Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos

Welcome to ABFriday’s monthly One Photo Focus! This month, two dozen photographers are sharing their post-processing interpretations of one “before” image submitted by Julie Powell of Julie Powell Photography.

We begin with Julie’s “before” image, followed by the “afters,” and at the end, a gallery of all so you can watch the changes as you scroll through. Be sure to click the links to each participant’s blog as many have written posts “uncovering the magic” behind their “after” images. And if you would like to participate in January’s One Photo Focus (our one-year anniversary post!), you’ll find all the details on the After-Before Friday Forum page.

Don’t forget to check out After-Before Friday, hosted by Benjamin Rowe on Aperture 64. There you can share the magic “after” of your own “before” image, every Friday except the first Friday of each month (when One Photo Focus runs)!

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BEFORE PHOTO

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Submitted by Julie Powell — Julie Powell Photography

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Submitted by Stacy Fischer — Visual Venturing

So, I decided Julie’s image was the perfect one to try my hand at Photoshop layers, and as you can see, I had a blast! I started with a textured background layer. From there, I selected the rose using the quick selection tool, copied it, and pasted it onto the background twice, enlarging it and rotating it a bit each time. Then I added an image I took of a fern and somehow managed to figure out how to erase the portion of the fern covering the rose so it would show through. I played around with opacity and fill levels of the layers to get the look I wanted and finished up by adding a craquelure effect to the rose (filter-texture-craquelure) and poster edging to the fern (filter-artistic-poster edges), and adding a frame (filter-render-picture frame). In Color Efex Pro, I used the “foliage” filter to bump up the fern leaves and  a bit of “glamour glow” to soften the craquelure effect that I decided was a bit too heavy handed.

It could be that I went a bit overboard with all the effects, but I was having way too much fun to stop! Thanks, Julie, for a wonderfully fun image for December’s 1PF!

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Submitted by Cee Neuner — Cee’s Photography

Cee says: I liked the small dew drop and the shadows inside the tulip. Since I really don’t change flowers often, I thought I would play around with the color a tad bit.

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Submitted by Sherry Felix – Port4u

Sherry says: Using Julie Powel’s photo. I did a few adjustments in Lightroom, then in Photoshop I created duplicate layers and added directional blurs and masked out some parts. I enhanced the edges using filter – stylize – find edges. I also used adjustment layers.

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Submitted by Chris — sv-takeiteasy

Chris says: Flowers are always a pleasure to work with and loaded with meaning.  This was a nice opportunity to play with layers and masks to put my interpretation on this delicate tulip.

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Submitted by Laura Macky — Laura Macky Photography

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Submitted by Klara — Sliku svoju ljubim II

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Submitted by Bren Ryan — RyanPhotography

Bren says: I decided to crop the image and do the whole processing this time in Photoshop. I added a texture, which I blurred and darkened in Camera Raw Filter… I then added a colour lookup to create the blue effect of the flower and then added some adjustment layers till I achieved the image I wanted. My post link is http://wp.me/p6HNfd-2Fj.

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 Submitted by Raewyn — decocraftsdigicrafts

Raewyn says: I played around with different filters in both Photoshop and Nik Color Efex – and using layers as well. Not really my best but still learning.

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Submitted by Helen Chen — HHC Blog

Helen says: First, I want to thank everyone who edited my photo in Nov. I have learned a lot, particularly in the areas of “texture”, “depth” and “color”. So I am stepping out of my box this month, trying to apply what I have learned in this month’s photo. Still have a lot to learn, but I am glad I have made my first step.

I sharpened, cropped, and enhanced the light a little bit like usual. Then I played with “Hue and Saturation” using new adjustment layer. That’s about it… other than using brush, stamping… to do some final tuning. At first, I tried to write down each step, but soon I had so much fun that I had to keep going and forgot to write anything down.

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Submitted by George McCane — Photoman401

George says: I processed this in Lightroom CC, I blurred the background and also desaturated the background, then I sharpened the image and put it in my frame.

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Submitted by Natalie — Middle Europe

Natalie says: I love playing with flower photos and decided to make a composite image of the flower showing some details as well as the whole flower. 

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Submitted by Michelle Lunato — Michelle Lunato Photography

Michelle says: I loved this shot of Julie’s! When I see her edits, I always think of art. Therefore, I tried to take her great photo and make it into something like a painting, or what I like to say, artsy:) Hopefully, I succeeded.

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Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent

Robin says: Many thanks to Stacy for continuing to manage the One Photo Focus, which is becoming a great way to kick off each new month.  And special thanks to Julie Powell for contributing a truly interesting challenge for this month’s 1PF Challenge.  I saw it as an opportunity to try some combined effects in Photoshop.  Briefly, I made three separate images each with a different effect: one was a curves adjustment layer using the color negative preset; the second was a “Neon Glow” filter from the Filter Gallery; and the third was a “Glowing Edges” filter also from the Filter Gallery.  The three were stacked as separate layers, then using masks on each layer, I reduced the opacity of various sections in each layer to produce the overall effect.  The final steps were a severe sharpening with the Unsharp Mask tool, flattening the layers, and an overall Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer.  Total Time: about 15 minutes. 

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Submitted by Marie — The Syllabub Sea

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Submitted by Bryan — theonlyD800inthehameau

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Submitted by Joanne Ritchie — Coffee Fuels My Photography!

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Submitted by KK — KnowledgeKnut

KK says: I can’t really remember what I did.  This is not the only edit – there are about a dozen and this is a combination of at least 4.  If you cruise by my blog – I’ll have the others posted and hopefully an explanation of what I did!

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Submitted by Yan Balczewski — From Hiding to Blogging

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Submitted by Nic Anderson — Photography by Nic

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Submitted by Emilio Pasquale — Photos by Emilio

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Submitted by Max 510 — Max510’s Blog

Max says: I thought it’s already a very beautiful shot that my job is really soft this time…

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Submitted by Nancy Merrill – nancy merrill photography

Nancy says: When I saw Julie’s image, I knew that I wanted to crop in close to the flower and go black & white. I used Photoshop’s Rough Pastels gallery filter to create the final image.

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Submitted by Amy — The World Is a Book

Amy says: I used LR and added five filters through Nik Efex to come up with the final version. 

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 Please click on the links of those who contributed this week, to read about their post-processing steps and/or to see what other treasures they have on their blogs. They’d love to have you visit!

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So what do you think of the ABFriday forum?

Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section. And don’t forget to view the guidelines if you want to participate. I’d love to have you onboard!

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