Hey Tiger!
This beautiful image of a Bengal Tiger is a stock image from FreeImages.com. Wish I had taken the image. This image had lots of green leaves behind him. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise 5 was used to remove lots of grain and color noise in this image. I used a texture I had created in Corel Painter with oil brushes. It was Free Transformed to make it fit the way I wanted it to look. Topaz Adjust and several mixer brush layers were used to paint the image. Nik Viveza 2 was used on just his face to get the nice sharp effect. That was it. This took probably around 4 hours to complete. Good thing I like to paint!…..Digital Lady Syd
Soaring Spoonbill
Still enjoying the bird images I took at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery this Spring. The original image was captured with a totally light blue sky behind this Roseate Spoonbill. This made it easy to add a texture underneath the image (my painted texture created in Corel Painter called Seashore) and changing the blend mode of the bird layer to Multiply. Topaz (see sidebar for settings) Clarity and DeNoise 5 were applied to cleanup the the bird layer. On a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E), Topaz Glow’s Room Glow Blake Rudis preset was applied (check out Integrating Topaz Glow into Your Workflow for info on this). Next on a New Layer Fay Sirkis’s (from KelbyOne) Precious Oil Diamond Mixer was used to clean up the feathers and beak a little. Topaz Impression Watercolor II preset with no spill was applied. Nik Viveza 2 was used to bring out the color of the bird just perfectly and a Curves Adjustment Layer was used as a last step for overall contrast. I love my bird pix!…..Digital Lady Syd
Checking Out the Feathers
I am apparently going through a vintage feel period. Loved this little boy at the Native American Festival held in Ormond Beach, Florida, each year. He was extremely intrigued by the feathers in the beautiful costume the older man was wearing. Totally loved this shot! Not much to the post-processing in this image – in Lightroom applied Seim’s (see sidebar for website link) Magic Ugly Shade Fixer and Dave Delnea’s C+V Washed Vintage 001 preset. In Photoshop ran the Shake Reduction filter. Then Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise 5 due to the added artifacts from the Shake Reduction filter – set Overall to 0.31. A black layer mask was added to the layer (hold the ALT button while clicking on the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel) and just painted back his face, hat and sleeve areas as I liked the grainy feel in the rest of the image. Added a Curves Adjustment Layer to add some contrast to the image. Nik’s Viveza 2 was opened and a control point was added to his face to lighten and direct attention to that area. Back in Photoshop a New Layer was added and some clean up was done. A Selective Color Adjustment Layer was added and some of the bright orange in the background was softened so it was not so distracting. Filled the layer mask black by CTRL+I in the mask to invert it and painted back just the distracting areas to soften. Created a Stamped layer on top (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and my free SJ Mid Size Double Edge Frame was applied using colors from the image. Lots of fun just to play with an image!…..Digital Lady Syd
The Boy in the Bubble
This looks like so much fun – wish I could try it! This boy is riding in one of 4 giant floating bubbles at the 2014 Native American Festival in Ormond Beach, Florida, this past weekend. The kids don’t get wet andhave a great time trying to stand up and run. Very little processing was done on this image, which is unbelievable since he is behind a thick piece of soft vinyl. In Lightroom, after some basic adjustments and cropping, Dave Delnea’s Forest Walks Look 3 preset was applied – but I used The Fader to reduce the preset effect to just 61%. Really brought out just the right amount of greens and blues. In Photoshop Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise 5 was set to an Overall Setting of 0.19. Some clean up was done where the water looked funny on his face. Nik Viveza 2 was used to slightly tone down the bright specular light in the upper left side of the image and to even out the face color. That was it. I like the natural texture the vinyl created. What a cool amusement – looks like he is really is floating!…..Digital Lady Syd
Discumbuberated!
This little pink gerbera flower that is trying desperately to get herself straightened out was taken on my back porch. Very little processing on this image in Lightroom – just some cropping, basic slider adjustments, and Dave Delnea’s custom tone 002 preset. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise 5 – the best noise reduction plug-in around – was applied (Overall at 0.19 and Shadows at 0.39). Painted Textures new October Sky texture was applied at Normal blend mode at 64% layer opacity. In a Layer Mask, the flower was gently painted black with a soft low opacity black brush. The font is Marcelle Script from DaFont. The border is one I created in my More Border Fun! blog with a cream Color Fill Layer clipped to the frame (ALT+click between the layer to clip). That was all. I love Melissa Gallo’s new texture effect on this image!…..Digital Lady Syd
Bleach Bypass Look on a Landscape Image
This may be the most beautiful and interesting library ever made. I posted a couple times on Flickr with other images (see Minsk Library, Inside Minsk Library, and Minsk Library at Night) but this time I decided to process the inside ceiling which is all glass – totally breathtaking! As you can see, I caught the eye of the guard down below, but he lends a wonderful scale to the image. I had a hard time deciding what to do with the image as the original was not that bad but I wanted to enhance the light and airy feel in the image. So I tried everything I could think of and this is what I got!
First applied Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise 5 – the image was shot at ISO 1600 so it had some issues. Used the Overall Strength set to .17 and set the Shadows to .82. The layer was copied and Topaz Detail 3 was applied using the Architectural Detail II preset – this image was perfect for this preset. Next Black & White Effects was applied where I mainly applied a regular black and white preset and started moving sliders. What I think really made the image pop was the application of the Creative Effects Diffusion effect where the Softness was set to 0.10, but the Diffusion slider was set high at .91 and Diffusion Transition set to 0.61. This really made the roof lines pop without being too sketchy looking. Then Kim Klassen’s Cloth & Paper Reign texture was applied and set to Soft Light blend mode to lighten the image and add some blue tones back into the image. It was duplicated and this time set to Multiply at 24% layer opacity. Next a Levels Adjustment Layer was added to lighten the image more by moving the Output Levels to 23/255 and the midtone slider to 1.39. Next a Curves Adjustment Layer was added to lighten it even, and a bit of a vignette was painted around the edges of the layer mask. It still did not look quite right – almost blown out. That is when I tried a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer and clipped (ALT+click between the layers) it to the top texture layer. The 3DLUT File was set to Bleach Bypass.look in the drop-down, although several look rather nice. The last step involved creating a composite (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) on top and adding my SJ B&W Border Frame. I really like how the diffused settings made the ceiling lines look. Anyway, it was once again a lot of fun to experiment!…..Digital Lady Syd
Feeling Butterflies!
Really liked the way this image turned out and it was a fairly simple process. After setting the Lens Correction panel and Cropping the image, a Blue Sky-Heavy Green preset created from Dave duChemin’s Lightroom 3 book (the preset contains only Split Toning panel – Highlights Hue 220 and Saturation 25, Balance -15, and Shadows Hue 120 and Saturation 20) and Matt Kloskowski’s preset Focal Point (Portrait – Bottom Right) were applied. Since the first preset only affected the Split Toning panel and the Focal Point preset did not change this panel, both could be applied in Lightroom without a problem. The image was brought into Photoshop and first Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Detail was applied (Detail Setting used: Small Detail .5, Medium Detail .3, and Large Detail .3; and Tone: Brightness .03, Contrast -.16, Cyan-Red .26, Magenta-Green -.37, and Yellow-Blue .44) and Topaz DeNoise 5 (Noise Reduction slider .42 and Recover Detail slider .36).
Now the out-of-focus pink flowers looked bad, so a New Layer was created to paint in the over-exposed white spots to keep the eye from wandering to those areas. On another New Layer using a 15% opacity soft edge brush the straight green stem was painted darker sampling in the image to add a slightly darker green. Another Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was added and the Yellow Saturation set to +40. It took a while to settle on a final result but since the Adjustment Layers are all non-destructive, it was easy to try different effects. A Gaussian Blur was applied to a Composite Layer (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E) created on top and using a Radius of 6.6. On a layer mask, the butterfly and foreground flowers were painted back in black on the mask. A lower 30% opacity brush was used to slightly paint back the flowers in the mid-ground left side. Next my Soft Sparkle Overlay Frame was applied but since it is a deep reddish brown, a Solid Color Adjustment Layer (Clip it to the layer by clicking ALT+Click between the frame layer and the adjustment layer) set to an off-white was used. Finally a Curves Adjustment was added contrast. Just Fun!……Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
How To Make Frames or Borders
Getting Rid of Those Blown Out Areas in Your Image
A Little OnOne Perfect Effects Vintage Look
This beautiful Scottish Church was taken from a train going from Edinburgh to St. Andrews. This is a wonderful way to capture some of the countryside. I am surprised how sharp this image was since the train was moving – my settings using a 18-200mm Nikon lens were F/13, 1/200 sec, ISO 400 using a 45 mm lens. For post-processing, the first thing done was to create three Virtual Copies in Lightroom and set them at different exposure settings – one to about -2, one using the original, and one set to +1. This is a way to get an HDR look using a single image. The first two where then taken individually into Topaz DeNoise 5 (see sidebar for website link) and adjusted for noise issues. The +1 just used a little adjustment in Lightroom since the over-exposed image did not have a lot of noise. All three images were then selected in Lightroom and right-clicked to get menu – Open In -> Merge to HDR in Photoshop. That is how the bottom layer was created. Next by applying OnOne Perfect Effects (see sidebar for website link), the image took on a great look. This plug-in can do interesting things to images – usually when I just can’t put my finger on what I need for a photo, Perfect Effects has a solution. This image uses these filters presets stacked: Black and White->Warm Gray with colors swapped in Effects Options, Detail->Texture Booster, and Borders->Russell with Scale set to 4 in Effect Options. Back in Photoshop Nik’s Viveza 2 was applied to add a little soft color in the sky, sharpen the cupola, and add a little brightness to the front of the church. Then Topaz DeNoise 5 was applied one more time to get rid of some noise created by the plug-in application – this time it was targeted to the sky and water using an Overall Strength setting of .11, and for the lighter areas, Adjust Highlights set to .28. Recover Detail was set to .30 and Reduced Blur to .13. This sounds like it was a lot of effort, but it really was very quick to apply. The hardest part was adjusting the noise in the three virtual copies in Lightroom. …..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
Can a Pseudo HDR Image be as Good as the Real Thing? (Part One)
Can a Pseudo HDR Image be as Good as the Real Thing? (Part Two)
Topaz DeNoise 5 and InstaTone
This image had an ISO of 2500 – that is really high for me but I actually took this shot from a moving tour bus – it is the Pulteney Bridge over the Avon River near Bath in England. The basic workflow involved running Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise first – must be sure that the Sharpening and Noise Reduction sliders are set to 0 in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw so you are not applying noise correction twice. I usually apply DeNoise on it’s own layer – that way it can be selectively removed if it is too soft in some places. The Overall Strength was set to 17. Topaz cautions about overdoing this or it will lose detail and edges will be soft. The Detail Recovery slider was set to 19. That was all that was needed. In Topaz photoFXlab, the new plug-in interface, the InstaTone tab was selected and the tones from a 500 px image called Nobody by shachar levcovich turned this image into an old English look. Topaz Simplify 4 was added and my BuzSim Modified preset was applied – this is one I had created in Simplify 3 but I still love it. (Selected BuzSim and changed: Simplify panel – Simplify Size to .15, and Edges panel: Edge Type Color Edge Fine and Edge Strength to 1.50.) Back in Photoshop a vignette was added to focus on the bridge and ShadowHouse Creations Scratch Overlay Texture set to Overlay with the center painted out in black in the layer mask so the texture basically frames the image. Now I have a beautiful vintage feel but not overly painterly. I can imagine the beautiful bridge looking like this a long time ago. Beautiful place!…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
Digital Lady Syd Reviews Topaz DeNoise 5
InstaTone in photoFXlabs – Great Fun and Great Results!
Digital Lady Syd’s Review of Topaz photoFXlab v1.1
Digital Lady Syd Reviews Topaz Simplify 4
