Project 52 by Frank Miller

[Teton Chuck]

Very enjoyable set of photos. I agree with Bob that you are able to tell the story better by getting that sharp focus on the main subjects. The background is not a problem for me. And your questions after viewing the photos is very powerful. People like me will benefit from some help learning to really see the detail.

chuck

[FrankMi]

I think you have done a great job of making the subject tack sharp. I like the way the background is not distracting at all.

Thank you Bob!

[FrankMi]

The main things I noticed is that the exposure from the first to the last photos are different, slightly in some cases and probably to do with the different times the photos were taken but I think as a series it would be good if they were closer aligned in exposure.

Thank you for the feedback, Malcolm! Although I shot three of the four in the same session, I was walking around the tree looking for blossoms that would fit the theme and as a result, the sun's angle was different from shot to shot. I then processed them individually over a week's time without comparing all the attributes of the images in the set.

Great point! When I do a set of the same subject, I need to go back and make sure they are balanced in exposure, brightness, contrast, white balance, etc. I didn't do that in this case and it is noticeable.

[FrankMi]

Thank you for the feedback Chuck!

Owing to the fact that it was quite gusty that day, the twigs, blossoms and leaves were blowing all over the place. In order to get the DoF, I had to manually do the focus stacking, element by element, and as a result, got to look very carefully at each twig, blossom, and leaf involved. In the end, I was quite surprised at some of the detailed items I was able to notice.

Glad to hear that you enjoyed exploring the detail as well!

[FrankMi]

Week 15: Landscape Retouching

Other than a wedding proof book, I doubt that most professional photographers would not show a client a Portrait that hadn’t been retouched so I got to thinking, why is there such an aversion to retouching a Landscape image?

So, I when I went to visit my son in upstate New York last week, one of the things I did was to look for a house that needed a little TLC (time, labor, cash) to bring back some of its former glory. Some of the most interesting properties I photographed needed only the gentle touch of a bulldozer to improve the landscape but one in particular caught my eye. Set on the Erie Canal, this gem had architectural detail, interesting colors, and a decent yard. I ended up with two images to work with. Here is the first:



I liked the shoot angle of the second image (seen at the end) much better but much of the structure was blocked by a telephone pole and a plethora of tree branches. My original goal was to ‘spruce up’ a landscape by cleaning up the windows (making the eyes sparkle), removing 'blemishes' in the painted surfaces, and removing errant foliage (stray hairs) but this? Was it possible to eliminate tree branches?

Several techniques would be needed. Obviously, cloning would be required and that works best where the object to be removed doesn’t block very much of the detail in the subject behind it. But, tree limbs? We could create a mask and merge intact detail from the layer below (that contains the details) in places where you can’t see the detail behind the object. For this we would need a similar copy of that detail from another part of the image or perhaps even from another image.

If we lop off tree branches that are blocking the view of the building, where do we stop? Trees just don’t look happy with their limbs hacked off.

In the end, I couldn’t find a place to stop removing the tree branches and ended up spending WAY too many hours on this image, but I learned a few techniques along the way that I’ll share with you.

Most people that do post processing that goes beyond global adjustments, have used the clone tool to copy one part of an image over another and eliminate the unwanted object in the process. With branches there may be scant little background available to clone over the branches and as a result, the same piece of background is used repeatedly leaving an obvious ‘clone’ pattern in the result. Here is a branch we want to remove:



Working on a copy of the image, once the cloning was done we can see the ‘clone’ pattern. I didn’t take the time to be careful here as I knew I was going to correct the result in the next steps.



I then created a mask and merged back in the entire section I had just cloned so now it looks identical to what I started with, but with one important difference. I could quickly mask out just the branches and retain all of the background detail without any of the clone marks except for where the branches were! The result looks very close to what it was in the previous image but the cloning pattern is only present where the branches were.



This is what the mask looks like.



All that is left to do is to touch up one last time with the clone stamp.



In places where there was no detail that could be recovered, such as behind the telephone pole, I used a selection mask and a copy of the first image as the source layer. Because the viewing angle didn’t match, I had to stretch the source image to conform to the shape of the mask before merging.

Each time I used a selection mask to merge two layers, I made a copy of the merged result using Stamp Visible (Ctl+Alt+Shift+E) in Photoshop CS5.

In the end, I removed both the tree and the telephone pole as I couldn’t find a good stopping point while pruning out the branches. I should have replaced the sky but didn’t take the time so where the tree was is a poorly cloned copy of the original sky.

Here are the before and after second image together so that you can flip back and forth in the lytebox to see the differences. Although I didn't retouch all of the blemishes, I did 'repair' the white band over the doorway arch and cleaned up a number of other items. One of my goals for the final image was to try to at least make it look like it had a fresh coat of paint!

Both images have been parallax corrected and aligned to make them easier to compare.





Open in Lytebox by clicking on the image!

Here is the final image reworked as per suggestions from several contributers. I wanted to do a sky replacement but I couldn't get an acceptable result. The more colour in the sky (a grey sky is easiest) and the more delicate the tree branches (summer foliage is easier than winter bare branches), the harder it is. I'll keep trying other techniques and if I can solve the sky issue, I'll post the results and steps taken.

[Nicola]

Frank this is a superb work!! my hat is off!
how long does it take you?

if you don't mind, I add a note: the result is very very powerful, anyway it is clearly visible the PP work, and it makes the picture not real.. as most of model portraits..
did you want it?
thanks for sharing your skills
there are always a lot to learn from you!
cheers
Nicola

[Donald]

Good grief! That is an amazing piece of work.

I remember John W Revie posting an image of the Forth Bridge (here in Scotland) when it was covered in white cladding for repair and painting. I remember him writing that he spent 7 hour on it.

[Myk]

Impressive Frank; I have already learned so much from this project of yours, and continue to look forward to the next week for other techniques I can implement to better myself as well. I really like the idea of using other images too fill in the blocked detail.

Your final result kind of reminds me of a finely rendered 3d model.
Having spent a few hours removing wires and trees myself; I can appreciate the techniques you used, and the time spent to achieve such an image.
IME the most difficult part is not so much aligning regular fine detail (although time consuming), but convincingly blending smoother gradients, subtle tonal variations and irregular patterns.
The "poorly" cloned sky doesn't stand out as much to me as the repeating pattern where the telephone pole was in the driveway, the "line" towards the house from that area, and parts of the grass along the sidewalk. That is pretty heavily nit-picking considering the overall impact of the image.
Well done.

[FrankMi]

how long does it take you? if you don't mind, I add a note: the result is very very powerful, anyway it is clearly visible the PP work, and it makes the picture not real.

It took about three days, some of which was trying to find a method that would solve the cloning and masking problems.

If it looks like it has been post-processed then it's a failure. I need to go back to the drawing board and develop some better techniques!

Thanks for the feedback, Nicola!

[Nicola]

It took about three days, some of which was trying to find a method that would solve the cloning and masking problems.

If it looks like it has been post-processed then it's a failure. I need to go back to the drawing board and develop some better techniques!

Thanks for the feedback, Nicola!

Failure?? not at all!!

In my humble opinion, this is an eccellent work on cloning the pole, trees etc, the house is very well edited!! the the "envhironment" is not in line with the hose: in the whole image, I can see some "softer" area in the grass and in the path (foreground-right), the trees and clouds in the background right are too soft in comaprison with the rest of the sky, they seem "hand-painted with water color", the left side tree and house needs an increase of contrast to stand side by side with the house: it seems that they are in haze, and the house in full sun...
hope my thought is clear...
again, good work!
cheers

[Letrow]

If it looks like it has been post-processed then it's a failure. I need to go back to the drawing board and develop some better techniques!

Frank, you can see that it is PP-ed, but the end result is amazing. Here it actually adds to the overall picture. The colours show it a bit of course and the vagueness of the trees on the right, but this brings out the house beautifully.

It reminds me of an old painting that has been cleaned. Suddenly the colours look like new.
I am being a bit envious here.

[Dave Humphries]

If it looks like it has been post-processed then it's a failure. I need to go back to the drawing board and develop some better techniques!

Hi Frank,

The result does look PP'd, but only because in 'applying the fresh coat of paint' it has given the front elevation (in shadow) a slightly tone-mapped look.

It certainly doesn't diminish the cloning work - I've never attempted anything that ambitious, talk about devotion.

PS, wouldn't it have been quicker to fell the trees and actually paint the house, then re-shoot it?

Cheers,

[jprzybyla]

As always your post processing always amazes me. I strive to achieve your level...but I am learning. Good work Frank.

[Ryogenetic]

Frank that is some awesome work, very well done. I always enjoy seeing the devotion spent on editing an image to come up with a great image. Today I kept coming back to that image, hope you don't mind but I grabbed it and tweaked it a bit in PS. Here is the result: ( I left it in link form as not to interrupt your P52)

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/...FrankMidea.jpg

and here are the steps I used:

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/...ic/PSFrank.jpg

Two ideas caught my attention, the first was your attempt to renew the house, to that end I figured it would be easier to color a BW, it gives you the opportunity to take out all the blemishes, and "get a fresh coat of paint" Second idea was from the comments about the PP' being pronounced, with the partial color and colored details it gives a nice overt PP quality...

IMHO
Ryo

[FrankMi]

Thank you Donald. I kinda sucked myself into this one. I loved the look of the house but once I got started, I couldn't find a way to make it look 'complete' without doing just a little bit more, then, just a little bit more, then...

The good thing is that as I progressed I kept finding better and faseter ways of completing each section.

[FrankMi]

The "poorly" cloned sky doesn't stand out as much to me as the repeating pattern where the telephone pole was in the driveway, the "line" towards the house from that area, and parts of the grass along the sidewalk.

Ah, but that is good news! Although I forgot to correct for the clone marks in the driveway and grass (even though I had been doing that all along with the tree branches), all I need to do to correct that omission is to layer the last two 'before' and 'after' images and blend the original back into the new image. In a few seconds, all the clone marks will be gone! I may as well take the time to replace the sky with one from the same shoot that is consistent while I’m at it.

I'll get on that as soon as I can. Thank you for the very helpful feedback, Mike!

[FrankMi]

Thank you again, Nicola. I had a problem with the house on the left blending into the subject as the contrast, sharpness, and colouring were nearly identical to the subject. So, I applied a bit of Soft Focus to help separate the background and the house beside the subject from the subject itself. I did leave the evergreen tree that is on the left of the subject in normal focus as it was very close to the subject house.

As I did not have any detail for the back of the subject (behind where the tree trunk was in the way) in either image, I had no choice but to take the willow tree from the first image, soften it, and replace the missing pieces. This retained the Erie Canal's Seneca River behind the house with the trees that were actually there but not visible in the second image due to the angle of the shot.

Some of the softening in the street and grass was the removal of the shadow cast by the tree and light pole that no longer existed. I felt that it might look too kinky if there was a shadow for a non-existent object in the image. LOL!

[FrankMi]

It reminds me of an old painting that has been cleaned. Suddenly the colours look like new.
I am being a bit envious here.

Thank you for the kind words, Peter! I'm glad you like the cleaned painting better than the old tired and dirty one! That is the very reason I wanted to apply 'landscape retouching' and tried to make the house look as if it were freshly painted.

I often wonder what folks would say about an image if they didn't know what was done prior to posting.

Sometimes I don't tell everything just to see the difference in the responses. For example, if you examine the 'SOOC' image with the 'before' image, you might notice that there is more detail in, for example, the shrubbery at the front of the house? Does each image by itself look natural?

Now what would you think if I told you that the 'before' image was the HDR tonemapped output of an exposure bracketed set of three images? Would the feedback from some be based on the merits (or lack thereof) of using HDR techniques, rather than simply judging the image based on its own photographic value?

In the case above, most feedback is concerned, as it should be, with the effect of the cloning and masking techniques, which is the reason for seeking feedback on this week’s effort.

[FrankMi]

Frank that is some awesome work, very well done. I always enjoy seeing the devotion spent on editing an image to come up with a great image. Today I kept coming back to that image, hope you don't mind but I grabbed it and tweaked it a bit in PS. Here is the result: ( I left it in link form as not to interrupt your P52)

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/...FrankMidea.jpg

and here are the steps I used:

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/...ic/PSFrank.jpg

Two ideas caught my attention, the first was your attempt to renew the house, to that end I figured it would be easier to color a BW, it gives you the opportunity to take out all the blemishes, and "get a fresh coat of paint" Second idea was from the comments about the PP' being pronounced, with the partial color and colored details it gives a nice overt PP quality...

IMHO
Ryo

Neat! As I was shooting for something that the owner would like to have hanging on the wall of their home (even I have no clue who the owner is), I would have never thought of giving it this kind of treatment. That's one of the great things about CiC, the members are constantly encouraging others to move in new learning directions with their photography.

Thank you, Ryo for taking the time and effort to show us a post processing option for this image. Hopefully you will also be encouraged to try some of these techniques on some of your future images as well.

[Letrow]

I often wonder what folks would say about an image if they didn't know what was done prior to posting.


Now what would you think if I told you that the 'before' image was the HDR tonemapped output of an exposure bracketed set of three images? Would the feedback from some be based on the merits (or lack thereof) of using HDR techniques, rather than simply judging the image based on its own photographic value?

Now that you mention it, I can see it. As my attention was on the after image most of the time I did not notice the HDR effect earlier on. I just thought it was a slightly duller version, well lighted.
Makes sense though to work from there. As you say, not really important, as you were looking for something else entirely.