High Rise Model, Pix 4

[GB1]

Here's another image - have at it. The good, the bad, the ? As before, had to do a fair amt of PPing (wah)... Wow this eats up time!

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[jetrim]

Love the pose, love the lighting, and hate that there's no separation between the model and the background - the dress blends right into the buildings beyond. Quickest fixes would be either change the dress color (color changer tool) or blur out the background (Gaussian blur or DoF tool)

[w.slayman]

I agree with Jetrim on the dress blending into the background, and think a shallow DOF wold help. Beautiful shot otherwise.

[BlueRob]

Great shot as the other one GB. I really like it.
As you can see I can`t sleep so I played a bit with you images (hope you dont mind) As Jet said the model kind of blends with the background. I adjusted a bit the levels and desaturated quickly the background to make the model stand out a little more.
If this fits with your idea on the pic and the mood you want to achieve that's another ball, hope this aids somehow to what you are looking for

[GB1]

Thks fellows, for your insights. I didn't really notice her blending in with the background so much as not separating (I guess those two are almost the same). I think if there were buildings on each side of her, 'opening up' around her (hey, Moses did it) it would be ideal. So many possibilities and so many things that have to come together to get a really, kick butt photo.

Rob, nice Idea but I think the floor has to be desaturated too. Otherwise it steals attention from her. I tried it myself (thanks to your idea) and think it has potential. Also, I post the original here also, just as a ref. Absolutely no PP work on it except resizing. As you can see it required some 'semi'-serious clean up.

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[BlueRob]

Glad to be of some help GB
I personaly like the one color/desaturated over the b&w. looks great!

BTW you did an outstanding clean up with the original file! How did you remove all the reflections in the windows???

[GB1]

Glad to be of some help GB
I personaly like the one color/desaturated over the b&w. looks great!

BTW you did an outstanding clean up with the original file! How did you remove all the reflections in the windows???

The old fashion way, mostly cloning, plus some painting. But I also make liberal use of the smudge and smear tools, usually setting their transparency to about 75-90% so it's not too obvious. Once all the cloning and paint work is done, I sometimes mask the entire edited area and apply a slight (~ 5%) smart blur.

Btw I mostly use Corel PhotoPaint, asI'm more familiar with it. I switch back and forth to Photoshop when I need some of it's stuff like the Magic Wand, though I hate PS' sharpening tool, much preferring Corel's. I also get much richer color in PS that is lost when not viewing the image in PS ... Corel's view is what I see in a browser. I am not sure why PS' color is different, but it adds another step of having to open the image in a browser to see what its color is like.

[BlueRob]

The old fashion way, mostly cloning, plus some painting. But I also make liberal use of the smudge and smear tools, usually setting their transparency to about 75-90% so it's not too obvious. Once all the cloning and paint work is done, I sometimes mask the entire edited area and apply a slight (~ 5%) smart blur.

Btw I mostly use Corel PhotoPaint, asI'm more familiar with it. I switch back and forth to Photoshop when I need some of it's stuff like the Magic Wand, though I hate PS' sharpening tool, much preferring Corel's. I also get much richer color in PS that is lost when not viewing the image in PS ... Corel's view is what I see in a browser. I am not sure why PS' color is different, but it adds another step of having to open the image in a browser to see what its color is like.

GB Outstanding PP!
Thanks for sharing you work flow, hints, and tips.

[w.slayman]

Reading about how you use all the different PP tools (layering, cloning, smudge & smear, transparency, magic wand, HDR, etc) and trying to follow what you are doing, while it works, does gives me a headache :lol: I am glad the only saturation I have to worry about is Kodak vs Fuji, smears - use the lens cleaner, sharpening turn the focus ring, and cropping done with an e-xacto or sissors, and I don't change ISO except once every 24 to 36 shots. Now that I have finished crying and dating myself GREAT WORK GB1, but to the rest of you, this dirty old man still says what buildings, glare and wall sockets, she looks fine to me. :lol:

[draymorton]

The third edit is outstanding, but I might paint on the bottle to smooth out the highlights.

[BlueRob]

The third edit is outstanding, but I might paint on the bottle to smooth out the highlights.

Good eyes Dray!...agreed on those highlights

[gahspidy]

Looks good, GB. I'm liking that last edit. Looks right. As a nit pik i think you can also remove the bit of her reflection of her left arm and shoulder on the window.
Nice work

[GB1]

Thanks for the additional comments fellows. I did see her shoulder and arm reflection in the window, was waiting for someone to comment on that .. I suppose it would be better to remove it though it does look kind of neat (?).

And yeah, maybe the champagne bottle too!

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