Using masking and a few filters

valentino · Using masking and a few filters

I started with an image that belongs to a contact of mine:

and I wanted to try something new, to me, so had a play around. Here is the guide to what I did:

1.) Mask out the pier and the rocks. I used the magic wand selecting areas and by combining the shift key and clicking it quickly masked areas out. To touch up I then used quick mask. The buildings at the end of the pier were left unmasked to help catch some of the light from the changes to be made to the sky. Once finished, feather the selection with a value of 2. This will alow for a very fine blend.

2.) Next select a primary colour. Ensure the background colour is set to white and then select an orange type colour for the primary swatch. I used f6a127 as the # value. Now create a new "fill" layer, set to gradient. It will give you a gradient based on your colours. It looks upside down and too saturated but you can alter that. I set the angle to -81.87 as it gave a nice blend over the water to the left and into the angle of the pier. On the gradient fill layer you can now adjust the fill, I set this to 30%. Play around with this, you can alter the blend modes too but here I stuck with normal. You can also edit the gradient by adjusting the scale (double click the gradient icon on the layer).

3.) Now we need to add clouds, to do this I decided to keep the rocks masked but let the pier get clouded. This gives, to me, a more natural feel as the rocks would pretty much be left unclouded if you were close, ie the camera wouldnt pick the mist at this short distance. Go into the select menu and chose to re-select, now press Q and you are in Quick Mask mode. You should see your pier and rocks are red (default quick mask colour). On the colour tab reverse black and white so you aer painting with white. Set your brush hardness to 100 and paint out the pier. You should see the red disappear and the normal colour come back. Exit quick mask (press Q again) and select/feather/2. This will just do a bit more fine blending. The more time you spend on your masking the better the result. I spent about 10 seconds....

4.) Now do a new fill layer, this time a solid colour and set the colour to white. You will now have a new layer with just the rocks. The rocks should have a subtle feather on the edges.

5.) Create the clouds by using the render clouds filter, before doing so re-select the mask (select/reselect) then Filter/Render/Clouds. You can alter the colour of the clouds by adjusting the fill layer colour, play with the background colour to get the cloud type you want. In the end I used a colour value #3a3b2a. Play with the opacity and the fill settings, I set it to 100% opacity and 31% fill and a linear burn - whilst doing this ensure your mask is still selected or you will be adjusting the rocks too! Have a play with the blending mode,

Normal will give you a subtle mist where as Linear burn will give you a more darkened mood. Play with the mixing and options until the colour of the rocks seems to blend in. Once done press Control + shift + I to invert the mask, now its time to edit the rocks.

6.) Create a new adjustment layer for levels. Adjust the slider until you are happy with the rocks. They need to be brought a little lighter to work with the darker background. I ended up using Input level settings of 0 1.00 and 153. - if you follwed my quick guide you will have the same levels curves as me, if not, play around!

7.) create a new history snap shot and save.

8.) Ensuring the mask is still selected on the rocks (if not reselect) inverse the mask so the rocks are protected (control + shift + I). Create a new levels adjustment layer - I used input levels of 0 1.17 and 195.

9.) reselect the mask and create a new adjustment layer - contrast. I set the brightness to -1 and the contrast to +17. I now felt that the gradient fill needed some playing with so I went to that layer and set the Opacity to 53%. Turning it off gave a nice result but I wanted a fairly natural but vintage feel - also the orange hue to teh clouds blends more naturally with the rocks. Reselect the mask, inverse it (ctrl + shift + I) so that the rocks are selected again.

10.) On the layers palet select the brightness/contrast layer and create a new adjustment layer - hue/saturation. De-saturate the rocks to a blend that matches the rest of the scene more closely. I set saturation to -28, hue to +1 and lightness to -4.

11.) Re-select the mask and add a new contrast adjustment layer, I adjusted only the contrast to +6.

12.) Take a new history snap shot and save.

Finished:

The above is purely a quick guide, much refinement and changes can be made but it should give a good grasp of what I quickly did. It isnt intended as a "this makes a picture better" its just something I tried at work, bored, and hopefully someone might find it useful.

Michael

uncle aj

..............and they say "The camera can't lie." Great work Mike and Happy New Year.

valentino

happy new year to you too!

Have a watch of this AJ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U - amazing stuff and goes on all the time. I love work like that but all those girls that strive for magazine perfection and yet the models are reworked heavily ;)

Holywood are in a fluster over HD movies at home as it shows every skin imperfection - GOOD!

Are you going to buy me a Casio for my birthday this year?

uncle aj

valentino

Not if you get me a talking Casio - you see that Westlands just bought the manufacturing staff at Filton? Amazing turn of events for Airbus at the minute - glad I'm out but was the best place to work

uncle aj

I would have stopped at this point

I think it's very dramatic.

PS
Did not see anything about Airbus etc. I'm well out of that area.

valentino

I like darker stuff too but felt that looked too computer sorted (not that the end result doesn't either ;))

Using similar techniques (except the cloud) here is another I turned out today, this time of my own shot..

before:

after:

If you look at tht youtube link you will see the Dove advert I mentioned. In the edit version I tried to thin her face and raise her eyebrows a little

uncle aj

You really know how to get the best out of a girl.

ABS

Yeah, I know I won't be sending you any pics of myself for editing!

Mireyna

uncle aj

uncle aj

I've tried to give her back some dignity.

valentino

You made her look like Simon Weston!

That was just some art set I did back at college. I also do nice happy pictures too. Send one over and I'll have a play

uncle aj

valentino

a 4meg file should still be good enough quality

though you might want to go to 200k so the compression masks your imperfections? ;)

uncle aj

valentino

Always with the threats of violence. I blame it on being old

uncle aj

valentino

Certainly makes getting old sound a whole lot more attractive ;)

uncle aj