There were a lot of steps to get from the “before” to the “after” but they all just seemed flow, one from the other. I really didn’t have to think about it and rack my brain the way I did on the previous picture (the sewing machine.)
I created this picture as I was thinking about personal style and what it meant and how I would develop one. I’d been thinking that since I love working in Photoshop, that my “style” should be less of what happens in the camera and more what happens on the computer. Not sure how that will play out over the months and years to come, but that’s how I feel now.
Read more to see how I did it…
- As always, convert image to LAB color and sharpen only the Lightness layer using Unsharp Mask. Then return to RGB color mode. (PS action here)
- One Color Balance adjustment layer for the highlights with the settings: -33, -77, -75 acting solely on the main image (you’ll see why later)
- One Color Balance adjustment layer for the shadows with the settings: -2, -46, -77 acting solely on the main image (you’ll see why later)
- The sky was washed out, so I used another photo of a sky taken on the same day at about the same time and inserted it in this picture. I did that by
- doing a color range selection on the old sky so that all of it was selected (even between the tree branches.) There was a lot of stuff below the sky that was selected too, but I unselected it all by holding down the alt-key and dragging the selection tool over the parts I didn’t want selected.
- I copied the new sky into a layer which I placed behind the main layer. I had to convert the Background layer into a “normal” layer to do this, since you can’t put anything under a Background layer.
- I then had to give the sky similar tones to the rest of the image, but because it wasn’t exactly the same as the rest, I couldn’t have the main Color Balance layers affect it.. so,
- I opted for a hue/saturation layer for the sky with settings: -147, -79, 0 acting only on the sky.
- I then needed to decrease brightness and increase contrast on the sky with a Levels adjustment layer with settings: 162, 0.62, 255.
- Now my sky and main portion of the image had similar tones, but I wanted to add a little grittiness to it. I did that by adding some noise (sorry, I lost the exact noise settings, but I think it was Gaussian, monochromatic and under 20%.)
- I added a texture (thanks pareeerica) for a little more grit. Blend mode Overlay and Opacity 44%.
- Now, the frame. I used a brush from this collection. I used white paint. It was brush #12 and I enlarged and rotated as I needed for the sides and top. I believe I painted (clicked) twice to get a whiter edge.
- Then I added my sig and voila. The final product.
View final product on Flickr.
Sorry, no BUY link. If you really want to buy this one, ask me and I’ll post it to Imagekind.
