Before and After (Extreme Makeover, Photo Edition)

[MattSh]

Life at 50 degrees north can give you many opportunities to stay indoors during a long winter. This was one of those winters. What better time to go to the archives and try out a few new processing methods? Tried a few new methods and programs to see where it would take me.

Church

This one is a scan from slide film, so it required a good amount of dust cleanup. Replaced the original sky with a "gradient" sky.



Statue of Bogdan Khmelnitsky

Original sky here. Just tweaked a few settings and the colors and textures came out.



Rest and Relaxation

Processed in parts. Umbrellas, stonework, processed separately, then processed the overall photo.



Feel free to post some of your "before and after" photos!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. moving towards hdr

but more subtle... I wish more people would play and see that using photoshop is nothing new, we have been manipulating images like this as long as there have been images

it is just faster to see variations now

[Celebration]

2. This is true inspiration for me

Really. I have before and after photos but nothing like this!! This is in Photoshop, right?

[MattSh]

4. A couple of different things...

Well, Adobe Lightroom is my main tool of choice. But yes, I used Photoshop to fix and modified these photographs. In the first photo, I used the Dust and Scratches filter to remove dust and scratches, and the quick selection tool to select and remove the sky. Then I just added a white to blue gradient in the background. For the brickwork and the steps, I used a Photoshop add on program called Topaz Adjust. I used that to bring out the texture of the bricks and the steps.

In the second photo I used only Topaz Adjust from within Photoshop. I processed the brickwork first, then processed the overall photo, if I remember correctly.

In the third photo, I first used Topaz Adjust again. First I processed only the umbrellas. Then I processed only if the brick work. Then, selecting the entire photo, I processed it again through Topaz Adjust.

If I remember correctly, that was my workflow on each of the three photos. You may have noticed, that on all three, I used a program called Topaz Adjust. I highly recommend this program if you have a few extra dollars to spend. There's a 30 day free trial, and then if you like the program, the purchase cost is $50. This program is also extensible, by installing additional presets, which you can download from the Internet.

[qnr]

3. Very nice work. It's fun and fascinating to see what you can accomplish while

keeping yourself within limits. A long time ago, I used to play around with thing in the darkroom -- I sometimes miss the smells and tactile connection, but other than that, digital post-processing is amazing.

[JeffR]

5. Thanks for sharing these, and congrats on what you've done with them.

I notice on a lot of photo forums I'm on that many people shy away from post-processing. The novices are afraid of it, and some of the old-timers insist on adhering to a purist principle of "getting it right in the camera" and sneer at post work as "cheating" somehow. As WannaJump noted upthread, photo processing (in the most active sense of the term) is as old as photography itself. I'd defy anyone to claim that the "before" versions of your photos here are superior to the processed versions.