Can you make this image better?

[Lara]

Hi guys,

I've got a little request for anyone interested. First, you need to know that I'm photography impaired

I mentioned to Trevor that I'd like to see if any of you would be interested in playing with this image of my grand daughter. What I'm looking for is anyone interested's effort to enhace the picture and improve it. I'd like to see it sharpened, the background changed if that's possible. Actually anything you'd like to do to experiment with the photo is fine with me. Just keep Abbie looking like Abbie

Trevor mentioned to me to be sure to ask you to post your enhanced photo back to the thread.

Thanks for reading and viewing my photo.
Lara

[E.T.]

Abbie is BEAUTIFUL Lara!

This is a good topic for me to learn from also.
I have yet to purchase an image editing program for photos.

[Pose]

Not sure if I made it better, or worse...but here's what I managed to do in a few minutes:


I'm open for suggestions/requests..and I'll work on the background/matte and such when I get home tonight.

-Jared.

[Lara]

Nice Jared! I think it would be awesome if people posted what they did to create the different effects. Someone like me can learn a lot from it.

I like the sharper look. Very nice! What color tone would your rendition be called?

Thank you.

[Peter_AUS]

the other one you asked about would be edging on Sepia tones.


If you use Photoshop and use the extract tool you can take someone out of a picture and then put it over the top of a new background. I just picked a neutral colour as the background.

[Pose]

Hey, glad you liked it, my main dislike about what I did is taking away those pretty blue eyes.

Basically to get the effects I made using Photoshop 7:

After opening the picture, go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate(make it grayscale/B&W),
next open up the Hue&Saturation window (Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation)..
Select 'Colorize' in the Hue/Saturation window, and slide the Hue bar over to about 20.
Next you'll want to crop a little, draw more attention to her..and cut out some of the background to the right.
After the crop, I selected the Blur tool- soft brush, size 65, and set it to 50% power.
Now you'll want to go over the background to give it the 'out-of-focus' look, to keep the attention on her.

For the matte.

You'll want to double click on the original picture/layer in the Layers Palette and rename it to 'Layer 1" so that it isnt the 'background' anymore.
Duplicate Layer 1 (Layer>Duplicate).
Select the new layer in the Layers Palette.
Next go to Image>Canvas Size and add one inch to both Width and Height (at this time, the picture should be bordered with a grey/white checkerboard pattern).
Make a new layer (Layer>New>Layer).Name it 'Layer 2' and make sure it is above all of the rest in the Layers Palette.
Now, hold down CTRL and click on the original/Layer 1.
Select>Inverse.
Edit>Fill>White.
Make a new layer (Layer>New>Layer) Name it Layer 3.
Select>Modify>Contract.
Contract by 3-6 pixels.
Select any color as your foreground color.
Edit>Fill>Foreground Color.
Filter>Texture>Texturizer.
Set the scaling to the lowest (50%) and the Relief to whatever you feel looks best (3-10 works nicely).
CTRL+D to deselect.
Annd..you should be finished.

[Lara]

Thanks Peter and Jared!

Jared, I like the sepia tones, but do miss the baby blues Thank you for the step by step! I have photoshop, which I use for work, but basically only to resize images. I have no idea how to use most of the features and this is great info.

Peter, thanks for the lesson in the background. I see an outline around Abbie and not quite sure why it's there. Is that to blend the image to fit the background?

[Peter_AUS]

Lara it was more to show you where I lifted Abbie from the image, you can get rid of that, I added it using some drop shadow effect to it. When extracting part of an image from the background you have to be careful with your selection as the edges can loose a little detail, especially hair.

Play with the extraction tool a bit and see what you come up with. Being the image was low resolution makes it a little harder to do much with images.

Make sure that you save the image a sRGB profile as that is the standard for web photos etc, at times images look totally different from within the editing software to what it is when saved for the web. Myself only found that out recently and I, as you know, am pretty computer literate and fairly confident now with Photoshop.

[Lara]

Thanks Peter, I wasn't sure of what I was seeing there. I understand.

[natatbeach]

here's my first attempt (i'm still playing) Nothing fancy...just a quick one

basics-

Filters --unsharp mask
-- diffuse glow---> increase grain
reduce brightness---> increase contrast

select magnetic tool --->desaturate background----> airbrush using different blues selected with eyedropper from hat .soften edges on face hat and shirt.

[Lara]

Ohh, I like this Nat! Thank you for taking the time to experiment.

I thought it was pretty much not interesting enough for too many people to give it a try. I'm so glad you gave me some tips. I appreciate you coming in and offered your view.
I appreciate Jared and Peter's as well

BTW, I love your featured photo "with" your face You're photos are awesome!

[slau]

I hope Grandma would like this one:

[slau]

Here is one without frame:

[Lara]

Grandma (actually Nana )is thrilled! Awesome Slau Thanks so much!

[slau]

One more in watercolor:

[Trevor Ash]

Hi Lara, I finally got around to looking at the photo for about 20 minutes. I didn't think that too much should be edited or changed. I wanted to make sure that she looked like "her" and that the photo didn't lose it's original charm. I agree with you about the background so replacing it with something else was my single priority. I honestly didn't do much else with it except things which would enhance the eyes slightly, but naturally. I'll keep the photoshop version of this around for a bit just in case you have use for it. I chose the background color based on her clothing (which I think will further enhance her eyes). I do wish that her hat didn't have all those colored flower things in it. If there were one additioal thing I'd fix it would be the extra distracting colors in her hat.

I hope you like this one as well. It's great to see everyone else's work because they all did such a great job!!!

[Pose]

Wow, those are some nice images.
I like how you've composed the background[s] of colors already in the original image to enhance the clarity of the picture, gives her a nice glow. I've learned a lot from this thread.

[Lara]

Aww, thank you Trevor! Your enhancements are wonderful. Since the hat has a pattern behind the flowers, what would be the technique to fix or remove them?

slau, the water color is a very interesting medium! I've got to learn how to use the controls for Photoshop! Since I like to draw with pastels, the watercolor idea looks like fun. I like the image, but would I be able to add some sort of highlight to her eyes, and lighten up her teeth?

Again, thank you to everyone who has been taking the time to work on this project. It's very exciting for me!

[slau]

Hi Nana!
Maybe this watercolor on canvas is slightly better. I have added a little pupil white to the eyes.

[natatbeach]

read trevor's post and "took out" (cloned) some of the flowers in the hat same as last but different color scheme...having problems again with my monitor doing freakky things...sorry if she ends up with wild colors...just doing stuff based on how it looked on mine...

the watercolor filter is fun...I had a very similar pic of my daughter(posted it below) and I waterolored it and this is what it looked like---took a way blurry pic and somewhat salvaged it

[slau]

A wallpaper for Nana.
I started learning retouching photos and scanning not too long ago. All comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome! I learned an aweful lot from forums like this one in the past couple of weeks.

[slau]

Wow, those are some nice images.
I like how you've composed the background[s] of colors already in the original image to enhance the clarity of the picture, gives her a nice glow. I've learned a lot from this thread.

Here is a little trick I learned recently from another discussion forum (a Chinese forum) to add a nice glow to the face and skin, assuming you are using Photoshop:

1. Duplicate the background layer.
2. Select only the duplicated layer to work on. Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur. Set Radius to 5 (or try other values).
3. Within the Layers palette in the lefthand dropdown menu, change "normal" (default) to either "overlay" or "softlight". Also change the opacity value (right hand dropdown menu) to between 50% and 75%.
4. Merge the two layers together. That's all and have fun.
Note: Of course the value settings mentioned above are not carved in stone. Experiment to get the best results.

[Lara]

You guys are the greatest. What an awesome idea for my desktop!! Thank you slau.

Nat, thanks so much for the hat cloning lesson and for sharing the image of your daughter. She's so adorable. Looks a lot like you

[Lara]

How do I begin to learn even the basics of Photoshop? I have the program but as mentioned before I've only used it to change image size for product shots. I would like to be able to use PS for photo editing, like the people who have so kindly shown me different techniques in this thread.
Is there a basic book on Photoshop? "Photoshop for Dummies? " I have used the help option, but find it confusing.

[Pose]

Have a Barnes & Noble near by? They have atleast 20 easy-to-follow Photoshop books in their Computing area.
The way I got started was to open a random picture, apply a filter, undo it, apply a different etc. until I found the ones I liked.