Playing with images.....

pathfinder · January 28, 2004

C'mon guys - show us some cool things you have done with Photo imaging software - How is this for an amatuer to toss into the field of battle ?
Images from two different frames were extracted and cloned into the picture of the grassy field.

Shakey · January 28, 2004

OK here I added a pinch/perspective to an otherwise useless unfocused shot(I think all mine are like that) that I liked the colors of and I came up with this...

Hey

I know its odd but what else is one to do when it is minus 42 celcius out?
Heck when I went outside to take a few pictures today of fog lifting from the river I FROZE MY FREAKING FOCAL POINT OFF!

Cheers,
Tim

pathfinder · January 29, 2004

I am kind of disappointeed that I got no takers from my picture - it certainly is not ART, but I thought someone would be curious how I got a shot of a Geman V1 in flight. This is not a drawing, but is a photgraph of a real V1 - or at least part of one - any guesses how I did this picture?

wxwax · January 30, 2004

I assume you grabbed the V1 from the web. Or you shot it and PS'd out the stand holding it up. It never occured to me that you shot the thing while it was flying, because I don't think a real V1 has flown since 1945.

Shakey · January 30, 2004

I liked the low flying Hawk or Owl in the photo and the soldier it looks like he is calling for it to land on his arm.

hutchman · January 30, 2004

My take -

I cleaned up some of the rust on the "flying" V-1.

Used the smudge tool to soften the edges of both the V-1 and soldier.

Fixed some of the blowouts on the soldier.

Added a layer with a sunset colar at 35% for both fill and opacity.

Bumped up the saturation for a little glow.

I think the color layer with the saturation really added some depth. Smudging the edges of the V-1 and soldier softened the transition between them and the background and makes them look more natural.

My $0.02 worth.

Hutch

pathfinder · January 30, 2004

Shakey wrote:

I liked the low flying Hawk or Owl in the photo and the soldier it looks like he is calling for it to land on his arm.

Good eyes Shakey - It was a hawk - and I only had a 200mm lens with me that day, and it did not allow me near enough reach to get closer to the bird. The bird was very wary.

Wxwax - there are only two V1s in the US today - one in a museum in Washington ( I am surprised that there is not one at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Museum) and one on a stand at the county court house in Greencastle Indiana. That is where I shot the soldier and the V1. But it was not possible to get all of the V1 in one shot - the base is a large concret block structure - so I had to reconstruct parts of the V1 before it was moved into the picture I uploaded onto dgrin. I will post the original frames of the V1 and the WWl monument later as I do not have them available in the office.

wxwax · January 30, 2004

Path, it's a cool idea. What your image shows is the difficulty of the matching lightning of disparate elements in a collage. The soldier and the V1 have a completely different quality of light. I tried playing with it last night, but wasn't skillful enough to make them better blend in with the background shot.

knary · January 30, 2004

Take the cues from the base image. In your example, there is a very limited depth of field, but the dropped in elements are 100% crisp.

pathfinder · January 31, 2004

knary wrote:

Take the cues from the base image. In your example, there is a very limited depth of field, but the dropped in elements are 100% crisp.

Knary - I have read some of your previous posts about photo composition and found them very informative and pertinent. I agree with your comments about my composite I posted so I have had another go at it. Again it is not an attempt at art so much as a learning experience for me to better learn how to select and extract and combine images.
I also told patch I would post the original frames of the V1 and the WWl monument so they can be evaluated as to the extraction quality.

SO here goes - my skin is fairly thick so criticize at will ....Here is my new composite - I have flipped the soldier so the light comes from the same direction as on the 1. These frames were shot within 15 minutes of each other on the county square so the light should not be too different - at least the sun didn't move very much in that length of time.

pathfinder · January 31, 2004

Here are the two frames I extracted to move into the other image - these are unedited jpgs directly from the camera

I then extracted and moved these images into the field of grass and since no one liked the quality of the light I replaced the sky this time. Is this new composite any more successful or am I just wasting my time. But I am at least learning how to select, move and transform images.....

Pathfinder

fish · January 31, 2004

it would look better with your motorcycle in the shot too

pathfinder · January 31, 2004

fish wrote:

it would look better with your motorcycle in the shot too

Just for you Fish - I bet you have no idea how long it takes to select the spokes on a GS for transformation..... Here it is - again - this is not art but a learning experience for me....

fish · January 31, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

Just for you Fish - I bet you have no idea how long it takes to select the spokes on a GS for transformation..... Here it is - again - this is not art but a learning experience for me....

PERFECT!!!

wxwax · February 1, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

bet you have no idea how long it takes to select the spokes on a GS for transformation.....

I do! It sucks. Did you figure out a short cut. Or did you make a mask?

pathfinder · February 1, 2004

wxwax wrote:

I do! It sucks. Did you figure out a short cut. Or did you make a mask?

I just have not had real success with the extract tool - I am a total newbie at this - so I just select with the magnetic lasso or the polygonal lasso or the lasso to get a beginning and then I go to a high maginification and use the Shift and Alt Keys to add and subtract from my selection. I love the color selection tool for replacing skies, but for the spokes in a motorcycle wheel where there are all colors of grass or reflections - I just use the lasso or the pencil tool and Add and Subtract as necessary and outline each and every darn spoke.

There are good tutorials at graphics.com about Photoshop - I am still struggling to keep my layers straight....

wxwax · February 2, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

I am still struggling to keep my layers straight....

Janet Jackson is having that problem too.

Good link, thanks.

pathfinder · February 2, 2004

wxwax wrote:

Janet Jackson is having that problem too.

Good link, thanks.

I missed that - I watched the whole game and stepped into the kitchen during halftime - Hah - I thought the best commercial was the one with the tag line "Bad dog!"

knary · February 3, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

I missed that - I watched the whole game and stepped into the kitchen during halftime - Hah - I thought the best commercial was the one with the tag line "Bad dog!"

Sorry about the slow reply. I am *not* a photo montage expert by any measure. But, if it were me, I'd start with simple collages. The easiest place to start is with two part images, and rather than fight to make one element to fit within the atmosphere of the other, merge them into an entirely new atmosphere. The most fun is to do some creative cropping with a face and another 'thing'. Have fun and don't get too anal.

Rumsfeld and Mole Rat...(quick doodle from sometime back)

cletus · February 3, 2004

knary wrote:

The most fun is to do some creative cropping with a face and another 'thing'.

Like this???

I can't come up with a way to blend the skin tones that looks half way decent. Any ideas?

Mr Rush · February 3, 2004

Robot

pathfinder wrote:

C'mon guys - show us some cool things you have done with Photo imaging software - How is this for an amatuer to toss into the field of battle ?
Images from two different frames were extracted and cloned into the picture of the grassy field.

Here is something I played with about two years ago, its one of my daughters - young computer brain. Wish I had one (brain not daughter)

Playing with images.....

Comments