Creative post processing - before & after

Hi All,

I thought it might be fun to start a thread on creatively post-processed images, showing the before and after versions, and ideally the processing steps to go from the original to the final image.

I'll start off with a shot of Boston Light, on Little Brewster Island in the Boston harbor. The only way to get to shots of the lighthouse in 'good light' (sunrise, sunset) is to have your own boat; the tours go out in the middle of the day. This shot was taken from the tour boat on the return trip, at about 4pm on a hot summer day (~90 °F) with a hazy sky - not particularly good light. Taken with the 1D X, EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM @ 300mm.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7423/9...9c2e1f69_c.jpg

For processing, I did the following:

• Opened image in Photoshop CS6
• Duplicated image in new layer
• Filter Gallery > Glowing Edges (width 5, brightness 10, smoothness 6)
• Blended layer as Vivid Light (100% opacity, 50% fill)
• Magic wand selection of sky (tolerance = 20, anti-alias and contiguous)
• Filter menu > Blur > Gaussian blur (radius = 20.0)
• Cropped image (remove about half of water at bottom and and a bit of sky at top)
• Saved as JPG
• Opened image in LensFlares app for Mac OS X
• Added Polaris flare (decrease brightness by ~50%, increase scale by ~50% and adjust rotation)
• Added Gamma Rays flare (decrease brightness by ~80%, adjust aspect ratio ~50% rightward)
• Saved as JPG

Here's the result:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7287/9...9095dd40_c.jpg

Thanks for looking...and thanks in advance to anyone willing to share!

--John

Good idea and nice image....I have always enjoyed this type of work.

A related thread was active a few years ago. There are some good examples there as well: http://community.the-digital-picture...ead.php?t=3925 but many of the early images are gone.

I look forward to some nice transformations.

Lars

brilliant idea for a thread Neuro,

might the end result be a tiny bit "overcooked?" I was thinking if you took the two images back to cs6 (before cropping) and put them in two separate layers and put blend at say 50-70% you would get all the magic of the light house lights without the halos. Just an idea. It also looks cool if you substitute multiple for normal blend.

BEFORE:

http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....12585724-4.jpg

AFTER:

http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....04045094-4.jpg

Filters used:

1. Pixel Bender: Tube View
2. Flaming Pear: Glitterato
3. Topaz Adjust 5

Whaaa:confused::confused::confused:

Before

http://www.bimmermail.com/SD/sjc38.jpg

http://bimmermail.com/chtree/tree04.jpg


After

http://www.bimmermail.com/PS/SDb-sm.jpg

http://bimmermail.com/chtree/tree04-globe.jpg


The many steps will fill a page, but Google "Glass Globes in Photoshop" and you'll find the tutorials.

Mark, you inspired me. :D

"Fall is Here"
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7332/1...6bbdc202_c.jpg


From this:
Attachment 2017

Very cool. I've had people ask me to show them the actual glass globe. I love the outer glow on yours making it look backlit.

Love the globes! I'll have to give it a try.

There's an Audubon sanctuary near me that's also a working farm. Took a some shots of their chickens, and was making eggs the next morning...that got me to thinking...and these:

Attachment 2033
Attachment 2034
Attachment 2035

...became this:

"Which Came First?"
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3699/1...0b801b81_c.jpg

Thanks for looking!

lol. Really like the end result (or is it the start?).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

"Which Came First?"

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3699/1...b10b801b81.jpg

Thanks for looking!

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Love it! :-)

Brilliant neuro. Would like to see a CAT scan that looks that good.

Sent from my XT905 using Tapatalk

Here's my latest. I've seen a few 'tiny planet' images recently, including a nice one from Sean. A bit of Googling showed that it only took a few steps to create one, the challenge is finding the right source image. I wanted to try something a little different, turned out to be a fair bit of work.

I started with two panorama shots of Boston, from the other side of the Charles River (by the MIT campus). They were taken from the exact same spot, one at night and one during the following day. Each was a 10-shot pano at 70mm in portriat orientation (1D X, 24-70L II), although I cropped them to ~7 shots worth for this, so I could pick ends where the buildings lined up nicely. There were a few boats floating in the foreground, and I cloned those out (including the masts among the buildings). Then I converted both night and day panos into tiny planets, cleaned up the seams, pasted the day planet over the night planet, and applied a gradient layer mask.

"A Day on Planet Boston"
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5530/1...2529b2a2_c.jpg

Absolutely fantastic, John! Amazing work!

Thought I would give this thread a bump.....
http://joeleadephotography.zenfolio....29995438-4.jpg

Really nice, Joel! Is that your own texture that you used for the background? I like it a lot! Your bird shots are still the best!!

Denise

Thanks Denise.....actually it's a texture that came with the On One Suite of plugins that I recently purchased.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joel Eade

Thanks Denise.....actually it's a texture that came with the On One Suite of plugins that I recently purchased.

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It was a great choice for this shot! I have OnOne's Suite 8 although I haven't used their textures much but I probably have it in there.

I had a ton of fun with this shot. My son has always been a huge fan of batman. I decided to go all out and give him a cool batman jumping to action in gotham shot to hang on his wall. Here are the before and after. I adjusted the original image in LR and then found 3 images for the city, the metal bridge, and bat signal in commons on the internet. I added the signal glow for show. He really liked it so I am happy.
Before

http://www.alderimages.com/img/s7/v167/p353055716-4.jpg

after

http://www.alderimages.com/img/s10/v...63954504-5.jpg

Can you do one for me? ;) That is awesome.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kayaker72

Can you do one for me? ;) That is awesome.

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Only if you work as Batman. I seem to have trouble with anything else. ;) I only work in black...or really dark gray.