# Creative post-processing – before & after



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

I thought it might be fun to start a thread on creatively post-processed images, shots that are clearly 'photoshopped'. The idea is to at least show the before and after versions, and if you're willing to share the details, an outline of the processing steps to go from the original to the final image.

I'll start the thread off with a few examples, with the processing details for some of them...



This is Boston Light, on Little Brewster Island in the Boston harbor. The only way to get to shots of the lighthouse in 'good light' (sunrise, sunset) is to have your own boat; the tours go out in the middle of the day. This shot was taken from the tour boat on the return trip, at about 4pm on a hot summer day (~90 °F) with a hazy sky - not particularly good light. 






EOS 1D X, EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM @ 300mm, 1/250 s, f/16, ISO 100

In CS6:

Duplicated image in new layer
Filter Gallery > Glowing Edges (width 5, brightness 10, smoothness 6)
Blended layer as Vivid Light (100% opacity, 50% fill)
Magic wand selection of sky (tolerance = 20, anti-alias and contiguous)
Filter menu > Blur > Gaussian blur (radius = 20.0)
Cropped image (remove about half of water at bottom and and a bit of sky at top)
Saved as JPG
In the LensFlares app for Mac OS X:

Added Polaris flare (decrease brightness by ~50%, increase scale by ~50% and adjust rotation)
Added Gamma Rays flare (decrease brightness by ~80%, adjust aspect ratio ~50% rightward)

Here's the result:


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

I've seen a few 'tiny planet' images, and a bit of Googling showed that it only took a few steps to create one, the challenge is finding the right source image. I wanted to try something a little different, turned out to be a fair bit of work. 

I started with two panorama shots of Boston, from the north bank of the Charles River by the MIT campus. They were taken from the exact same spot, one at night and one during the following day. Each was a 10-shot pano at 70mm in portriat orientation (1D X, 24-70L II), although I cropped them to ~7 shots worth for this, so I could pick ends where the buildings lined up nicely. There were a few boats floating in the foreground, and I cloned those out (including the masts among the buildings). Then I converted both night and day panos into tiny planets, cleaned up the seams, pasted the day planet over the night planet, and applied a gradient layer mask.

Here are a couple of the pano source images and the two assembled pano shots:





This is the result:

_"A Day on Planet Boston"_


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

This was a pretty simple one, starting with a couple shots from close to home, taken on a cold morning just after a snowstorm. I used the 1D X + 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM, with one shot near the wide end and the other near the tele end. 






In CS6, I warmed the images up a bit, then selected successively smaller sections of the images starting with two from the wider shot then the rest from the longer shot, then overlaid them in layers with an Outer Glow effect (black, 75% opacity, softer), to create this:

"_Fractals_"


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

There's an Audubon sanctuary near me that's also a working farm. Took a some shots of their chickens, and was making eggs the next morning...that got me to thinking...and these:






...became this:

"_Which Came First?_"


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

Fall foliage season in New England is wrapping up, but here's a seasonal effort. Lots of steps in this one, a Google search for 'glass globes in photoshop' will serve up the process.





EOS 1D X, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/500 s, f/4.5, ISO 160

"_Fall is Here_"


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

Another fairly simple one, combining an image 'Little Venice' in Colmar, France taken in August of last year with a shot of the supermoon eclipse taken following month from my back yard. Darkened the sky of the first shot, then layered on the moon twice, with second shot inverted for a reflection, then masked out the appropriate areas to blend the images.

"_La Petite Venise_"



EOS 1D X, TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II, 2.5 s, f/11, ISO 100

"_Blood Moon_"



EOS 1D X, EF 600mm f/4L IS II + EF 2x III Extender, 0.5 s, f/8, ISO 6400

"_Blood Moon over Little Venice_"


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

I ran across an image in my library of a common merganser coming in for a landing at the mouth of the Merrimack River, and decided to have a play with it.





EOS 1D X, EF 600mm f/4L IS II + EF 2x III Extender, 1/500 s s, f/8, ISO 1600

Did some stretching and twirling of the water in PS, then blended the bird back in:

"_Surfing Merganser_"


----------



## cid (Nov 18, 2016)

I like those  
Sadly some photos are not visible


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 18, 2016)

cid said:


> Sadly some photos are not visible



Oops, sorry! Hopefully fixed now...


----------



## lion rock (Nov 18, 2016)

Nice.
Creative, too.
-r


----------



## Click (Nov 18, 2016)

Cool pictures. I really like the Merganser.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Nov 19, 2016)

Thanks, all! 

Looking forward to some examples from others...


----------



## MrFotoFool (Dec 2, 2016)

Some photos are still not visible. Most notably, I can see little Venice and I can see blood moon, but cannot see the combined image.


----------



## bluemoon (Dec 2, 2016)

this one needed a lot of clean up and blurring.

pierre


----------



## MrFotoFool (Dec 5, 2016)

Photoshop Elements with Nik plugins.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 5, 2016)

MrFotoFool said:


> Photoshop Elements with Nik plugins.




Nice!


----------



## Jack Douglas (Dec 5, 2016)

Neuro, poor me trying to learn the basics. Your photos make me almost feel like giving up ...... but I'll use them as inspiration!  Quite intriguing.

Jack


----------



## privatebydesign (Dec 7, 2016)

Here's one of mine.

It isn't finished yet but is close enough.

The edit consists of 164 different images with the 'best' bits taken from each using a variety of blending modes, masks, and further masks on groups. There are only half a dozen curves and hue saturation layers in amongst it all and the rest is very basic just repetitive.

The image was shot with a 1Ds MkIII and 11-24 @ 11mm f9 for 10 seconds at 100iso. I used one 600-EX-RT and an ST-E3-RT along with an iPhone and CamRanger. The pool doesn't have working lights so that was faked with a blue gel.


----------



## Jack Douglas (Dec 7, 2016)

Scott, you've lost me - why the dark night photo to begin with?

Jack


----------



## Hector1970 (Dec 7, 2016)

Thanks for starting this thread. I'll post something before and after later. Does anyone do Sean Archer / 500px style portraits. I'd be interested to see a before and after shot of that type of work and roughly what's involved.


----------



## gruhl28 (Dec 7, 2016)

Very nice, Neuro. I still can't see the images for the "pretty simple one", though, or the source images for the Planet Boston, chicken and egg, fall foliage globe, or merganser.

I especially like the chicken and egg, the globe, and the merganser. Too often the results of creative post-processing just aren't attractive or appealing, at least to me - these look fantastic.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Dec 7, 2016)

gruhl28 said:


> Very nice, Neuro. I still can't see the images for the "pretty simple one", though, or the source images for the Planet Boston, chicken and egg, fall foliage globe, or merganser.
> 
> I especially like the chicken and egg, the globe, and the merganser. Too often the results of creative post-processing just aren't attractive or appealing, at least to me - these look fantastic.



Really odd, they're hosted on Google Photos. Seems Google is mucking something up...I fix them so I can see them (starting with a clear cache) and a few days later, they're gone again. Time to find a new image host...


----------



## privatebydesign (Dec 7, 2016)

Jack Douglas said:


> Scott, you've lost me - why the dark night photo to begin with?
> 
> Jack



The way I do these images is based on blending modes much more heavily than masking, if I start with a darker frame I can use the blending mode 'Lighten' and the specific area that I have illuminated will shine through, the masking for that layer is then much easier. If I started out with a more modest base exposure the 'Lighten' trick wouldn't work as well.

It's just one of the million ways of getting to the same place, I just found it more intuitive.


----------



## Dylan777 (Dec 7, 2016)

Great topic John, we should more threads like this 

Have safe, wonderful holidays.

Dylan


----------



## Mr Bean (Dec 7, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> gruhl28 said:
> 
> 
> > Very nice, Neuro. I still can't see the images for the "pretty simple one", though, or the source images for the Planet Boston, chicken and egg, fall foliage globe, or merganser.
> ...


Yep, its been an issue with my photos on Google Photos. They made a change to how images are "shared" 18 months ago and its been a nightmare of disappearing images since. Oddly, Googling for an answer gave me "solutions", which don't seem to work :/


----------



## chauncey (Dec 8, 2016)

Showing the "before images" would be a waste of time as they're nothing more than wisps of smoke...
something akin to this, using incense sticks. All edited in PS.


----------



## Click (Dec 8, 2016)

Cool pictures, chauncey. 8)


----------



## Jack Douglas (Dec 8, 2016)

All the samples so far strike my fancy. Guess I'll have to start learning how.

Jack


----------



## scottkinfw (Dec 8, 2016)

neuroanatomist said:


> I thought it might be fun to start a thread on creatively post-processed images, shots that are clearly 'photoshopped'. The idea is to at least show the before and after versions, and if you're willing to share the details, an outline of the processing steps to go from the original to the final image.
> 
> I'll start the thread off with a few examples, with the processing details for some of them...
> 
> ...


Great Job Neuro


----------

