Photo manipulation Challenge

[alfredo]

This black and white image of a flower should present a challenge to anyone wanting to express themselves digitally. The busy background will present problems and the complexity of the subject will too. The rich textures of the lilly should be worth your time and efforts.
You can throw caution to the wind, or make subtle changes. Express yourself. Please remember and post what tools were used to achieve the effect you created.




BTW, commercial use of the image in any form is frowned upon (unless you cut me in). I will not use your changes for commercial uses either. The image is too small, and not that great anyway. Remember, this is just an exercise.

[NashVegas]

1. I Tried

But when I went to open it in Photoshop got an 'unable to parse data' message.

[alfredo]

2. How did you download it?

Can you do a screen capture of the image?

[NashVegas]

3. right click

my only screen capture option saves things in .pdf

[alfredo]

4. PhotoShop will open PDF's.

It will ask you about the color management. It opens on my Mac just fine.

BTW, Tiger now saves them as a PNG.

[F.Gordon]

5. It opens in 6.0

Friend lent me a copy, although I'm clueless as to how to use it.

I do have a digital darkroom question. Is there an easy way to remove the background? Other than the tedious process of coloring it in and/or erasing it by hand?

[FloridaPat]

6. Use magic wand and lots of practice. There's other ways too.

I haven't found too easy a way yet.

[noamnety]

11. I'd recommend using masking

If you jump into the quick mask mode (shortcut = Q), you can paint black/white to mask out certain areas - they will look red when you cover them. When you jump out of quick mask (Q again), the red area will turn into a selection. Also, you can save the selection as a channel, so you can go back to it in the future, which is handy. The advantage of using this method is that you can paint back and forth with the black and white indefinitely, until you get the selection exactly as you want it.

[FloridaPat]

18. Thanks.

[Ms. Toad]

8. Sometimes a selection tool can be used to snap to a boundary,

but I couldn't make mine work tonight. Paint Shop Pro 8 is much touchier than the earlier versions. (I highly recommend the earlier versions as a fairly cheap learning tools - the earlier versions are often for sale in the $10-$25 range).

Here is a link to one I did when I got the tool to work:

http://wedding.puppycharm.com/phillip.html

It's Feli's picture, my "darkroom" work. I drew a selection boundary around the rose/window/person section to blur the building in the background since it distracted from the face and rose.

[alfredo]

10. very good photo.

It looks very professional.

[Ms. Toad]

20. Thanks,

The family of the gentleman pictured says it is the best picture they have of him.

Kind of humbling to have your teen's pictures compared to professional photos...

(Edited since spellcheck doesn't catch incorrect words as long as they are spelled correctly....)

[NashVegas]

24. But Not in 3.0

on Classic Mac.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Thanks for the distraction...

I needed one tonight.



Paint Shop Pro 8 is my electronic darkroom of choice.

I started by pouring grey paint into the darkest areas in the background to lighten them. I selected an ellipse around the lillies, inverted the selection, and adjusted the contrast/brightness in the outer area (lighter using the Automatic Contrast Enhancement), then used a Gaussian blur on it. I used smaller selections (circles and ellipses) and applied the same contrast/brightness adjustments, and use Gaussian blur in overlapping selections to remove lines form the previous actions. Then I readjusted the entire picture for contrast/brightness. Feather (5 degrees, I believe, on all selections)


I know, TMI; :boring: .

(On edit: And, although I don't think my changes are worth anything if you find a commercial buyer or other use for the edited version feel, free to use it - but I'd appreciate it if it were copied rather than pulled from my website)

[alfredo]

9. You really isolated the flower from the background. It looks 3D

So cool.

I am not interested in making money on my photos. I would be very disappointed and very broke.

[Ms. Toad]

23. The 3d appearance

is entirely accidental - but it was the first thing that jumped out at me when I had finished.

[alfredo]

30. Love those "Accidents."

[Blue_In_AK]

12. I have PSP8, too

although I don't even remotely know how to use all the tools. Mostly I like it to brighten up the contrast, deepen the color, etc. or clone out powerlines or whatever. If I didn't have to work, it would be great. I'd just play around with pictures and surf DU all day.

[alfredo]

15. You should try it sometime. It is great. Retirement is

more fun than I ever envisioned.

That's what it takes to learn any of the big graphics programs. You have to have plenty time to study, then play around with it for hours on end.

[Blue_In_AK]

25. I'm sort of semi-retired...

At least I don't have to go to an office every day, but I still feel compelled to transcribe my 40 or so pages a day so I can pay my share of the household expenses. Maybe in a few years when I can start collecting my social security I can let up a bit. I'll be 59 in September, so it's not too far off.

[alfredo]

26. I had no choice. I have three bad disks in my neck, bad arthritis

and other ailments earned through hard work and even harder play.

[Blue_In_AK]

27. :-( Bummer....

I worked a real job up until 2000 when the law firm I worked for downsized. They wanted me to stay on, but I couldn't stand the people that were going to be left, so I just took my severance and boogied. I had been doing this court transcription at home on the side, so it wasn't much of a jump for me to do it full-time. It helped when I married my husband (my old highschool sweetheart) in 2003 who has a good pension from his years as a marine engineer. I always thought I'd have to work until the day I died and would die poor, but I've been pleasantly blessed (to borrow a Fundie term). Not that we're wealthy, by any means, but we get by.

[alfredo]

28. I lucked out. I got out of the stock market when bush was

selected. If I hadn't I would not have had enough to pay off my mortgage.

I have SS and a small pension from the Post Office. I get by.

[Ms. Toad]

22. If you like cloning,

for removing power lines, try the scratch remover.

[F.Gordon]

14. Not TMI. It was very helpful

I purchased Paint Shop Pro 9 awhile back which seems to be a lot easier to use than Photoshop. At least for me. And the price was better..

I used your step-by-step instructions on the snapshots I took at the iris/rose exhibit contest I mentioned in my safari thread. Came out fairly decent. I'd post a few but I think this group is experiencing flower overload right now.

Thanks.
:hi:

[Ms. Toad]

21. Glad it was helpful

I haven't braved version 9 yet - with each revision they keep hiding access to the features of tools I have come to love and it frustrates this creature of habit. (I tried several paint programs, and PSP 8 is by far my favorite.)

I started with a much earlier version and had so much fun taking creases and spots out of old family photos (early 1900s) it sort of created a monster...then I went and bought a digital camera and it got even worse.

[AlCzervik]

13. ok i sharpened and then diffused

[alfredo]

16. Kind of like a dream.

It appears that diffusing is like solarizing, but not as extreme.

[AlCzervik]

17. yes, the solorizing was a tad blinding

[alfredo]

19. Yeah. I haven't used it much over the years. It is kind of

overkill, even for me.

[regnaD kciN]

29. There's always the...

..."Do Not Take The Brown Acid. It Is Bad." version.



(Yes, I'm from the Sixties. How can you tell? ;-) )

I first converted the image to 16-bit RGB, then applied a "Blue, Red, Yellow" Gradient Map layer. Set the layer's blending mode to Color Burn, with an opacity of 77%. Finally, added a Posterize layer with four levels. Easy, man!

[alfredo]

35. I like the way you retained the shine. I think WantToJumpMyScooter

took the brown acid.

I like what you did.

[intheflow]

31. Yay! Another alfredo photo to play with!

Here's my entry to your photo challenge:



As I've said before, I don't know what I'm doing in Photoshop. I just play with buttons until I get something I think looks cool. I'm not 100% happy with this result. Somehow I got this crazy shade of hot pink in the center of the flower, but then I couldn't replace the color to match anything, so who knows what I did there. :eyes:

But for all you technical geeks, I wrote down the major things I did:

I elimated a lot of background noise by cropping about 3/4 of it out.
Changed it from greyscale to RGB mode
Used the magnetic lasso tool to outline the flower.
Used the paint bucket to color the flower.
Equalized the photo.
Used the erase pencil at 20% opacity on the background.
Used paint bucket to color the erased parts.
Used the spherize filter.
Cropped a little more.

Thanks, alfredo! I was just pining for an art project. This was fun! :hi:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

32. Color added just for fun

[alfredo]

33. I think this one took the brown acid. Very good. It's

quite funny. Thanks.

[Blue_In_AK]

34. I want some of that brown acid.......... :-D

[alfredo]

37. You might have to be content with a contact high.

I'm glad some people have been colorizing the photo.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

38. I am of a certain age which could have indeed

taken the brown acid... I was too busy trippin in the trees from the yellow pills to find my way to the brown acid though.
:evilgrin:

[alfredo]

41. You remember those days?

I think my "experiments" from those days has helped me see other realities, to see the world as a 9 year old boy. It helped me realize the best images are approached with a sense of child-like wonder.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

42. Yes, this generation needs that experience

Bad!

[alfredo]

43. yeah, with Sponge Bob and Telly Tubbies out there,

they should be taking advantage of the opportunity.

[Blue_In_AK]

45. I couldn't agree with you guys more....

There's no way I'd be myself without the 400 or so acid and other psychedelic trips I took in my youth ( yeah, I know, maybe a little overkill, but I really loved the stuff ). My pet theory is that it delays the aging process, because there isn't a person I've ever met who believes that I'm really as old as I am.

[alfredo]

46. It did help me see the absurdity around me.

My last trip was at a concert at Cobo Hall Detroit.

The first group was Deep Purple, the next one was the Maha Vishnu Orchestra, then Frank Zappa. Across from me atop an exit ramp was a beautiful woman, obviously a trained ballet dancer, dancing to the music, the whole concert. When I got home I sat on our fire escape and digged on the night.

The next morning I said I will never take acid again because there was no way to have a better trip than that.

[Blue_In_AK]

47. That's great... :-)

One of my best music trips was a Vanilla Fudge and Spirit double-bill -- with an unknown warmup band named Led Zeppelin. I just happened to be high on acid at the very first Zeppelin concert in the US, before their first album was even released. It was outstanding. :hippie:

[alfredo]

48. When Zep was on, they were terrific.

One of my friends was in charge of providing "supplies" to the various rock bands coming into town. Every now and then she let us taste the high life.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

50. My first trip was on a bus on the way to SF

from SD.... a girl turned me on somewhere north of LA, and well, I don't remember too much of the rest of the week as far as details.
I do remember sitting on a street corner in SF staring at a key and watching the light glint off the edges shooting into locks in every direction.
I do remember waking up with a whole bunch of people in a pile on a futon.
that's about it

[superconnected]

36. ah, I love the gold flower!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

39. Two more from the Brown Acid collection

based on previous work...



and

[Blue_In_AK]

40. I'm tellin' ya, I really want some of that stuff. :-)

[alfredo]

44. I loooove the second one. Now that is trippy. The colors of the

flowers are so cool.

[The Straight Story]

49. Here is a weak attempt

I was working on this on my back porch when I got a call from mom-in-law that dad-in-law was being taken to hospital with a possible heart attack. We are in Ohio they in CA so we are waiting on a call and I just did not have the heart to work on it much more. Will try again later but here is one and a bump for you:

[alfredo]

51. NICE! Hope your dad in law makes it through Ok.

I like the way you did the brush in the background. The colors of the flowers is very good too.

Take care of your family and check back when life gets back to normal.

[The Straight Story]

53. Things have settled down

I enjoyed working on it, soothing. I have a lot of old civil war era B&W's I have colorized too and enhanced. Something relaxing about focusing on a single thing like a photo and getting to know it.

I was walking outside last night and found this which reminded me of your photo (I even blurted out to myself, hey, dad's got some flowers like on that DU thread - I live next door to dad and these just bloomed yesterday) Since I was outside taking photos anyway I took one:

[alfredo]

54. Beautiful

Mine have finished their bloom cycle. You must live north of me.

[Blue_In_AK]

52. Take care of yourself and your family, Straight Story...

Your picture is striking.