DINO-FIGUREs PHOTOGRAPHY ( Image Heavy Thread )

[acro-man]

Thanks again, RobinGoodfellow.
I learned a lot from the last two posts.
If only I have read it earlier I could save at least 50% of the time I spent.

I was doing the magic wand with the original photo all the time!
And borders ended very messy, I manually fixed it all. 

[RobinGoodfellow]

Thanks again, RobinGoodfellow.
I learned a lot from the last two posts.
If only I have read it earlier I could save at least 50% of the time I spent.

I was doing the magic wand with the original photo all the time!
And borders ended very messy, I manually fixed it all. 

Glad to help   

[ceratopsian]

I also found this very interesting, as I've never been able to achieve a satisfactory result with Magic Wand and found it so frustrating that I stopped trying to use it.

[RobinGoodfellow]

I used Magic Wand on, more or less, 96% of all my Flickr images because it's faster.
Magic Wand tool works very well on plane and uniform background.
There is also a different way to do that by PS Masks (it works better on complex backgrounds).
A tutorial:

https://youtu.be/0qcWeuWCkJ4

[RobinGoodfellow]

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Happy 2019 to all of you
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After last "tutorials", I decided to open this new year with some tips about the use of a reference high-contrast area to help Magic Wand's selection .


The Design Toscano Woolly Mammoth is a huge figure.
My domestic light-box is way too small for such a figure.
So I decided to use the ambient light from a near window and fix the result in Photoshop.
As you can see, the light is quite raw and directional: it's not the best light for figure' photography.. 



Too much deep shadows and highlights: First of all I needed an High Dynamic Range picture to display the big figure properly.
I talked before about HDR.

That's the result after an HDR' Tonal Mapping in Photoshop (with Local Adaptation):


The result is way better; unfortunately resulting colors are faded away (but I'll adjust them in Photoshop at the end).

As usual, I needed to operate in PS with figure and background separately.
A red/brown figure over a black background isn't the best situation for the fast Magic Wand tool. 
The best solution for that problem is the use of a reference high-contrast area to help Magic Wand's selection (I talked before about that). 

The first step is to create a duplicated layer and turn off the colors.
You can do that by turning the Chroma level to zero.


But there is a better way to do that: using PS Black&White Control Panel (under "Image" menù).
Using this Panel you can control each color separately.
The Mammoth' colors are reds, yellows and magentas.
So I used the Panel to "overexpose" such colors (while "underexpose" all the others):


The result:



The "goal" will be a white high-contrast reference area over a black background to help Magic Wand for a fast and easy selection of figure and background.. 


After that I used the Contrast slider to amplify the effect:



To split figure and background even more, I used the Curve Tool:



The result:



Then I fine-tuned some areas manually with Polygonal Lasso Tool and Exposure Tool:





Job done! 
The white high-contrast area will be perfect as a reference for Magic Wand' selection.

I used Magic Wand on the high-contrast layer to select the main figure, then I switched on the original layer (with the Magic Wand selection already "on") and I created a new layer from the selection:



With a "reverse" selection I had the background:



Now I can tune-down the background separately: a "background extension" , Exposure Tool and Out-of-Focus Effect



The main figure' colors are yet faded (from the HDR process):



..but it's really an easy task to saturate them as they were originally:



..some Post-Production Shadows, a black frame and my logo... the job is complete:




Thanks for watching



( High-Res Pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/with/44737753570/ )
__

[acro-man]

This is rich...
Think it's time to fire Fireworks   

Happy New Year!

[RobinGoodfellow]

This is rich...
Think it's time to fire Fireworks   

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you too (even if I know that in China the new year will start next month..) 

[RobinGoodfellow]

Question: Is there someone interested in a quick tutorial (intermediate level) about photo-compositing ?

[acro-man]

ME for one

[acro-man]

So the pro model photographer AL ZILLI showed me the easiest way to matt his photos:
1. take a normal photo
2. steady the camera on the tripod, turn on a light behind the curtain, take the 2nd photo
3. use the 2nd photo to mat the first photo in PS

works perfectly if the photo doesn't or does have little depth 

[RobinGoodfellow]

Yes, of course, also your method is a fast way for masking a subject. 

[acro-man]

So Mr Robin, is there any tool in GIMP like PS Black&White Control Panel? I can't seem to find one.

[RobinGoodfellow]

So Mr Robin, is there any tool in GIMP like PS Black&White Control Panel? I can't seem to find one.

Yes, there are different tools to do that.
Probably the less different to PS B/W is the Channel Mixer (with Monochrome selected).
But there are also other ways.

Tips:

https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Color2BW/

But if you're learning GIMP from zero, I strongly suggest to use GIMP's masks to cut out a subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jle81ofRLok

[acro-man]

Yes, there are different tools to do that.
Probably the less different to PS B/W is the Channel Mixer (with Monochrome selected).
But there are also other ways.

Tips:
https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Color2BW/

Thanks, Robin!
From your tips I was able to work out a satisfying result:

The channel mixer helped me sperate the red blood from the corpse so I can desaturate the rest while keep it.

[RobinGoodfellow]

Stunning image 

[RobinGoodfellow]

Question: Is there someone interested in a quick tutorial (intermediate level) about photo-compositing ?

The quick tutorial:  Intermediate Level' Photo-Compositing

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A suggestion: it's better to follow the tutorial using high-res pictures on Flickr here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/46725962442/in/album-72157655387495041/

or

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/with/45863606015/
********************************************************************************

The first step is about selecting a right background for your final composition:



You need to analyze light' direction on background in order to replicate it in your picture.
In this case light is from above.
Here the picture to match:


It's better using a plain background, easy to remove in Photoshop.
Also background' color need to match with photographic background (because of light reflections on the figure).

I already talked about masking techniques to isolate a figure:



Now you can turn on your photographic background:



The result is quite "fake": we need to work on figure.


In every underwater picture there are water' reflections on the subject and we need to add these to our figure.
We need a "texture" with water' reflections, like that:



Using a "reversed" mask (that we already did to isolate figure from background), we can cut "reflections" on figure:



I used a "blending mode" called Soft Light to mix reflections over the figure (I already talked about Blending Modes in Photoshop before):



Under "Level" menu' you can find the "Inner Shadows" effect to add more "depth" to subject.
I also used a soft focus filter on the figure to simulate an underwater shot:



The result is still "fake" so I added a regulation level with an "exposition" filter to reduce gamma and shifts shadows to a darker level (panel on the mid-right):



White areas are even too strong so I added another level with a "Curves" filter to reduce high-lights:



I also added a third level with a cyan filter to simulate the bluish-shift of light on underwater shots:



Probably figure' edges could be too sharp.
You can use the "Smudge" tool to manually smooth them:




The final image:



Safari 2017 Kronosaurus:



Full Res Pictures here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130140542@N03/albums/72157655387495041/page2

[PhilSauria]

Robin - great tutorials! You really put the effort in on these figures. I work as a graphic designer so I'm very familiar with Photoshop, just never thought to use it on images using these figures. May have to come up with some concepts and give it a go now that I've seen your results.

Thanks for sharing.

[RobinGoodfellow]

Robin - great tutorials! You really put the effort in on these figures. I work as a graphic designer so I'm very familiar with Photoshop, just never thought to use it on images using these figures. May have to come up with some concepts and give it a go now that I've seen your results.

Thanks for sharing.

If you're a graphic designer, for sure you're extremely good at Photoshop.
I'm really interested in seeing your "concepts" on this thread.
Good luck!

[Shonisaurus]

By the way @acro-man  Do you already have the indominus of Nanmu Studio? I ask you because I pre-ordered it to a Chinese store but that product is not yet commercialized.

[RobinGoodfellow]

By the way @acro-man  Do you already have the indominus of Nanmu Studio? I ask you because I pre-ordered it to a Chinese store but that product is not yet commercialized.

(p.s.  your post is off-topic  .. but....  Nanmu Indominus is already available in China only. They wrote that foreigns customers would have received their orders later than chinese ones.. )