Photo editing #2: high priestess, empress
Two more photos. Here I will show off a choice I regret, a bit, with the high priestess. I find myself seeing more potential in the source images here than I realized in the final cut.
The High Priestess
If the High Priestess is guarding the mysteries, it seems fair to try to make her commanding and calm and distant all at the same time. Here were the source images we came down to:
The final choice:
And the runner-up.
The runner-up manages to be a more dynamic and engaging photo, without compromising the stillness I wanted to capture. I wound up being too annoyed that I cut off the top of aroraborealis's awesome hair at the top of the frame; in retrospect, I wish I'd just gone with it, or even copied her hair in from another photo. No particularly interesting editing notes here - a bit more blur here and there, a bit more color punch. I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone the other way, and given it a lighter and more antiquey feel? This is one of those images where I feel like the potential of the source is not fully realized in the final draft; I may wind up redoing it. If I do, I will use the alternate image, use less saturated colors, and erase the cars parked in the background entirely (hi, cuthalion!).
The Empress
If this card is about abundance and fertility and sensuality and earthiness, well, I don't mind being that lady. My job here was to emphasize the Empress and remove/distance the distractions of the work and objects all around, while still remaining obviously in the context of the camp.
The winner:
The runner-up:
I like that the runner-up is less breasty, and I think it's a more flattering shot of my face/head/neck. Also, I like the fact that it goes more of the way down my leg -- the winner is cropped off at my shin in a slightly awkward way. On the other hand, the face-away pose is much more distanced than I think the Empress should be.
Note the intense amount of distracting crap in both of the images, but especially in the one I used. Using liquid rescale, I removed: the dark green tarp, the white shirt, the feet and legs on both the left and the right, and a couple of black things on the ground. With the clone tool, I removed the shadow of the thermarest on the left edge of the image, and de-emphasized some scuff marks near the shadow on the left. I deliberately left in the shadow, the camp items in the background, and the brighter green tarp, because I like the feel of a solid calm amid the bustle of camp breakdown.
I didn't do a lot of strange color work here - punching up the colors of the central figure and calming down the background using layers, as before. Here's a test edit of the second-place image I did before the square-crop final, trying to subdue the background purely with color editing:
I had been wondering if a cartoonishly overemphasized figure would get the right effect -- in the end, it didn't. :)
Looking now, I see that I left an artifact of the removed feet-and-legs in the top right corner of the image. I wonder why I didn't smooth that out?
The High Priestess
If the High Priestess is guarding the mysteries, it seems fair to try to make her commanding and calm and distant all at the same time. Here were the source images we came down to:
The final choice:
And the runner-up.
The runner-up manages to be a more dynamic and engaging photo, without compromising the stillness I wanted to capture. I wound up being too annoyed that I cut off the top of aroraborealis's awesome hair at the top of the frame; in retrospect, I wish I'd just gone with it, or even copied her hair in from another photo. No particularly interesting editing notes here - a bit more blur here and there, a bit more color punch. I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone the other way, and given it a lighter and more antiquey feel? This is one of those images where I feel like the potential of the source is not fully realized in the final draft; I may wind up redoing it. If I do, I will use the alternate image, use less saturated colors, and erase the cars parked in the background entirely (hi, cuthalion!).
The Empress
If this card is about abundance and fertility and sensuality and earthiness, well, I don't mind being that lady. My job here was to emphasize the Empress and remove/distance the distractions of the work and objects all around, while still remaining obviously in the context of the camp.
The winner:
The runner-up:
I like that the runner-up is less breasty, and I think it's a more flattering shot of my face/head/neck. Also, I like the fact that it goes more of the way down my leg -- the winner is cropped off at my shin in a slightly awkward way. On the other hand, the face-away pose is much more distanced than I think the Empress should be.
Note the intense amount of distracting crap in both of the images, but especially in the one I used. Using liquid rescale, I removed: the dark green tarp, the white shirt, the feet and legs on both the left and the right, and a couple of black things on the ground. With the clone tool, I removed the shadow of the thermarest on the left edge of the image, and de-emphasized some scuff marks near the shadow on the left. I deliberately left in the shadow, the camp items in the background, and the brighter green tarp, because I like the feel of a solid calm amid the bustle of camp breakdown.
I didn't do a lot of strange color work here - punching up the colors of the central figure and calming down the background using layers, as before. Here's a test edit of the second-place image I did before the square-crop final, trying to subdue the background purely with color editing:
I had been wondering if a cartoonishly overemphasized figure would get the right effect -- in the end, it didn't. :)
Looking now, I see that I left an artifact of the removed feet-and-legs in the top right corner of the image. I wonder why I didn't smooth that out?