New process of an old shot

[jwil6902]

opinions:

[Shortie]

I like it

is it an Evo 8

[dc2]

I think its a cool shot
Very nice

[chucklyman]

Yes! It is a kool shot.Now it's sharing time. Please tell us the process. Fantastic efect.

[jwil6902]

Originally Posted by chucklyman

Yes! It is a kool shot.Now it's sharing time. Please tell us the process. Fantastic efect.

It's actually nothing radical, I was going through some of my older work and decided to try salvaging this shot, the unprocessed version looks pretty rough and I never thought it really looked that good. I've spent the past few months getting myself up to speed with Photoshop CS2 though and I thought I could do something with this shot.

The original capture was shot with a 20D and a 17-40 f/4L, through a Cokin orange filter and a circular polarizer. I shot this about a year ago and I wish I'd thought to bracket the shot by about 1 2/3 stops to so I could layer the image and reduce the solarization on the front of the car.

In photoshop, I created multiple layers of the image so I could treat the ground and various parts of the car individually. First, for the car, I used the clone tool to spot out imperfections, and the healing brush to blend in the solarization around the hotspots. Then I adjusted levels and contrast to taste and did some dogding and burning. After that, I sharpened the image using USM and adjusted local contrast with USM.

On the background layer, I added a motion blur to the ground and reflections on the windshield, then I adjusted levels and desaturated the image to make it more neutral. I then added a reveal all layer mask to the car layer and and selectively removed the portions of the layer to uncover the motion blurred ground and reflections.

Next, I duplicated the car layer, removed the layer mask and adjusted the levels and saturation to make the headlight, hood vent, and the d-max areas more neutral in color. I added a new hide all layer mask and painted in the areas that I wanted more neutral.

Finally, I duplicated all three layers, linked the duplicates and merged them into a single layer (now I have 4 layers). I used the oval marquee tool to select most of the image, except the lower corners and a band across the top of the image near the windshield. I feathered this selection 150px and deleted the selection. I then changed the blending mode to multiply for this layer and reduced the layer opacity to taste to simulate a vignette.

I saved the image as a PSD and then flattened, resized and re-sharpened the image before uploading and...voila!

[Paul Shields]

Great image, and an excellent description of your photoshop actions. I love these types of posts where you see into the eye of the photographer. Thanks!