Pretzel's Snack-A-Day (365 for 2014)

T

Tom Grove

Senior Member
Pretzel said:
It's really quite easy. TEDIOUS, but easy. It's a two shot photo from a tripod. 1 with just the scene, one with my son sitting on the couch and a towel over his head/shoulder. Sent both to PS, layered the pic of my son on top of the one without and carefully erased the boy, along with all other incidental evidence. There's no auto-mask in PS, so I attacked it in numerous small section, using a feathered adjustment brush, then made sure to catch everything else as well, like the squished pillow that he was sitting on, his reflection in the water bottle, etc. Then I sent it over to Perfect Effects 8, where I can add effects by way of layers there as well, and did some small things. The original blended pic, after erasing my son, was kind of flat... First, I applied a very minimal blur to the whole pic, then used the adjustment brush to remove the effect from just the towel (adding a bit more DOF feel). Then in another layer, I went over just the towel with the "detail" brush to make it stand out even further. For the original blurred pic, I added in another adjustment brush with a stronger blur, trying to add to the feel that there was actually someone unseen there. Again, no auto-masks in those tools, so just a tiny bit at a time so mistake corrections didn't mess up ALL the work.

edit: HINDSIGHT - could have blurred the original "scene" pic a bit before putting the "towel" pic on the top, and saved a lot of time creating the extra DOF feel mentioned above. SEE, I'm still learning!

By then, as you can see from the time stamp on my posts, it was after midnight, and I was spent.



Thanks, Jake, for the kind words and the edit. That was much closer to what I was hoping for, but the burn tool and I just don't get along. I used the spot adjustment brush in LR, trying to just lower the exposure in certain areas under the towel (to get that same shadowy feel), but my eyes were so tired by then, I was just adding to the frustration. Hindsight shows that my initial blur was a bit strong, and I could have corrected that in PE8 by just lowering the effect a bit, but like the thought of being able to save, layer, and fix that way too. NICE EDIT!

And yes, freehand adjustments around that towel... DEFINITE PITA!


I want to mess with this idea a little more, maybe with a thinner sheet, or a damp something or other, that will allow me to show a little bit more of the facial features. I think it would be cool to get the feel of a brow line and nose, maybe an open "screaming" mouth under the fabric, but ya never know where to go until you take that first step! It was fun AND educational, and I'll be back on it soon!!

edit: Brain's working now... it would also be cool to try a 3 shot mix, perhaps. 1 with the scene, 1 with the stationary person and the towel/blanket, 1 long exposure with the person standing there rocking back and forth a bit to get that motion blur/almost invisible feel and layer it in so there's a stronger "ghostly presence" under the towel? So many things to think about!
Click to expand...

That's really cool... I love the idea of the rocking "ghost" effect. A long exposure of someone rocking would be awesome.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Pretzel said:
Thanks, Jake, for the kind words and the edit. That was much closer to what I was hoping for, but the burn tool and I just don't get along. I used the spot adjustment brush in LR, trying to just lower the exposure in certain areas under the towel (to get that same shadowy feel), but my eyes were so tired by then, I was just adding to the frustration. Hindsight shows that my initial blur was a bit strong, and I could have corrected that in PE8 by just lowering the effect a bit, but like the thought of being able to save, layer, and fix that way too. NICE EDIT!

And yes, freehand adjustments around that towel... DEFINITE PITA!


I want to mess with this idea a little more, maybe with a thinner sheet, or a damp something or other, that will allow me to show a little bit more of the facial features. I think it would be cool to get the feel of a brow line and nose, maybe an open "screaming" mouth under the fabric, but ya never know where to go until you take that first step! It was fun AND educational, and I'll be back on it soon!!

edit: Brain's working now... it would also be cool to try a 3 shot mix, perhaps. 1 with the scene, 1 with the stationary person and the towel/blanket, 1 long exposure with the person standing there rocking back and forth a bit to get that motion blur/almost invisible feel and layer it in so there's a stronger "ghostly presence" under the towel? So many things to think about!
Click to expand...

Ghostly presence could be cool. Get him rocking and it's going to be tough to get the right mix of movement and fixed stuff. I'm thinking... Shot 1: Get the guy in the towel that you can use for the stationary towel. Shot 2: Get the guy in the towel to sit still for 2/3 a long exposure and then stand up for the last 1/3, blurring him slightly. Shot 3: Empty chair. Mix and blend.
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 198 - Around the house, a delving into abstract

Brushing up on seeing art in simple things...

Day198-2.jpg


Shakin' up the routine...

Day198-1.jpg


...until I'm persuaded to smile by some hidden sight, now seen.

Day198-3.jpg
 
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P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 199 - After the Rain

Something BDH said about blending a good B&W with a good Color got me to thinking a bit, and I had this shot from yesterday for my 365... so I did it. Created the color version I like the best, created another B&W that I loved, blended the two.

May not have been ALL he discussed, but that's the part that stuck out to me. ;)

From this -

Day199-3.jpg


to this -

Day199.jpg


Then I cropped a bit more, isolated the bloom, and came up with my next 5x5 print... :)

Day199-2.jpg


Thanks, @BackdoorHippie for inspiring me to yet again stretch my boundaries a bit!
 
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P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 200 - Random shots from an hour of meandering...

Love when I just get to wander and shoot whatever I see!

1st, some odd art in the mouth of an alley way. I work for attention and Facebook likes?

Day200-1.jpg


Down another alley, just around the bend.

Day200-2.jpg


"Taking a break."

Day200-3.jpg
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 200 - Part 2, continued wanderings...

For the record, no these probably aren't posted in chronological order. :)

1st, from a sculpture near Tulsa's famous "Center of the Universe". I call this one "Stand Out"

Day200-4.jpg


A close-up of the same scene, titled "Unity"

Day200-6.jpg


Shot a pic of this guy after he gave me a scare by trying to land on my face. This was a much better place for him to land, trust me!

Day200-5.jpg


Then, on the way out of the downtown area, we spotted something that warranted a quick stop and snap. It's apparently a regularly driven car, as I took the time to edit out all the bugs. ;)

Day200-7.jpg
 
B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Congratulations on making it to day 200 on your 365 project.
I'm going to get out my calculator and figure out how many days you have left.:excitement:
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Pretzel said:
Day 200 - Random shots from an hour of meandering...

Love when I just get to wander and shoot whatever I see!

1st, some odd art in the mouth of an alley way. I work for attention and Facebook likes?

View attachment 101836

Down another alley, just around the bend.

View attachment 101837

"Taking a break."

View attachment 101838
Click to expand...

I can't tell for sure about the top, but I suspect the 2nd and 3rd shot here use B&W blend layers again? Nicely done. It's a great way to boost lines and textures without getting over the top HDR looks or oversaturations.
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 201 - Ugh...

So... I was messing with an idea. Instead of multiple shots and focal stacking, I just took two shots. 1 focused on the left bloom, 1 on the right. Cut the bloom out of each, and copied it, by itself, to a new layer with just a black background. Then was trying to mess with resizing (which I failed at, as it always went freeform instead of keeping perspective) and re-aligning them (which I found PS does fairly easy with a "SNAP"). I got tired of messing, not getting anywhere near what I wanted to learn or end up with, so ended up with this and called it quits. Sunny side up? Blah...

Day201.jpg
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 202 - *sigh* I just don't have it today, either. This pic was taken on the run, but I lost the oil well pump in the background. I fiddled for a bit trying to separate it back out and get something decent... You get this. I think I'm just too frustrated with my editing fail from earlier to mess with this one much. Gonna try to clear my mind and reset tomorrow.

Day202.jpg
 
Vixen

Vixen

Senior Member
I find editing frustrating also. It's easier to try to get the photo right in the first place but of course that doesn't always happen either :D

I dunno. I think the oil well photo is OK. Selective colour brings it out of the background nicely :D
 
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