What Did You Do?!?!

ivarivar Registered Users Posts: 8,395 Major grins
edited June 14, 2013 in People
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!
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Comments

  • ivarivar Registered Users Posts: 8,395 Major grins
    edited October 25, 2010
    And I guess I'll kick it off;

    Before:
    1063087170_Jvbeu-M.jpg
    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:
    1063087075_9ZU3B-M.jpg
    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):
    1063087118_uxUmW-M.jpg

    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:
    1063087130_d7jUY-M.jpg
  • jirojiro Registered Users Posts: 1,865 Major grins
    edited October 25, 2010
    Nice work. I guess photoshop has its own advantages in some ways compared to lightroom. great shot Ivar! thumb.gifthumbthumb.gif
    Sitting quietly, doing nothing. Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

    http://imagesbyjirobau.blogspot.com/
  • ivarivar Registered Users Posts: 8,395 Major grins
    edited October 27, 2010
    Anybody? ear.gif
  • angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited October 27, 2010
    I think what I like best about your process, is [This image to me said "black and white".]

    That Speaks!
    tom wise
  • angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited October 27, 2010
    yeah, I'll Play~
    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:

    1066090138_b8vJy-L.jpg

    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.
    1066082529_D7LKQ-X3.jpg
    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.
    1066082701_RKEf4-XL.jpg



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



    1066088932_YLsZE-XL.jpg

    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.
    1066082855_tDFxt-XL.jpg

    Final image...actually I went back and got rid of the pin-lights in his eyes!
    1066112086_4v97P-XL.jpg

    Thanks for reading!
    tom wise
  • ivarivar Registered Users Posts: 8,395 Major grins
    edited October 29, 2010
    angevin1 wrote: »
    Thanks for reading!
    Cool thumb.gif
  • l.k.madisonl.k.madison Registered Users Posts: 542 Major grins
    edited October 31, 2010
    OOOooo, I'll play!!!

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

    Phoebe Before&After 2

    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!!
  • reyvee61reyvee61 Registered Users Posts: 1,877 Major grins
    edited October 31, 2010
    Wow, this is a great thread....
    Great look at behind the scenes, so to speak!
    Yo soy Reynaldo
  • ivarivar Registered Users Posts: 8,395 Major grins
    edited November 7, 2010
    OOOooo, I'll play!!!

    <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkmadison/5132183892/&quot; title="Phoebe Before&After 2 by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/5132183892_86da183229.jpg&quot; width="500" height="400" alt="Phoebe Before&After 2" /></a>
    <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/iloveyou.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >
  • l.k.madisonl.k.madison Registered Users Posts: 542 Major grins
    edited November 7, 2010
  • TrackerTracker Registered Users Posts: 155 Major grins
    edited November 7, 2010
    I have nothing to offer, other than thanks to everyone for sharing.
  • anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    Started with this RAW image in LR3...

    1083752168_wCsSF-L.jpg

    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:

    1087238130_aSNSe-X2.jpg
    "I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."

    Moderator of the People and Go Figure forums

    My Smug Site
  • reyvee61reyvee61 Registered Users Posts: 1,877 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    Alex, your post work is excellent!
    It helps to have a lovely model though :-)
    Yo soy Reynaldo
  • StrmgeStrmge Registered Users Posts: 20 Big grins
    edited November 11, 2010
    More please!
  • VayCayMomVayCayMom Registered Users Posts: 1,870 Major grins
    edited November 12, 2010
    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/&quot; title="Phoebe Before&After 2 by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/5132183892_86da183229.jpg&quot; width="500" height="400" alt="Phoebe Before&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!!
    Trudy
    www.CottageInk.smugmug.com

    NIKON D700
  • l.k.madisonl.k.madison Registered Users Posts: 542 Major grins
    edited November 13, 2010
    VayCayMom wrote: »
    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.
  • TGAllenTGAllen Registered Users Posts: 161 Major grins
    edited November 15, 2010
    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 thumb.gif [/SARCASM FONT]
  • l.k.madisonl.k.madison Registered Users Posts: 542 Major grins
    edited November 15, 2010
    TGAllen wrote: »
    [SARCASM FONT] I promise not to use it thumb.gif [/SARCASM FONT]

    rolleyes1.gifroflrolleyes1.gif
  • r3t1awr3ydr3t1awr3yd Registered Users Posts: 1,000 Major grins
    edited November 16, 2010
    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!!

    Hi! I'm Wally: website | blog | facebook | IG | scotchNsniff
    Nikon addict. D610, Tok 11-16, Sig 24-35, Nik 24-70/70-200vr
  • angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited July 28, 2011
    Started with this RAW image in LR3...

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

    And what a result! thumb.gif

    Found this thread and know it needs resurrecting!
    tom wise
  • anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
    edited July 28, 2011
    Let's make it sticky for a bit.
    "I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."

    Moderator of the People and Go Figure forums

    My Smug Site
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 28, 2011
    angevin1 wrote: »
    And what a result! thumb.gif

    Found this thread and know it needs resurrecting!

    Ditto!:D

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited July 29, 2011
    Let's make it sticky for a bit.

    Great idea! thumb.gif
    tom wise
  • anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
    edited August 15, 2011
    Diva asked me what I am doing lately to the eyes of my subjects to make them sharp and give them pop. I wish I could say that it's all in-camera technique but I'd be lying. It goes without saying that you must start with getting the eyes well in focus in camera. Nothing will help get eyes ultra-sharp in post if you don't get it right in camera. Trust me, I've tried many times to sharpen OOF'd eyes only to end up with pixelated and OOF'd eyes.

    I thought I would take a few minutes to put together a tutorial with my workflow. I'm including a few screen shots to aide understanding. It seems a bit involved but once I got these ingredients down and created Actions for them and only takes a couple clicks and a few brush strokes to get it done. So why don't I get started with trying to thoroughly confuse you; I'm not very good at this sort of thing.

    NOTE: OH... I should mention that I am doing this all in Photoshop CS4, which I use as a plugin from LR3.

    BEFORE PHOTO SOOC - you can see all the layers/steps here but they are turned off

    i-NbVJBks-XL.png

    Close-Up
    i-hS9b5LT-XL.png

    Step 1 - Clone & Heal

    The first thing I do is create a duplicate layer of the original image. I use this layer to heal and clone any imperfection in the skin, wild hairs in the face and any other distractions. In this case, I used the healing brush to clean up the little pimple on her chin and also to get rid of the highlight on her left cheek and tip of nose. I also cloned out the spa drain and the bit of green showing in the top right corner of the photo. BTW, once I use the clone tool on these spots, I then go over them with the healing brush just to smooth things out. This is a trick I learned that I find very useful.

    Clone & Heal After - No Drain/No Green
    i-Cm8bvPn-XL.png

    Close Up (100%) - Pimple and Highlights Gone
    i-gsndjS3-XL.png

    Step 2 - Eye Bump

    The next step is to brighten the eyes a bit. I do this by adding a levels adjustment layer with the properties below. I then invert the mask and take a small soft brush, set to about 12% opacity and 70% flow and paint the whites of eyes to my liking. You can also use this to brighten the teeth. Sometimes I will finish by adjusting the overall opacity of this layer to fine tune the adjustment. It's important not to over do it. I like turning the layer on and off just to see the effect to make sure I didn't go overboard.

    Levels Properties
    i-HB9Rvk8.png

    Eye Bump After - Eyes are just a tad brighter:
    i-D8mnfRG-XL.png

    Step 3 - Eye Pop

    This next steps adds some contrast to the eyes to make them pop a bit. I merge a copy of all visible layers into a target layer (CMD+Option+Shift+E). I then apply the Unsharp Mask Filter to this layer. I follow this up with a levels adjustment layer and merge it with the unsharp mask layer. I then apply a Layer Mask and invert it (CMD+I). Then I take a small soft brush with same properties as in step 2 and paint the effect onto the iris of the eye, eyelids, eyebrows and lips. I also apply it to the parts of the hair that are in focus. Again, make sure not to go overboard. Just a few light strokes is enough. You can always adjust the overall opacity of the layer to your liking if you do.

    Unsharp Mask Properties
    i-cRPqR6K.png

    Levels Properties
    i-ZCnZNGL.png

    Eye Pop Close Up
    i-Xxcr8BN-XL.png

    Step 4 - Eye Sharpen

    This is the final step that will really make the eyes come alive. Again, I use the CMD+Option+Shift+E shortcut to create a target layer from all the previous layers. I then apply the Unsharp Mask Filter to this layer but this time I use much different parameters. I then add a layer mask to it and invert it. Just like before, I take a small soft brush to selectively sharpen the eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, mouth and hair.

    Unsharp Mask Properties
    i-BjzV7Pb.png

    Eye Sharpen Close Up
    i-b3n6xRW-XL.png

    Here is the is the before and after for comparison:

    Before
    i-fDVK2JQ-L.jpg

    After
    i-cCZS2Hd-L.jpg
    "I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."

    Moderator of the People and Go Figure forums

    My Smug Site
  • angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited August 17, 2011
    Beautiful Work 'Cuban'! Love those photographer-shaped pupils!
    tom wise
  • jeremy_danieljeremy_daniel Registered Users Posts: 47 Big grins
    edited October 4, 2011
    Hmm this is a really good thread to make sticky. I love doing tutorials about my brain work. I will put something together one some of my Image editing techniques.
    Jeremy Daniel Photography
    NANPA Member
    Student Photography Society
    Gear: Nikon D700 SB-600 18-55mm 10-20mm 70-300mm
    Wildlife * People * Landscapes * HDR
  • CookieSCookieS Registered Users Posts: 854 Major grins
    edited December 28, 2011
    great stuff guys, loved the soldier in the lake , cool after efect sneak peek.
  • mjoshi123mjoshi123 Registered Users Posts: 216 Major grins
    edited March 15, 2012
    I really need to get better at my LR3 I keep going back and forth on CS5 and I know much less of CS5 compared to LR3 but this results are very reassuring about capability of LR3 (well now LR4 :) )
    With regards to getting rid of that arrow - cant you do that in LR3 with simple heal/clone tool ?
    For this kind of simple fixes I like LR3 (probably because I'm not good at CS5 :( )
    Thanks for sharing your work.
    ivar wrote: »
    And I guess I'll kick it off;

    Before:
    1063087170_Jvbeu-M.jpg
    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:
    1063087075_9ZU3B-M.jpg
    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):
    1063087118_uxUmW-M.jpg

    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:
    1063087130_d7jUY-M.jpg
  • mjoshi123mjoshi123 Registered Users Posts: 216 Major grins
    edited March 15, 2012
    Great detailed edit on CS4 cuban, thanks for this. It will help me learn Photoshop better.
  • anonymouscubananonymouscuban Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,586 Major grins
    edited December 30, 2012
    I accidentally uploaded an unedited shot so I decided to throw it in here.

    The shot was done with a D700 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VRI. SB-900 flash was off to camera left in a large shoot through umbrella. Flash was just outside the frame, maybe 6 feet away and about 8 feet high.

    EXIF: 1/80 @ f/4; ISO 100; 125mm focal length
    DSC_8241-X3.jpg

    The shot above is straight out of camera. Originally shot in RAW so the it's a bit soft all around. Post work was as follows:
    1. Duplicate layer
    2. Clean up blemishes and a few wrinkles on face with cloning tool
    3. Run Imagenomics Portraiture plugin on Normal default preset
    4. Set Portraitue layer to 50% opacity
    5. Create new layer with all edits and apply Smart Sharpen filter (81%, 4px, Lens Blur)
    6. Curves layer adjustment to set black point
    7. Another curves layer with gradient mask to add vignette
    8. Unsharp filter mask and then painted on hair, eyes and lips with 10% opacity soft brush to add just a little pop
    9. Back to Lightroom and then slight crop.

    Finished Shot:
    DSC_8241-Edit-X3.jpg
    "I'm not yelling. I'm Cuban. That's how we talk."

    Moderator of the People and Go Figure forums

    My Smug Site
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