Need someone to look at this.

glennab · February 11, 2008, 04:36:42 PM

Candy, you're a hoot! I love puns.

It's Ms Gotta-be-different here. The flowers I can discern look like peonies (they're fuller than mums) and small calla lilies (the thin, small flower protruding from the arrangement. I don't think he's holding the flowers. Judging by his stance, I believe he's leaning with his hand on the table and the flowers are just in front of his hand and forearm.

Curtis, you're doing a fine job on a tough one. I downloaded your last iteration and duplicated the layer with about a 30% multiply blending mode, and his visage became a bit clearer. Might be worth trying that and masking the areas that are too dark.

Cheers

Glenna

Pelican · February 12, 2008, 09:52:45 PM

I've gotten a look of good input on this but I'm not sure how much better I can make it.

Glenna, that multiply layer did help a little and btw, stupidity can easily be mistaken as being brave, foolhardiness goes right along with it, but one thing I've never been afraid of is a photograph.

Anyway, heres what I have. Tell me if it needs more. :) This being my first here, I'm not sure...

Ausimax · February 12, 2008, 10:04:23 PM

Hi Curtis,

For my money it looks great, I don't see you can do much more with it, if you can't see it, you can't fix it.

The only suggestion I would make is to get rid of the light coloured artifact near the edge of his suit, not the flower stem but below that, even if it is an original article it pulls the eye straight to the area of damage and away from the subject.

Max

glennab · February 12, 2008, 10:58:44 PM

Awesome job, Curtis.

I see only 3 things that bother me: the splotches of yellow that don't seem to belong, as in the area Max mentioned and on his vest. I don't know if you could use selective color to diminish the uneven cast (i.e. remove some yellow from the whites and neutrals.). In the arched area I can see spots of obvious cloning – a few passes with the patch tool would take care of that. And I'd do a slight burn on his suit where it's gray-ish looking.

It's great to have you participating in the forum! The posts and troubleshooting are so educational. I can't wait to see your next project.

Bless!

Glenna

An afterthought: it bothers me that his eyes are so difficult to see, since he's such a handsome guy. I don't know if this would work, but do you think a very gentle burn might bring out any detail – or at least some depth? I know you didn't have much with which to work in the first place.

Pelican · February 12, 2008, 11:40:40 PM

Yes Max, I interpreted that as some hardware on a piece of luggage on the floor behind him. That I can kill, but I'm seeing that doing so brings the lower blossom to its left in as a focal point as well. I'll diminish that too I think, just a little.

Pelican · February 12, 2008, 11:55:57 PM

Quote from: glennab on February 12, 2008, 10:58:44 PM
Awesome job, Curtis.

I see only 3 things that bother me: the splotches of yellow that don't seem to belong, as in the area Max mentioned and on his vest. I don't know if you could use selective color to diminish the uneven cast (i.e. remove some yellow from the whites and neutrals.). In the arched area I can see spots of obvious cloning – a few passes with the patch tool would take care of that. And I'd do a slight burn on his suit where it's gray-ish looking.

It's great to have you participating in the forum! The posts and troubleshooting are so educational. I can't wait to see your next project.

Bless!

Glenna

An afterthought: it bothers me that his eyes are so difficult to see, since he's such a handsome guy. I don't know if this would work, but do you think a very gentle burn might bring out any detail – or at least some depth? I know you didn't have much with which to work in the first place.

The splotches you see may be due to compression in my post but as I said earlier, yellow and blue splotches have been a nightmare in this pic. The vest has a hue/sat layer to just brighten it a bit (10% opacity....more stinks) and a selective color on top that I actually named "kill Yellow".

You're right! I thought I fixed all my clone marks.

The bright spot on his suit is from the light source on his face and I have burned the daylights out of it. I can lightly clone in some suit color. It bothers me a bit too.

cmpentecost · February 12, 2008, 11:58:02 PM

Hi Pelican,

This has turned out really nice! I like how his hand, which we really don't know what he has there, blends in nicely to the rest of the photo. You've made a nice transition there so that it doesn't take away from the photo. Not being able to go back and see the original as I type this, but perhaps a subtle curves adjustment just to make him pop out of the photo a bit more? Then again, if it's the same as the original, then we want to give them back the same image. Glenna does have a good point about the eyes, but look closely at the original, and if his eyes are the same, then don't change them. It's hard sometimes when we have the skill to drastically improve an image, but yet again, our goal is to give them back what they had....with a few exceptions!

Nice work Pelican!

Christine

Pelican · February 13, 2008, 12:18:11 AM

Oh, and his eyes.

Everything is so artifacted...I drew a few lines in but I didn't want to try and interpret them. I'm a pretty good artist, but you look at what you see in the smaller view and then try to zoom in and actually draw it. The family might be left wondering who that is. Eyes are very important and even if they don't look that good, its better than wrong.

I'll try to punch them out a bit with a burn and see what happens. Not much to work with though.

Thanks! :)

Pelican · February 13, 2008, 12:40:08 AM

Quote from: cmpentecost on February 12, 2008, 11:58:02 PM
Hi Pelican,

This has turned out really nice! I like how his hand, which we really don't know what he has there, blends in nicely to the rest of the photo. You've made a nice transition there so that it doesn't take away from the photo. Not being able to go back and see the original as I type this, but perhaps a subtle curves adjustment just to make him pop out of the photo a bit more? Then again, if it's the same as the original, then we want to give them back the same image. Glenna does have a good point about the eyes, but look closely at the original, and if his eyes are the same, then don't change them. It's hard sometimes when we have the skill to drastically improve an image, but yet again, our goal is to give them back what they had....with a few exceptions!

Nice work Pelican!

Christine

Oops! Christine,

You snuck in will I was remembering to post to Glenna's after thoughts.

It does have an overall definition issue. I'll deal with it as best I can. Thanks for all the input!! :up2:

Pelican · February 13, 2008, 10:20:35 PM

Okay, I uploaded the jpg at about 4mb. If you need the psd, I've tidied it down to 76mb.

Question: Does the uploader automatically go to the right place? It just looks (as someone said) like an ftp. It won't let me look at its help files.

cmpentecost · February 13, 2008, 10:54:28 PM

Hi Pelican,

Uploading it in jpg is the best way to do it. Don't worry about file size. We can handle it....it's more a matter if your computer and internet can handle it. I know this is Jan's photo, but I just looked at photoshelter, and the upload was successful!

Great job Pelican!

Christine

Pelican · February 14, 2008, 12:14:50 AM

Thanks Christine,

Lols a little at the file size comments. My last job required cmyk tiff's or the printer found them useless. It was a burden on my memory and the archives need to be purged, really bad! :knuppel:

Looking for a new picture...:)

cmpentecost · February 14, 2008, 12:24:02 AM

I know that the ultimate best photo would be printed totally uncompressed, etc. I wish we could do that, but we have limited resources and man/woman power to do that. As someone who does a lot of photography and prints out a lot of photos, I'm quite particular on the quality and coloring of a photo. However, as some of my family and friends have said, I see twice as much as they do. I spend hours a day at this stuff, yet my friends who use Point and Shoot cameras think the 1-hour processing of photos are perfect. What is the saying..."beauty is in the eye of the beholder"?

I really appreciate your insight into this Pelican. That's what makes a great artist! Thanks so much!

Christine

Pelican · February 14, 2008, 07:40:04 AM

You're welcome

Sad thing is, I was doing pics for an industrial catalog.

I think that a couple of years ago, someone said, "Hey, let's try printing a jpg." History was made and life is a whole lot simpler now.

My family photos may be bmp's from scan to print but thats just me. :loveit:

C

schen · February 14, 2008, 08:38:27 AM

The core of JPEG compression algorithm is the "perceptual encoding" that eliminates the minute variations NOT perceivable by human being. There are people who believe "beauty is in the pixel resolution". Well, Arizona Highways Magazine finally gave in and accepts submission of digital photo. But they have to be 5400x3600 or higher resolution in lossless compression TIFF format.

Having say that, I store my family photos in 3,872 x 2,592 RAW format. :-[