hi ya'all! here's the original photo for the one i have in my gallery right now. i really took a bad picture...blown out highlights everywhere. so i decided to just go with it and blow out the whole image and see what happened. several people said the tones i chose for the final image in my gallery didn't look right or something didn't look quite right with that image, so i wondered if any other these others perhaps were more appealing to your eyes. your suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated! here's the original photo.

alright, here's the next step. i played with the highlights, shadows, brightness & contrast a LOT...can't remember everything i did. Ray recommended changing it to b/w and reducing the opacity. i wonder, Ray, if this is what you mean. will you show me? :)

Message edited on: 10/06/2005 11:19

then i made some more adjustments...

finally, i took the above image and layered it with the original image, played around with those two layers a bit, and then i cloned out some of Pam's freckles on her chest and those patches of b/w in the background. as much as i liked this b/w version, i decided i liked the colorized version my gallery better. a few people said it looked kinda odd. dunno. and someone said the image just looks a bit strange in general. i guess it does. i'm not very good when it comes to the postwork stage. i guess it takes a lot of practice. so any suggestions you have sure would be appreciated! thanks guys!!! :)

I like stage too the best, with maybe a hint of stage 1. The final looks a bit sickly with that yellow and the darkness around her eyes. But either of those first two work for me. The first is maybe just a little TOO hi-key.

ah...so the yellow tones make them look sickly. ok. THANKS, Kort! Yeah, i didn't care for those tones either...changed them to a darker brown in the gallery version, but perhaps that's what people don't like about it. Thanks a bunch for your input!!! my preference was #2...the one you said was too hi-key. LOL! Kemal said the same thing you did about #2, so i kept working with it.

Oops, my bad. I forgot about the color one at the top. I meant I liked it somewhere between 2 & 3, leaning towards 3. :) ZOON!

Oops, my bad. I forgot about the color one at the top. I meant I liked it somewhere between 2 & 3, leaning towards 3. :) ZOON!

Here is a version I came up with using my IR technique.

Awesome work.

thanks for clarifying, Kort! thanks for showing me your version, Kort. i see where you added more detail to Pam's hair. i like that part of it. i might see if i can add in more detail to her hair. will have to wait...going to visit friends soon. thanks for showing me!!! :)

I had a go at it Sheila! Hope u don't mind! I was bored so I even tried to put her eye back in the picture!! O_o Not sure I've really succeeded there since I don't really know how she looks like normally so it was kind of a guess to locate her eye under the hair!! Anyway, here's my attempt! :)

Nice work Pascalou, though the leftmost eye is perhaps a bit too pronounced now. ;oP

oooooh, looks FABULOUS, Pasale!!!!! You did a WONDERFUL job!!!!

yeah, you definitely succeeded on her eye!!!! awesome work girl!!!

now, do you mind to tell me how you achieved the look you did with this image? i really like it, and it'll help me learn if i know what you did!!!! :)

Oh, BTW, i sent Pam a small resolution of each of the versions i did of this particular image and asked her which one she liked the best. several of the versions were still not finished, but i told her if she like an incompleted one, i'd finish it.

anyway, she asked me if i would finish ALL of them and for a copy of EACH ONE!!! LOL!

thanks again, Pascale!!! :) edit: crossed with you, Kort. yeah...agree about that eye.

Message edited on: 10/07/2005 11:02

Oh my!!! Mmmmh!! Let me think...... I first adjusted the exposure by a few stops. then I converted to black and white. then I played with contrast. I really can't remember the exact steps though!! So silly of me, I should have write it down as I went along!! But I didn't know if u would like it or not and since usually u don't, I just didn't bother remembering the steps!! Crap!! :( I know it took me a while to get that result though! That image gave me a hard time!!! Jeez!! O_o

Oh yes, I added a soft filter too and I did a selective sharpening as well!

very difficult shot to bring out.. going high key does take out the distracting tree limb, backlighting & greenish cast.. i do like pascale's version

had a go at it with more of an extreme crop :/

Message edited on: 10/07/2005 12:33

LOL @ you Pascale!! You're so silly! Yeah, i really so much of what you did with that! Jimmy (grrrrduhbear) sent me a version of it in my email and told me step by step how how fixed her eye, so i will definitely give it a try!!! i like having her other eye visible! sounds like what you did is exactly what i was doing. i played with this one for hours...trying to get it just the way i liked it. Like you said, Pascale, it's a hard image to work with. It was such a crappy image i took...so not easy! where did you do the selective sharpening? Sandra's eyes? oh...you said i don't usually like how you work with my images. i don't????? :( i'm sorry. You're a helluva an artist and photographer, Pascale...you KNOW how much i love your images!!!! i have very unusual tastes and preferences though, and i always have this idea in my head how i want my images to look...sometimes i just have a hard time explaining that or getting that across. anyway, i do like that softening filter you used. i like to soften images too. i use Gausian blur a lot. Is that what you used? Thanks for telling me whatever you can remember!!!!!! I sure do appreciate you taking the time!!! Cindy, i like how you cropped the left and right, but i don't care for Pam's head cut off on the top. dunno why, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I see that done all the time at Photo-Sig, and sometimes i like it, but for some reason i don't care for it here. can't tell you why though. i might try cropping the right and left and leaving the top and see how it looks. i know it makes no sense to do it like that, but what the H__L...can't hurt to try, huh! Thanks so much Cindy for your input and for showing me another way! I'll do more playing with this one! Pam will have so many versions of this it won't be funny!!! :) Sure do appreciate all your help guys!!! :)

The soft filter is just called "soft filter" Sheila! I think I used it at 50% but it might have been 40%! O_o sigh The selective sharpening, well, on them both. I know I could have just applied it all over since the background is totally white but I always do a selective sharpening even in such cases in order to keep the image under 200kb. Other than that....Mmmmmh! That's it. Happy to be of some help for once! ;P