Kiss a frog ,see what happens

[mikemeister_admin]

A picture ,by a friend ,that could use a bit of help.GregM

[Chris Nicola]

I found this picture an interesing challenge. At first I thought it was a nearly imposible task to make it look graphicaly interesting. I am now starting to appreciate the great power of curves. I decided to tweak in lab colour to increase the contrast and darken the shadows around the edges to get a vignetting effect and boost the satuation to get a surreal look with the sky showing in the water. I'm having great fun

Kind Regards

Chris Nicola

Guest for the week

[leeharper_admin]

Wow - this one's tricky!

The frog is very close to neutral in the original, and the leaves at top-left lack definition. I've managed to get more detail into the leaves, and my frog is a better colour. I found it hard to decide what to do with the water and algae. I've tweaked the colour of both a bit, and pushed the saturation a little.

Here's what I did:

• To get some colour into the frog, I applied Channel Mixer to the Green channel - R: 0, G: +130, B: -30


• Then in preparation for my next move, I applied an Exposure adjustment (Image > Adjustments > Exposure...), moving the 'Gamma Correction' slider to 3.00


• I then changed the image mode to Lab. Duplicated the background layer, and set the duplicate layer to the Multiply blend mode.


• Now into CurveMeister, and into Lab curves. I set highlight and shadow points, and made slight colour adjustments.


• Again in CurveMeister, into RGB today. Small adjustments to make the frog a little browner in places, and to make the algae look more interesting.*


• A slight 'Shadow/Highlight...' adjustment - Shadows: 18/25/30 Highlights: 6/26/30


• I finished by resizing the image, and applying a touch of sharpening.

*Both curve files are attached.

I wanted to make the image evoke a Monet painting, without overdoing it...

Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

Yes,I was going to call this "Show me the Monet!"GregM

[ggroess]

This is so fun to watch...

I have my solution working...but I need to write it up a bit first....
More later today...
Greg

[ggroess]

I found this picture an interesing challenge. At first I thought it was a nearly imposible task to make it look graphicaly interesting. I am now starting to appreciate the great power of curves.

I'm having great fun

Chris,
I'm really glad you stuck your nose into the class.  If you know anyone interested on the PSE group site send them over before Sunday...

The "power" of curves is very much what this is about.  There are so many coarse tools in PS and PSE that I no longer even use..."Levels"...Pssft..."Variations"...Pssft....Saturation and brightness...Psssft...

Are curve the answer to everything...NO  but they sure make fast work of some of the most difficult problems..Especially when you know how to combine them with other adjustments and tools.

Keep having fun...please...We love it when that happens...
Greg

[ggroess]

Ok...
First....
I applied the shadow highlight adjustment from PS with the highlights and mid tones set to 0 This brought the shadow areas back into someplace where I could work with them.

Here is what I tried to do...I looked over the image and found that the colors; while present did not have enough variation or color contrast.  So I created 2 separate masks from the L channel in CM one for the Greens and one for the Blues.  With each mask I made changes and applied.  To make the blue better I used a contrast pin on the blue channel of RGB.  For the greens I used a combination of the mask and a adjustment to A and B in LAB along with a tweak to the L channel. 

So...
Step by Step...

1) Shadow Highlight in PS (Shadow-highlight 1st.jpg)

2) L channel mask for the blues in the image. (L channel Mask.jpg)

3) Contrast Pin for Blue channel. Three steps.  This brightened the color in the sky and added depth to the reflection. 
a.create the contrast pin.
b.adjust the contrast pin.
c.move the entire curve with the arrow keys.
(Contrast Pin 1-3.jpg)

More in the next post.
Greg

[ggroess]

Continued...

4) Apply the first set of curves to the image and then re-open in CM.

5) Create a new L channel mask and invert it so that the greens are able to be adjusted. 

6) In order to get the green I wanted I had to adjust the end points of both the A and B curves in LAB.  Then I adjusted the L Channel to enhance the contrast for just the green.  I chose this method rather than fight with the curves to get the green I wanted.  Everything else I did caused the green to be too cyan. 

7) Final Image

Greg

[ggroess]

Upon further review and cropping...

Greg

[imported_BoydMac]

I just set dark and light points and the adjusted the lightness curve to try and increase the contrast in the region of the frog and then boosted the saturation.  BoydMac