Natalia - Gift for her father

LiquidOps · October 20, 2005

These pictures were taken a while ago..... about 5 months ago...

I feel confident enough in my PS skills to try and do a good edit of it now.

Please give me your thoughts and opinions... I am open to anything.

I want this to be a gift to her father for letting her be the flower girl in our wedding.

1.

2.

Sony 717 with Sunpak 383 bounced off ceiling

Thanks in advance,

Steven

gluwater · October 20, 2005

I think I like the crop on the second better than the first. I think her lips look a bit chapped, I would clone that out in PS and use a little USM. Other than that I think it looks great. Nice picture of a pretty girl.

LiquidOps · October 20, 2005

gluwater wrote:

I think I like the crop on the second better than the first. I think her lips look a bit chapped, I would clone that out in PS and use a little USM. Other than that I think it looks great. Nice picture of a pretty girl.

I noticed her lips after I uploaded...

should I USM just her lips or the whole picture?

I thought female shots should be a little soft?

pathfinder · October 20, 2005

I like the second crop best also.

IF you have the time and the skills to mask out the little girls head and fine trailing hair strands, you might consider blurring the background to remove the post arising out of her head and the lights to the left of her head - maybe a little desaturation of color and a little burning down to give better emphasis to her over the background highlights. I would not darken the brides gown though, that is a perfect accent.

: Lovely flower maiden!!

gluwater · October 20, 2005

LiquidOps wrote:

I noticed her lips after I uploaded...

should I USM just her lips or the whole picture?

I thought female shots should be a little soft?

Use the clone or healing tool to fix the lips then sharpen just her. As for female shots being a little soft, I think that is more personal preference. I think it is mainly to soften any wrinkles or skin blemishes but with a little girl such as this she doesn't have any so I think sharpening in this case would be fine. It would also help make her stand out more against the blurred background. I would agree with what Path said also, I never think of stuff like that.

pathfinder · October 20, 2005

If you spend enough time cloning out bad backgrounds( like I have

) you try to think carefully about backgrounds when shooting. But the reality frequently is that even when you think about, know about, and plan for it, reality jumps in and won't let you shoot from where you had planned anyway. Candids come and go rapidly.

Desaturation, darkening with hue/saturation or burning on layer, and G blur after selection, are all tools to help concentrate the viewers eye on the subject and not the background. A cute little girl, like that, deserves her own special place in the spotlight

Selecting with hairs strands can be quite challenging - a good place for using channels I suspect.

LiquidOps · October 20, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

If you spend enough time cloning out bad backgrounds( like I have ) you try to think carefully about backgrounds when shooting. But the reality frequently is that even when you think about, know about, and plan for it, reality jumps in and won't let you shoot from where you had planned anyway. Candids come and go rapidly.

Desaturation, darkening with hue/saturation or burning on layer, and G blur after selection, are all tools to help concentrate the viewers eye on the subject and not the background. A cute little girl that deserves her own time in the spotlight

WOW...

I guess i have a lot more to learn than I thought....

looks like i'm gonna be up for a while figuring this out

Thanks,

Steven

pathfinder · October 20, 2005

Your crop is fine, and her father will be pleased with it just as it is.

But I think it can be better. But it will take a little time and effort to do that seemlessly. As I said, selecting with falling hair strands is one of the toughest things to select for when editing. Using Select>Color Range as a start may work, but a channel may also work as a mask. Or select the background instead. Not easy. Not simple. But worth a try.

LiquidOps · October 20, 2005

I am here to learn... and learn I shall

I've never settled for 2nd best....

let's take this to the end

Thanks,,

Steven

pathfinder · October 21, 2005

This is a quick pass at what I had in mind - background selected with the magnetic lasso, Gaussian blurred on a 2nd layer, desaturated, and the blurred edges painted back with the history brush.

LiquidOps · October 21, 2005

ok...

so now what do you think?

Steven

pathfinder · October 21, 2005

More important - What do you think about your editing?

:

I think your editing is a definite improvement!!

I tried to warm up the cold green light in the background also. I thought it did not fit the overall tonality in the girls face. I included the white background to her right, as part of her veil, and that may have been a mistake. I don't like the transition between the white and the background on her right side in my image. I do like the greater blur I achieved though - you may or may not.;

LiquidOps · October 21, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

More important - What do you think about your editing? :

I think that I oficially hate selecting small strands of hair

I think I despise the magic wand tool

I think I have a lot more to go to advance in my PS skills

I do know though, that I had a blast learning

I like it, but I want to know what others think.... I am trying to train my eye to see it all, not just settle for what I "Think" is good.

Thank you so much for sticking with me on this path... you truly are a great guy, no matter what the rumors say

Steven

pathfinder · October 21, 2005

No Problemo.

And the rumors are probably based on a grain of truth, like most cliche's.

gluwater · October 21, 2005

LiquidOps wrote:

I think that I oficially hate selecting small strands of hair

Thank you so much for sticking with me on this path... you truly are a great guy, no matter what the rumors say
Steven

I think Path is one of the most knowledgable guys I have ever met.

On to the critique:
I think the newest version is better but here are a couple things I noticed.
The band in her hair seems to have a glow around it now, probably from your selection being a bit too close to it. If you used a layer to make your selection on you can easily get rid of it by using the history tool. Try using a feathered brush so you don't get any harsh edges. I think her braids have the same glowing edge to them. I agree with Path that the background could be blurred a bit more also and about the yellow in the background. He's really too smart for his own good isn't he

. Her chapped lips do look a lot better now

. Hope this helps

pathfinder · October 21, 2005

Nick - you're embarassing me.

Your comments about the history brush are spot on, though!! Great tool for touching up retouching work.

The secret here is to create a new layer with ctrl-J before doing the selection. I used a magnetic lasso because I was just doing a quick demo attempt. Once the selection is made. the edges can be feathered etc as needed. Fine strands of hair sometimes can be selected with Select> Color Range and then adding whatever else is needed.
Actually selecting the background is easier than selecting her hair and inverting, at least I think it is. Then you can do the GB on the selected layer and make any changes in hue, saturation etc to taste. I liked warming the cold green highlights in the background of the original image.
The GB can be overdone because it will then be blended with the original background layer to taste with the blending slider. ( I suspect the Blend IF command I described in the Chapter 7 LAB discussion thread might be useful here also, but that is for another day

)

Then the blurred edges of her hat and hair can be touched up with the history brush to bring their sharpness back and avoid the G blur along the edges resulting from the blend of the two layers. My attempt took about 10 minutes, but a good work on the original image will allow much finer control and may take a little longer for best results. BUt I think this little girl deserves to look her best, don't you?

:

Higgmeister · October 21, 2005

Hi Steven,
I think Path covered it pretty well (better than I could have), but just wanted to say that I prefer the 2nd crop better. Nice shot that I think the dad will love.

Chris

Harveylevine · October 21, 2005

LiquidOps wrote:

I think that I oficially hate selecting small strands of hair

I think I despise the magic wand tool

I think I have a lot more to go to advance in my PS skills

I do know though, that I had a blast learning

Steven

Steven:

One of the best books to learn about the many techniques of masking is Katrin Eismann's Photoshop Masking & Compositing (Voices That Matter) .

If you master even a small number of the techniques described in her book, you will be well on your way to becoming an expert.

Good luck,

Harvey

Linen · October 21, 2005

neat trick! I'll have to pocket that one! Sweet shot of a beautiful girl!

boo · October 21, 2005

for USM
You can make a rough selection of her hair and eyes (and whatever else you'd like to sharpen, feather the selection and USM only those. Or, you can make a layer mask and paint back in the parts that should not be sharpened. I would definitely sharpen her eyes though. Very cute kid.

pathfinder · October 21, 2005

Harveylevine wrote:

Steven:

One of the best books to learn about the many techniques of masking is Katrin Eismann's Photoshop Masking & Compositing (Voices That Matter) .

If you master even a small number of the techniques described in her book, you will be well on your way to becoming an expert.

Good luck,

Harvey

YUP - It's a great book!

Natalia - Gift for her father

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