What's new
By:
Photoshop Gurus Forum

Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Some photo restorations, manipulations etc.


Nice work. My only real critique is on the first one. Too much sharpening creates the grain. I would add some blur to it. Make it a smart object so that you can add back sharpness to the features where you want it, such as the eyes. Apply a filter to a smart object and it is non-destructive with a filter mask. Works quite well.
 
Good advice, thank you. I'll have to play around with what you said as my Photoshop experience is mainly as a comic colorist/digital painter/3D texture artist. I have more of a down and dirty, simplistic approach and I honestly have never dealt with smart objects and a lot of other PS features that an actual photo professional would be familiar with. :)
 
Here is a really simple instruction for what I described. Just make a duplicate of your final result. Copy/merge your results to one layer.

Make this layer a smart object by right clicking on the layer and choosing convert to smart object (can also do this through layers>smart objects>convert). Don't worry about understanding smart objects at this time; you only want it to create a filter mask.

Apply a gaussian blur to the image.

Click inside the filter mask (see pic below) and paint with a soft brush, varying opacities and hardness. This will remove the blur by degrees and reveal the sharpness in the areas you want to sparkle.

I added a layer and soft brushed some white highlights and some pink on the cheekbones and set the blend mode to soft light with decreased opacity.

I put the pics side by side so you can judge the result. Even if you don't like it for this picture, it's a useful thing to know.

Blur.PNG

BlurLayers.PNG
 
Very cool! Thank you. The only mask I've used is quick mask because it's the only way I know to do a gradient erase. But as you mentioned before(and now I can see) this a great nondestructive method of control over your image. Great stuff!
 
Third one defeats the object, having lost the originality.
Second one is good, though some of her hair could do with a feather through it.
 
Paul said:
Third one defeats the object, having lost the originality.
Second one is good, though some of her hair could do with a feather through it.
Click to expand...

Do you mean the third picture looks too processed? If that is what you mean I agree, it does have that Photoshopped look. I am working on keeping my work more organic and natural.

Not sure what you mean by "a feather through it" Do you mean more highlight accents or is it too blurry?
 
Fatboy73 said:
Do you mean the third picture looks too processed? If that is what you mean I agree, it does have that Photoshopped look. I am working on keeping my work more organic and natural.
Click to expand...

Aussies sure talk funny, huh! JK Paul :mrgreen:

Yes, it is overshopped, but on a deeper, more symbolic level (let's not get carried away Clare) you have lost the character of the couple. They just are not a good choice for beautification. Their beauty is that of aging and optimism. OK, off the soapbox now, lol.

Fatboy73 said:
Not sure what you mean by "a feather through it" Do you mean more highlight accents or is it too blurry?
Click to expand...

I think he means that you have cut the girl out so that her hair looks more like a cap. It is too smoothed out which makes it look unnatural. A feather might give it a bit of a fuzziness that normal hair would have. But we should leave that for Paul to say. :twisted:

As for the masking, don't worry if you don't understand it. I avoided masks for a long time. Once I understood them, I couldn't figure out how I ever worked without them! So, just learn it and use it.
 
They just are not a good choice for beautification. Their beauty is that of aging and optimism.
Click to expand...


Now that's funny! The woman is my fiancee and the gentleman is her Grandfather. I'll have to show her this comment, she'll get a kick out of it. :) I agree this wasn't the best photo choice for de-aging. It was literally just grabbing a photo to try some Photoshopping on. I will definitely give it a go again and try to post some better examples.
 
No need to be embarrassed. I didn't give any info on the photo and you saw what you saw. She's as comfortable in her skin as anyone I guess, and she gets a kick out of it whenever I de-age a photo of her. :)
 
Back
Top