Need Help In Diamond Retouch

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and I'm a freelance researcher in image editing.
I'm italian, so sorry in advance for my english .
I'm also a little crazy , I left my job as employee 'cause I believe in my researches and I want to make them my only job.
I developed a new effect for substituting colors in images. I would like to test the goodness of this new approach useful for retouching photos ... so I ask you a little collaboration, if you want to help me, you should retouch the image that I attached in this way: change the color of the pen fromred to white.
It's important to me to know how much time you spent in retouching the image and what applications you used for achieving the result, so please post the altered image together with the requested info. In a few days I'll post the image elaborated with my algorithm.
Really thanks to all, in advance, for the collaboration.

GS

I thought we could try something different I have always said I see PSG as a place where people are looking to improve their skills and take them to the next level. So lets look at a real life situation 1 of the more common things freelance designers are asked to do create a name/brand (if not already supplied by Client) logo, Business card and a website.

So after initial discussions it will go like this the name will be decided in this thread if their is interest in the challenge this is where we will find out.

week 1 challenge will designing a logo

Week 2 implementing that logo into a Business card

Week 3 Making a flyer or poster to advertise the fake company

week 4 design a website mock up for the company

week 5 make the actual website if we feel we want to take it to that level lol.

so vote in the poll yes or no if you would like to see this go ahead and if we have more than 10 votes for it then I will go about getting it started.

darn....that is nice...I really wanted to say something else.

Working on a retouch project...Normal spots and crud, normal fixes. About 2 hours into working L to R I got to this pinstriped suit...Spots everywhere...any ideas to save me a few hours to get rid of those spots??

Hey All,

Thanks in advanced for any help/suggestions. I've been experimenting with different photoshop actions and filters.
While working on a project for a client i came across some photos and I wasn't quite sure how they would done. I was wondering if anyone in the forum knew how to achieve this effect?

This an image of myself. I have been trying to make it an overall better photo but I'm failing miserably. I know the background is a bit distracting, but I need help. I need this photo for my website, so I need it to look more like a professional portrait. Maybe some makeup, remove the background to something less noisy, sharpen it a bit, basically make it look like a model. Is that even possible? lol The reason I need to use this photo is it is the only one I have of myself with hair extensions in. My website is for hair extensions, so I feel this image is necessary. I do not currently have them in and do not want to put them back in for one picture. They are too long lasting for that.
Can anyone help me please? If not, can someone give me detailed instructions to do so in photoshop elements 9? Thank you!!

I have a youth baseball team, and our season is about to end. I would like to have a special picture done for them. My idea goes as follows. I have 12 - 10 year old kids, and our motto is Left Turns Only (in baseball your turn left). Well what I would like to do is have a image of a baseball diamond and have each of them going around the bases from 1 -12. With my little guy at the plate to swinging to my big guy being the last person coming in touching home plate. Can anyone do this for me. IF you can please email me at and we can talk price. Thank you.

I linked here to the biggest picture of any galaxy taken by the Hubble telescope of Andromeda, M31. It is such an incredible photo, and when I zoom in, I can see each star.


But, as good as the Hubble is, each star is a bit of a blur due to the very long exposure times, and weaknesses of the photo sensors, etc...so the stars appear much larger than they really are. When you look up at night into the sky, you don't see each star as a blob like these, but rather, a pinpoint of tiniest light, sharp with emptiness around it.

So, the challenge is...is it possible to edit this photo to make each star a much smaller point of light, so the stars would appear as they do in reality?

If it's too big of a project, what about editing just a small frame of a zoomed-in image, like the pic above?

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/

Hello forum,

A customer asked me to remove some text off the t-shirts of some boxing people, but it is a difficult job and i'm wondering how i can do this the easiest way.
Below you can see the part of the picture that has to be retouched into just a black t-shirt.

I already tried to select it and fill it content-aware, but without succes, it copies the boxer's head onto the t-shirt.

Thank you for any advice.

This won't be news to a lot of you, but it may be eye opening for some. Sometimes to get a better idea of what direction to go in, it helps to know what not to do. I thought I'd take a minute to celebrate (lament) the garish eyesores that some "experts" recommend others produce when retouching.

While there is subjectivity in art, a retoucher's job is more constrained, and there is a standard as it applies to commercial work. I'm getting a handle on those standards myself reading books and watching tutorials by people like Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, Julia Kuzmenko McKim, and Michael Woloszynowicz. My background as an Illustration major turned Graphic Designer helped me have an idea, but photography has its own standards. If you're retouching or compositing for someone other than yourself, they generally need you to enhance their work, not leave signs of your influence there. There's a reason only a handful of people are entrusted to do retouch jobs that many photographers don't have the time for. Subtlety is key, and non-destructive workflow is essential. Now stepping off my soapbox, on with the show.

This visual belly flop, while obviously not commercial, was used to advertise someone's custom brushes at DeviantArt, and meant to imply the good effects of their use.





I'm reminded of that armchair Rembrandt who showcased her skills on that Ecce Homo fresco when I look at this. The hair detail was crudely smudged into oblivion with indelicate childlike strokes, and the white point clipping quickly got rid of any evidence there was human skin .This is stating the obvious to anyone with a cursory understanding of image treatment standards, but rarely is using the contrast slider considered a job well done. Even in the most liberal definition of artistic license, deliberately overexposing an image in post, and blowing out the details with white isn't a good idea. I'm afraid of hue and contrast that isn't used minimally, and most people should be. It's a highly destructive way of retouching, as you're generally adding information that isn't there, or taking away information that is, but to an extreme degree. This may look good to someone whose life entails solely playing RPG games, but not in the commercial world.

This next one hurts me even more, because it was used in a tutorial. The thought that it may contribute to an army of people who think they're helping the world by doing things the wrong way makes my last meal move north. I won't name names (fortunately it wasn't here) but this image was supposed to demonstrae techniques for how to make skin look better in Photoshop.



This is what happens when you try to retouch someone's face without using frequency separation layers. It's also what happens when you look at someone while under the influence of mushrooms, but that's anther topic. Making someone look like they needed a skin retoucher so bad that they got a t-shirt airbrusher from the mall to render them inhuman isn't saying the best about your skills. I've seen countless variations of similar tutorials on Photoshop, often to high praise from an unwitting audience. But listening to professional retouchers, photographers and digital artists, they seem to be painfully aware of this phenomenon, and the bad habits it cultivates. If this area is of interest to you, I highly recommend looking up frequency adjustment+skin tutorials, preferably with "high-end" or "professional" somewhere in the title.

This last one is just redundant, but I thought I would include it to show just how pervasive bad Photoshop tips are, as this was on a quasi-professional site, titled to demonstrate skin retouching techniques.



This is bad for all of the aforementioned reasons, but I just hope the follow up tutorial is about how to find clues as to what exactly is in the images that have undergone these techniques. Now if you'll all excuse me, I have to go get some sunglasses. There's a lot of tutorials out here.

Probably a bad subject title so let me explain what I am trying to do.

I have a very basic image (screenshot 1). Trust me, this is not an exercise but similar to the image I will be using,ha!

I select each white circle and using smart erase I can erase each circle (screenshot 2) but I want a feathered/gradient effect like (screenshot 3).

Then when I add a background color it gives the effect I am after (screenshot 4).

So here is the issue - Each image will have 100's of white dots and they will be random on each image (sort of like a star field would be a good comparison). So I need to find a way to perform the same procedure all at once on all the dots (preferred way I would think), sort of like using smart erasure but with a feather effect, or need to create an "action" that will do that.

So I guess my questions a

1. Can one create a gradient that goes from "eraser-to-black", and then save it as a mask? (to use for question 2)

2. or perform the same task on each selected spot at the same time using a mask or

3. If I need to create an "action" for this how would one move from one spot to the next to perform the task on each spot?

Since I am new here I am beginning to search through the massive forums here but thought I would throw this out will I keep searching. Thanks so much.

Clutch