that her right eye wasn't *quite* in focus as much as her left (I shot it at 2.8)... so, I opened a new document in photoshop (I think I made it 5"x5" and selected a square of her left eye and pasted it into the new document and flipped it horizontally. I pasted the "new" right eye back over the old. Now she looked REALLY freaky, so I turned down the opacity of the new eye (so I could see through it) and moved it to line up as much as I could with the one "under" it. Using a very very soft eraser, I erased around the "top" eye to make the skin match. Since nobody is completely symmetrical, I used the skew tool and the transform tool to make it as close as I could to the eye below it. It took some work, maybe 20 minutes but it saved the shot from the trash bin. There was some healing brush and clone tool involved here to get rid of some lines under her eyes. She was sick that day (minor croup) so most of her pictures took some work to get her looking like she wanted to be there.

I can't believe I'm about to give *this* secret out, but for just a *hint* of extra color pop, I used the purple/orange gradient map over everything set on very low (17/20ish) just for a touch of vintage feel. Inspired by HeatherFeather's coloring, it took forEVER to find that trick!

To make her pop just a bit more, I duplicated the bottom layer and added a vignette to the new copy. Using soft eraser set on 60% opacity, I erased her face and body off of the vignette'd layer (It's easier to make everything below this "invisible" so you can see what you're erasing).

And viola'! Phoebe now looks like she's with the land of the living!!

Wow, this is a great thread....
Great look at behind the scenes, so to speak!

Originally Posted by l.k.madison OOOooo, I'll play!!! <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkmadison/5132183892/" title="Phoebe Before&amp;After 2 by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/5132183892_86da183229.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="Phoebe Before&amp;After 2" /></a>

Thanks, Ivar!

I have nothing to offer, other than thanks to everyone for sharing.

Started with this RAW image in LR3...



First, I used the Custom White Balance tool and took a sample from a shot I took of her holding a gray card. I then copied the WB setting and pasted it to the entire set of pics.

I then moved it into CS4 and did following:

1. I used the Portraiture Plugin filter, using the preset I have saved for my wife. This created a seperate layer with the smoothed skin. I added a mask and brushed some of the smoothing away in places, using a small soft brush, and then reduced the opacity of the layer to 75%.
2. Next I created a Levels Adjustment layer mask and bumped the highlights and midtones. I then inverted the mask and used a very soft brush, set at 15% opacity, to paint the eyes. This brightened them a bit.
3. Then I merged the layers and created a duplicate layer from the background. I then took the new layer and zoomed in to 75%. I used the Healing Brush tool to heal away a few stray hairs from her face and also to remove the highlight on the tip of her nose. I healed a few small blemishes that were not removed by Portraiture.
4. Still zoomed in, I took a small soft brush again, set at 40% opacity and brushed the wild hairs from around her head. I took samples from the background often while doing this. I was able to remove most of the unwanted hair this way but it left noticeable brush strokes.
5. Again, using the Healing Brush tool, this time just a little bigger, I healed the brush strokes away. I kept brushing, sampling, brushing, sampling, until I felt good about the background.
6. I then flatten the image and ran the "Boutwell Magic Glasses" action by TRA to boost local contrast. This creates a new layer which I then set the opacity to 75%.
7. Now back to LR3. Cropped it and used the standard preset "Sharpening - Wide Edges (Faces)" to sharpen the eyes.

This is the result. The entire process took me about 15 minutes:

Alex, your post work is excellent!
It helps to have a lovely model though :-)

More please!

Originally Posted by l.k.madison OOOooo, I'll play!!! This is fresh out of Photoshop so I actually remember what I did to get there! :) <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkmadison/5132183892/" title="Phoebe Before&amp;After 2 by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/5132183892_86da183229.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="Phoebe Before&amp;After 2" /></a> It's obvious which one is the edit and which one is SOOC... Opened image in Camera RAW, bumped two stops in exposure, changed white balance to 6000K... Used a brush tool on just her eyes with clarity and saturation all the way up (that brush tool has saved some shots, if you don't know where it is, pull up a shot in RAW and search for it... I'll wait....) Used another brush on her face (sans the eyes) with clarity turned all the way down... if you click the "show mask" toggle, it makes this job a lot easier. Opened image in PS CS4... which is where the real magic happened... When I sharpened her eyes, I noticed that her right eye wasn't *quite* in focus as much as her left (I shot it at 2.8)... so, I opened a new document in photoshop (I think I made it 5"x5" and selected a square of her left eye and pasted it into the new document and flipped it horizontally. I pasted the "new" right eye back over the old. Now she looked REALLY freaky, so I turned down the opacity of the new eye (so I could see through it) and moved it to line up as much as I could with the one "under" it. Using a very very soft eraser, I erased around the "top" eye to make the skin match. Since nobody is completely symmetrical, I used the skew tool and the transform tool to make it as close as I could to the eye below it. It took some work, maybe 20 minutes but it saved the shot from the trash bin. There was some healing brush and clone tool involved here to get rid of some lines under her eyes. She was sick that day (minor croup) so most of her pictures took some work to get her looking like she wanted to be there. I can't believe I'm about to give *this* secret out, but for just a *hint* of extra color pop, I used the purple/orange gradient map over everything set on very low (17/20ish) just for a touch of vintage feel. Inspired by HeatherFeather's coloring, it took forEVER to find that trick! To make her pop just a bit more, I duplicated the bottom layer and added a vignette to the new copy. Using soft eraser set on 60% opacity, I erased her face and body off of the vignette'd layer (It's easier to make everything below this "invisible" so you can see what you're erasing). And viola'! Phoebe now looks like she's with the land of the living!!

some great info here, I am going to try to figure out the gradient thing....thanks for being so helpful, we really do appreciate it!!

Originally Posted by VayCayMom some great info here, I am going to try to figure out the gradient thing....thanks for being so helpful, we really do appreciate it!!

Dangit, I knew I shouldn't have let that one slip out of the bag!

I just do it as an adjustment layer. The orange/purple gradient is on the top row of choices, I wanna say it's the second to last one, maybe third to last. Your picture will look insanely freaky until you turn down the opacity, but it's worth it. I haven't played with any of the other colors, I'm liking the purple/orange too much. The higher the opacity, the more of the faded-been-sitting-on-the-window-sill-for-20-years it looks.

I'd love to see what you come up with! Post it pppllllleeeeaaaassssseeeeee.

Originally Posted by l.k.madison Dangit, I knew I shouldn't have let that one slip out of the bag! I just do it as an adjustment layer. The orange/purple gradient is on the top row of choices, I wanna say it's the second to last one, maybe third to last. Your picture will look insanely freaky until you turn down the opacity, but it's worth it. I haven't played with any of the other colors, I'm liking the purple/orange too much. The higher the opacity, the more of the faded-been-sitting-on-the-window-sill-for-20-years it looks. I'd love to see what you come up with! Post it pppllllleeeeaaaassssseeeeee.

[SARCASM FONT] I promise not to use it [/SARCASM FONT]

Originally Posted by TGAllen [SARCASM FONT] I promise not to use it [/SARCASM FONT]

You guys make me look (and feel) like a horrible photographer but I LOVE the idea of this thread and hope to find SOMETHING to contribute later when I get home!!