Terrific work, everyone!
As entry into the contest has been closed, I thought I'd post my workflow if anyone wants to see it. It will also serve to bump the thread and perhaps more folks will vote.
Here's what I did to process the images I posted above:
Raw image processing
- Careful selection of Camera Raw 4.1 parameters, using the histogram so as to avoid
under or overexposure, yet brighten the image signficantly and correct for the quite
warm white balance. Significant points: Very little noise reduction (just 4% color noise
reduction), saturation pulled way back to avoid clipping into sRGB space, converted to +1
upsample size (14 MP).
- My own Horizontal Banding Noise Reduction action under development, applied to most of
the image. Selectively rolled back in a few places to prevent unwanted artifacts.
- Saturation adjustment (+) to offset the negative saturation dialed-in during raw
conversion. Again, I watched the histograms carefully to avoid clipping.
- Clone tool at 100% to add black drapes on the right edge.
- Cropped to 16 x 20 aspect ratio.
- Clone tool at 50% to reduce the contrast of wrinkles in the backdrop in many places.
- My own "Medium Noise Reduction", then separated to Before/After layers with After on
top. Then Erased through to expose just the non-noise-reduced young man. This accomplished
noise reduction of the backdrop only, and helped separate the subject from the backdrop.
- Ran my "Local Contrast Enhancement with High Pass Filtering" action on the lower layer
to increase contrast in the young man only. Rolled back the effect to 50% on his face
using the History brush, as the shadows had gotten too deep.
- Flattened image.
- Added vignetting with the Filter - Distort - Lens Correction feature, then modified the
result a little with the History Brush and the Burn and Dodge tools. The intent was to
subtly make the light around the young man's face and upper torso a little brighter
than the rest of the image, to help bring the focus of attention there.
- My own Fractal Sharpening.
- Color Balance midtones to make sure backdrop is neutral gray with just a bit of warmth.
- Shadows/Highlights to bring up dark parts just slightly.
- Liquify tool to make the young man's chest appear a little bigger, and waist a little
smaller.
- Healing Brush to remove a few tiny flecks in the suit and backdrop.
- Downsized slightly to make the image 200ppi.
JPEG image
- Ran my own "Shadows Plus 1" shadow recovery action.
- Made the result a layer underneath using my "...As Layer Underneath" action.
- Erased through to expose the lightened catcher and runner only, leaving the
background alone.
- Flattened image.
- Rotated 2.76 degrees CW.
- Cropped to a nice portrait oriented presentation retaining less of the foreground than
the background.
- Duplicated the image as a second layer.
- Ran Focus Magic on the lower layer to sharpen the catcher.
- Erased through the top layer to sharpen just the catcher wihtout leaving artifacts in
the rest of the image.
- Burned and Dodged the catcher's face a little to make it look smoother.
- Burned some background areas right near the catcher's head to make it look less like
the image was lightened with a shadow recovery tool.
- Used my "Most Noise Reduction" action selectively on the background only.
- Ran my "Medium Sharpen Low ISO" fractal sharpening action selectively on the catcher
and runner and surrounding ground.
- Desaturated the green/yellow grass a bit.
- Upsized to 16 x 20 x 200 ppi using Photoshop Bicubic Smoother.
-Noel
Linear Mode
