Amateur photo editing
Aug. 9th, 2013 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breakinglight11Made a graphic that I would like to use for the planned Mrs. Hawking website. I am by no means an expert with photography, Adobe Photoshop elements, or anything even vaguely related to the process (I pose for pictures, I'm no rock star at dealing with them otherwise.)
Take a look at it before I tell you anything about it.
I used a picture taken in the Mrs. Hawking photoshoot I did a while ago. I combined it with a stock, free-for-use background I found on DeviantArt. I faced a myriad of different challenges, especially since I'm only passingly familiar with Adobe Photoshop Elements. The picture of the ladies was not nearly so sharp and crisp an image as that of the background (which may be entirely digital, I'm not sure. The environment, designed to look like nighttime, had a darker light quality than the ladies. Also, the ladies were shot against a blue wall, and I needed a transparent image. And finally, weirdest of all, the best shot of the two was framed such that the very top of Charlotte's head was cut off. So she had a very strange-looking flat spot.
A selector tool, the Magic Wand I think, was very effective at getting rid of most of the blue wall. But I had to be very delicate in some places so the girls themselves were not selected. And it left a little ring of color around them. which I had a very hard time getting rid of. I succeeded it at least darkening it to fit the environment's lighting and palette, if not removing it completely. To fix poor Charlotte's head, I used the burn tool, of all things, to use its darkening effect to just color in the last little bit that was needed. And finally, I wanted their faces to be illuminated even while preserving the appearance of nighttime, preferably seeming to be by the lamps. So I flipped the background image to put the gaslamps on the proper side of their faces, and spent like an hour messing with the ambient lighting effect.
I put a bit more light on Charlotte's face. I also, somewhat clumsily, used the dodge tool to brighten up the knife in Frances's hands. But it's not bad, especially given how inexperienced I am.
I need to get better with this program, among others. I'll need it for making this website.
Take a look at it before I tell you anything about it.
I used a picture taken in the Mrs. Hawking photoshoot I did a while ago. I combined it with a stock, free-for-use background I found on DeviantArt. I faced a myriad of different challenges, especially since I'm only passingly familiar with Adobe Photoshop Elements. The picture of the ladies was not nearly so sharp and crisp an image as that of the background (which may be entirely digital, I'm not sure. The environment, designed to look like nighttime, had a darker light quality than the ladies. Also, the ladies were shot against a blue wall, and I needed a transparent image. And finally, weirdest of all, the best shot of the two was framed such that the very top of Charlotte's head was cut off. So she had a very strange-looking flat spot.
A selector tool, the Magic Wand I think, was very effective at getting rid of most of the blue wall. But I had to be very delicate in some places so the girls themselves were not selected. And it left a little ring of color around them. which I had a very hard time getting rid of. I succeeded it at least darkening it to fit the environment's lighting and palette, if not removing it completely. To fix poor Charlotte's head, I used the burn tool, of all things, to use its darkening effect to just color in the last little bit that was needed. And finally, I wanted their faces to be illuminated even while preserving the appearance of nighttime, preferably seeming to be by the lamps. So I flipped the background image to put the gaslamps on the proper side of their faces, and spent like an hour messing with the ambient lighting effect.
I put a bit more light on Charlotte's face. I also, somewhat clumsily, used the dodge tool to brighten up the knife in Frances's hands. But it's not bad, especially given how inexperienced I am.
I need to get better with this program, among others. I'll need it for making this website.
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Date: 2013-08-09 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-09 03:04 pm (UTC)