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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Sharing tips and tricks

Tim Armes

New member
Hi all,

When this forum was first created I originally had the idea that as various questions were asked and answered I'd be able to maintain a index of retouching "problematics" pointing back to the most valuable of the threads that deal with the issues. In doing this, I hoped that the forum would become a valuable resource for learning how to deal with the various retouching challenges that photographers face.

Forums have great potential for doing this since each person has his or her own techniques, leaving the reader with a greater resource from which to pick or choose what works for them.

However, simply waiting for such a resource to grow naturally isn't working. I propose therefore to force the issue a little. Each week I intend to start a thread addressing a particular retouching problem that photographers often have to face. If you use any particular techniques to deal with the problem then I ask you to share your method so that everyone can learn by example.

Now, I'm not an infinite resource of ideas, so if any of you have any ideas for future problematics then please respond to this thread and tell us what you'd like us to deal with.

I shall keep this post updated with links to the Tips & Tricks threads as they are posted.

Tim

----------------

The threads:
  1. Removing haze
  2. Skin Retouching
  3. Dodging and Burning
  4. Removing Flare
  5. Correcting Focus Errors
  6. Perspective Correction
  7. Adjustment layers
 
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Tim Armes

New member
Hi,

If you have and ideas for the tips and tricks threads then please post them here. The idea has received very little feedback, so I'm not sure if you would all prefer them to stop or continue going. If you'd like to see more, I need to know the sorts of things that you'd like to see.

Tim
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
This is an excellent and needed part of OPF. It takes time to wake us up to this function and possibility here. I'd start with any of these topics with a challenge picture and you and as many others as possible can then show how we approach the issue. I'd start with a subject like "challenge, Getting rid of haze!

We'll difficult pictures and fix them. This project is the next phase of OPF development and one we will all benefit from.

Thanks for being the captain here!

Asher
 

Tim Armes

New member
A challenge picture is indeed a good idea - not only will is give people a starting point from which to explain their technique, it also allows us to compare the results. The possible downside is that this would limit the techniques to those best for that one particular photo. Still, I think it's worth the effort to try this.

So, if any of you have any thread ideas and an example photo to get the thread started, then please send me a private message. I'll collect them up and start the threads one at a time.

Tim
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Let's use Technic Challenge: 1. Haze removal for example to people will immediately recognize this type of theread.

Asher
 

Klaus Esser

pro member
A challenge picture is indeed a good idea - not only will is give people a starting point from which to explain their technique, it also allows us to compare the results. The possible downside is that this would limit the techniques to those best for that one particular photo. Still, I think it's worth the effort to try this.

So, if any of you have any thread ideas and an example photo to get the thread started, then please send me a private message. I'll collect them up and start the threads one at a time.

Tim

Hi Timothy!

Some day ago i did a workover of John´s asking:
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2795

here´s the chronology:
benji1.jpg

benji2.jpg

benji1back.jpg

benji1_A.jpg



1) erase the owl by cloning the background.
2) extract owl from "benji2" by using Photoshop´s "extract" tool and working it over with the clone tool. By doing "extract" you´ll have to work out the mask´s density at the edges.
3) copy the arm from "benji1"
4) paste it into the background and also paste the extracted owl into the background pic.

I worked on the low-res which i loaded down from the forum. Far more exact - but also more time-consumpting - is to work with high-res files, of course. But with some experience it´s done in an hour or so.

The "extract" tool in PS is widely underestimated in my eyes - it´s a good tool to work with heterogene backgrounds. But you always have to fine-tune by working over the edges.

best, Klaus
 
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