hello to all ....

By kind recommendation of Kraellin, i move this topic over here from the
software forum. ....

I currently write on the environmental history of Brazil, which also involves the reconstruction of historical and prehistorical landscapes.

Lately, I've been trying to produce some illustrations for this work, using a variety of GIS/Landscape Rendering/3D applications.

Id like to add Photoshop to this arsenal, but Im afraid I still dont know enough about the detailed workings of this great programm, although ive been using it superficially since years (like so many).

To put it in a simplified manner:
I have aerial footage of tropical forests, which I'd like to insert, as skillfully as possible, into wellknown, recognizable motives (stuff known from postcards etc.), in order to revert these 'back in time', and thus create a series of before / after pairs.

I decided look for help with that, since my own humble nibblings with the clone stamp have left me quite dissapointed so far.

First, of all I'd like to ask for some general advice, probably throwing a few keywords at me would already do it. :)

Then, I can also prepare some examples to post here, and if ne1 would be willing to bear through these pieces of cg-butchery and give me some hints,
id certainly appreciate it.

Regards and thanks to all
doonee

ok, here are two representative examples of what im torturing myself with these days.

example one: ssa25-22.jpg
pasting forest footage over an aerial photograph.
as you can see, all i do is paste in some forest, and then distribute it
with the clone stamp.

example 2: paitest222.jpg
pasting forest footage over a TerraGen render.
here the plan is to use the TG render, pre-textured with material from the forest footage, as a guide for the Photoshop clone-texturing. Textures for rocks etc will come from Terragen itself. Its the trees that are the 'problem' ....

Obstacles, as you can see, are many.

One thing that has been bugging me is the problem of adjusting the faint blue glow that landscapes get on a distance. I was wondering if i could somehow clean that blue glow off the footage, and later add it aain artificially which would increase my choices of what material to use.

Another thing would be to skew the footage appropiately to exactly match the angle of the pic.

So, if ne1 could put me on the right track with this, id be happy as a hog .. :)

and another example, a different approach, a less representative one, due to the lack of historical photography.

wb 18502.jpg is a rather rare historical pic, from 1850, of a beach in brazil, now located in an urbanized area.

of course it would be cool if i knew how to colorize this thing......

in wb 15002.jpg, i have been messing with the former, removing bridge and houses and adding some vegetation.
im sure this could be done better, and of course, it would be cool if it could be in colour.

so also, here, any hint at all is appreciated.

im aware that these 2 examples are rather 2 different topics, but i didnt want to post all over the place.
thewhat they have in common is that they explain what i mean to do with Photoshop, (i hope.)

There are other approaches involving GIS and 3D applications too.

rgds and thanks for the attention ...
d

i just noticed that the pics i attached are probably too small ...
if you need bigger ones to able to comment on them, plz let me know ...

d

yup. need larger. standard size around here is generally 800 x 600. it's not written in concrete or anything, but it's an easy browser and paint program size.

Craig

k, here are the pics again, 800x600 :)

plz note that in 'paitest.jpg', the Terragen 'vegetation' in the foreground has been replaced with the same material that was the source of the texture. It stops shortly before the hills, and id like it to cover the entire area, and 'behave' correctly at slopes and depressions.

in ssa.jpg, i did not worry about the borders of the forest at this (experimental) stage, i was more interested in trying to mimick the elevations of the underlying landscape, and creating the impression of depth.

note that my technique is (sadly) rudimentary. i just paste and clone and erase, cause thats all i know to do. i would be curious to learn how i could improve my technique. I heard about some tricks that can be done with layers for atmospheric effects, and selfmade brushes, and what not, but i know -0- about that (yet) ....

regards and thanks
d

ok, let's take one image at a time here. you've got 4 posted, so let's just cut this down to one for the time being.

in your terragen picture, you've already done some of the work, yes? it might help here to show a before and after of the work. that would give us a better idea of where you want to go with this. i get the overall idea; you're doing a before civilization and an after. ok, that's fine.

regarding the hills and trees, wouldnt a number of those hills/mountains be bare of trees natually, at least the higher up you go?

the blue glow can be reduced or removed a number of ways. i did a little on the terragen picture just to test. i simply made a mask of the area i wanted to affect and then turned it into a selection and applied the fast fix filter plugin to lower the blue a bit. you could also just make a freehand selection and do the same.

you could also make a new raster layer and on the new layer paint a green or yellow, then just lower the opacity of this layer to tint the underlying layer.

you could also maybe just add an adjustment layer for curves and adjust the blue curve to reduce the blue in the picture, or combine that with a mask/selection and do just selective areas.

now, before i go any further, if the problem is not knowing all the things you can do with photoshop, then the thing to do is, study photoshop :) things like layers and masks are the meat and potatoes of photoshop. it may seem pretty complex and it can be, but by taking just one thing at a time and learning that, you can simplify it down pretty quickly. i dont see anything you've asked about that cant be done in photoshop or another graphic editor. so, the trick is knowing what you need and knowing how it works. and for that, you're going to have to invest some time in learning photoshop.

now, in all that i'm not saying we cant help you out here. we most likely can. but, let's take one image and one or two things you want to do with that image and narrow this down a bit. your cloning looks fine; so, what's next?

Craig

From Kraellin:
the blue glow can be reduced or removed a number of ways. i did a little on the terragen picture just to test. i simply made a mask of the area i wanted to affect and then turned it into a selection and applied the fast fix filter plugin to lower the blue a bit. you could also just make a freehand selection and do the same.

you could also make a new raster layer and on the new layer paint a green or yellow, then just lower the opacity of this layer to tint the underlying layer.

you could also maybe just add an adjustment layer for curves and adjust the blue curve to reduce the blue in the picture, or combine that with a mask/selection and do just selective areas.

In Terragen, it would be a lot easier to get rid of the blue glow by just turning off atmospheric haze, or setting it to a neutral color.

--Racc

let's just cut this down to one for the time being.

sure, craig.
i posted these 4 pics to give you an overall impression on what im trying to do.

it might help here to show a before and after of the work.

coming up

regarding the hills and trees, wouldnt a number of those hills/mountains be bare of trees natually, at least the higher up you go?

thats correct.
whatever appears as bare rock in this particular pic, is naturally bare due to climate, slope etc.. generally speaking.
the idea with using terragen, in this case, is to have it supply a guide to the landscape, and to have it do the bare rock whenever its appear (in the sample pic, the rocks are still untextured.)
Thus, what you see as bare rock in this pic, wil also be bare rock in the final.
The addition is the arboreal vegetation in the depressions.
This particular landscape has been degraded by mining activities, and the valleys are now competely bare of arboreal vegetation.
(i could also post a foto of how it looks there today, if you like).

When i was talking about 'correct behaviour' on slopes etc, i meant that
i was trying to make the texturing follow the smaller ups and downs in the valley areas.

study photoshop things like layers and masks are the meat and potatoes of photoshop.

obviuosly, thats what i came for ...
ive merely been winging it with this great programm
for too many years, and this is a good oportunity to smarten up a bit.
im already all over your tutorial section.

the next thing, i would guess, would be to scale the cloned material in order to use it on the areas in the back, ....

thnks craig
d
:)

racc

sorry, perhaps i havent been too clear on what i meant.
i meant that my aerial *footage* comes with strong distant glow,
which has so far limited my choice of material for cloning ....

in terragen, on the other hand, taking the distant glow out of the atmo
often gives us an ugly white line aroudn the horizon. usually, that can be encountred by rendering twice, once with glow and once without.

in this case however, the headache comes from the blue gradient in the
forest footage to be added. (very much the case in ssa.jpg)

thanks for all the attention and patience :)
d

Ahh, now I get it.

I thought Kraellin was trying to remove the haze from an image rendered solely by Terragen. And I was thinking why go through all that when you could just turn if off.

Nevermind. I understand now... I think.

--Racc

doonee,

ok, i think i'm following all this :)

yes, you could re-scale the vegetation for the far away stuff. that shld work fine. just remember to blur it a bit also.

and the valleys are now competely bare of arboreal vegetation.
(i could also post a foto of how it looks there today, if you like). yes, please.

when working with depressions, i'd generally recommend starting at the lowest point and furthest away. work toward the foreground and up the back of the depression first. as you move forward and up, you simply clone over what's already there as needed and wanted.

there's also another way to do all this if you want to lessen how much you clone. you could make a new layer with nothing but samples of vegetation, or make several layers each with its own type of vegetation. using a hide-all mask over these layers, you could simply turn the black mask into a white mask where you wanted the various vegetations to show through on the original picture.

or, you could make separate images of all the various vegetation types and clone from there onto the original.

or, you could cut and paste whole selections of vegetations into the original, though that may be a bit rough and not match up very well.

you do want to be a bit careful with your cloning. you've got areas in your original that in shadow from the various hills, so you'll want to match those areas up with shadowed vegetation also. or, you could overwrite shadows onto these areas with various methods.

from what i've seen so far, you're doing fine. if that original terragen was mostly denuded of forest, then the picture you posted is really quite good. same with the picture where you're putting in all that dark green forestation over the urban area.

and as for that distant glow, you could just clone vegation over it and add the 'glow' back in later with some simple masks and color balancing/mixing.

Craig

if that original terragen was mostly denuded of forest, then the picture you posted is really quite good.

the actual area today is totally denuded.
however, I textured the terragen render green where i intend to paste footage. (using footage colours as a base).
so far, ive proceeded to the foothills of the first steeper slopes.
from there to the back, its all the texture of the terragen render.


as for that distant glow, you could just clone vegation over it and add the 'glow' back in later with some simple masks and color balancing/mixing.

hm yea, this glow stuff still throws me off quite a bit....

most of the footage i had choosen comes with some kind of a distant haze.
(sorry racc, i guess i didn not explain that vey well earlier on)

without beeing able to properly remove and add that haze at will, my choice of material to clone is limited, since i cant clone (scaled down) darker stuff from the front of the footage next to lighter stuff in the back of the pic.

One way to get rid of the haze so far was a plugin called Metrix
(http://www.panix.com/~jnr/), which does rid you of the haze but also
of quite some detail as well. I also used that trying to adjust differently coloured forest footage in order to use it inside the same picture (for example in ssa.jpg).

Then, to get the haze back, i experimented by creating a lightblue gradient semi transparent layer and placing it over the entire pic, but i didnt like that very much.

Matching the natural haze of the underlying picture is another issue.
One thing i did at first was to try to have the terragen render haze match the haze on the footage, but that did not work too well.

Non-matching angles of footage forests and base-picture is another thing.
(not so much with terragen, since you can render a picture that mimicks the angle of the footage)


you do want to be a bit careful with your cloning.

Surely i do want to.
Note that it stops where it gets harder to do.
The cloning in the front of the pic is easy.
It even shows entirely cloned small hillsides which simply cover the terragen render. (I was actually experimenting with skewing the footage, and then liked the results and kept them)
In mid and far distance, however the cloning has to match slopes and depressions etc, and, as you point out, also shadowed areas.

when working with depressions, i'd generally recommend starting at the lowest point and furthest away.

good one ... :)

you could overwrite shadows onto areas with various methods.


sounds like a very good one too, but leaves me clueless

using a hide-all mask over these layers, you could simply turn the black mask into a white mask where you wanted the various vegetations to show through on the original picture.

again, no idea .. :)

Anyways, all you saw here are quite 'ad hoc' experiments, just to get started, some shots in the dark to see if i can extensively use Photoshop in this project.
And i think that a whole lot can be done.
One has to start somewhere, right ?

What strongly speaks for Photoshop, in my opionion, is the following:
One visual effect i wish to create with all this is RECOGNITION.
the viewer is suppoed to recognize the degraded area beneath the forest.
(thats something which the intuition of the brazilian audience will be
the final judge of).
i have already produced some beautiful renders of paradisical scenery in VUE, but they dont cut it, because theres no immediate way an unprepared viewer will recognize the location between all that greenery, even though i had used high resolution heightmaps and made sure to include as many geographic features as i could. All my test audience saw was beaches and forests, which could have been *anywhere*.
Ideally, ive noticed when showing these pics to people, i must work with a series of before/after pairs, which *exactly* match in POV, angle and all, except for the orginal vegetation.
Thus, manipulating existing photography of well known motives is not a scaperoute but a prime solution, since it naturallay implies exactly matching POVs.
The only trouble is that i dont know Photshop.

I'm very happy I came here, because you're doing the right thing by throwing the proper keywords at me, and thats exactly what i was looking for.
:)

Please, if you're up to it, if you know a tutorial concerning the subjects you mention, throw the link in with your comments ...

thanks again, craig
(picture following shortly)

doonee...

Can you post the DEM image you were using, the matching Terragen render, and the photo you are trying to match it to. I'd be interested to see them all at once.

I'm assuming they aren't the ones you've already posted since the perspectives and terrain don't seem to match. Or am I missing something?

--Racc

racc
which one ?

Any of them, as long as it's a complete matching set. Meaning, the DEM image used to generate the terrain in Terragen, the image that you rendered from Terragen, and the photo that you're trying to match it to.

--Racc

i'm on my way out for now, but caught your post, so i'll give you some quick answers.

generally, if you watch an oil painting artist paint, they start on the background first and work forward. this is because they are going to cover up portions of the painting as they work. it's just MUCH easier than working from the foreground to the background.

for creating shadows, the first thing that comes to mind is adding a new blank raster layer to your image. paint it black or nearly black. then, simply adjust the opacity setting of the layer to be more transparent (less opaque). this will allow the underlying layer to show through and essentially blend your black layer with the base layer giving the impression of a shadow wherever you have the black painted. there's more to it, but that's the basic part.

the glow can be done several ways. in subtracting it, make a selection around the area you want to remove the glow from and simply use a channel mixing or color blending tool to reduce the blue effect. i used the Fast Fix plugin to do it on your terragen image and it worked quite well. i selectively masked the area i wanted to change, changed the mask into a selection and applied fast fix to the selection. when you have a selection up like that and apply something to the image, it ONLY affects the part in the selection. once you have what you want, you simply kill the selection and your change is imparted to the image.

in adding glow back, additive this time, this can also be done several ways. again, the simplest way is probably with adding a blank raster layer like we did with the shadows. only this time, it's going to be a glow we're creating instead of a shadow. the trick is to paint in something that will come across as a glow when we make this layer less opaque. several things come to mind for that. you could 'add noise' and blur it. you could simply paint something in, a white with a blue tint here and there or something else. this doesnt have to be exact. and it most probably wants to be 'hazed' or blurred. so, simply use a blur tool, like soften or gausian, and blur this 'haze'. you might also want to vary the density of the paint when creating it. the density setting exists for almost any brush you paint with. think of it as how many bristles on a brush have actual paint on them. so, when you paint, if the density is turned down, you wont actually be painting a solid line. it will have misses here and there depending on the density setting. once blurred, this shld give a varying haze look to your applied image.

layers are like pieces of paper stacked on top of each other. the thing that makes them work is the opacity setting. a solid image sitting on top of another is only going to show the top 'piece of paper'. but these pieces of paper have an adjustable opacity to them that you can alter. thus, if you can partially see through the top layer, you get the effect that the underlying layer shows through and 'blends' seemingly, with the other layer. i know you know part of this, but i'm not sure how much, so forgive me if i'm 'talking down' to you or going over things you already know.

you might also be able to affect your glow with 'adjustment layers', but we can take that up later :)

Then, to get the haze back, i experimented by creating a lightblue gradient semi transparent layer and placing it over the entire pic, but i didnt like that very much. play with that some more. that's exactly what i'm talking about. try different degrees of paint and tints and opacities on the layer. try some blurring or adding noise and blurring. there's more you can do here to vary this, but that involves masks, and like i said, i'm heading out the door here :)

Craig

racc
yes, of course
ill get you a matching ter, tgw + reference pic
:)

(would you like textures and footage as well ?)
(whats your preferred terrain size ?)

rgds
d

craig ...
np. :)

no rush ...

(would you like textures and footage as well ?)
Yes, everything you're working with. Once we can see that we'll have a better understand of the challenge you're facing.

(whats your preferred terrain size ?)
Ideally, the size you intend your final output to be. However, we'll have to settle for the size limitation here unless you can host the originals somewhere else and provide a link from which to download them.

--Racc

racc
in terms of hosting, size is not a problem ....
(ill send you a url/pw)

what i meant was that you have to be regged with TG
in order to use larger than 1024x1024 terrains ....

or would you like me to export a BMP from TG as DEM ?

rgds + thnks
d

what i meant was that you have to be regged with TG
in order to use larger than 1024x1024 terrains ....

or would you like me to export a BMP from TG as DEM ?

I guess just export the BMP if I understand you correctly. With this one I just wanted to take a look at the 2D grayscale image of the height/elevation data.

With the other images I'm interested to see if I can do what it is I think you're wanting. That way, I'll have a better understanding of your task.

--Racc

sure.

ill get you a representative kit.
(mind that the Terragen route is just one route, and that it principal purpose is to fake the POV of the reference pic)

and thanks for all the effort. !!

rgds
d

craig.

here is a sample of how the region looks today.
its not always that bad, and there is an issue of seasonality as well. however, historical and biological data suggest that the region was once covered by a closed-canopy seasonal forest, and that hidrogeography, strongly altered by open air mining, was different from today (the watercycle was more voluminous).
Whatever. :)
Hope this gives you a feel.

Mind, as i said before, that the TerraGen approach is 'inherited' from experimenting with 3D apps, and by all means not imperative for a Photoediting approach.

For example, when working the Terragen road on this pic, i would first try to mimic the exact POV of this reference pic.
But the same thing that sacc said before about the distant haze in the final - that its easier to turn 'distant haze' off in Terragen than trying to remove it from the render- also goes for mimicking the POV in most cases:
Its of course easier to get to work directly on the reference pic than coming up with the effort to mimick its POV in TG, which, at best, gives you nothing better but same.

So, the point is that, if i knew how, i would go and paste my forests straight onto this reference pic i posted just now.

I could show you some of my forest footage, i you like, to give you a better idea of *what* i mean to paste into these pics.


TG comes in when you would want to alter the landscape, glaciate it for instance.
Or, when you want a POV that you dont have a reference-picture of, which is something i have learned to try to keep my hands away from for this project. As fantastic the POVs are that I can produce, people have a hard time recognizing them, for whatever reason. (They dont take too many planes, i guess. Or they dont look out of the window if they do, who knows.)

Terragen is also very valuable when it comes to faking Satellite Imagery, since it allows you to make 'your own' orthographic sat pics, which then one could go on to manipulate and retexture. (But i did not get to this - yet.)

rgds + thnks 4 all
d

@ racc
we're having rain and power cuts down here,
but ill get you your kit today

(mind that i cant include the POv if i send you a BMP)

:)
d

Okay, I think we're talking in circles here. I think we're all talking about the same thing but using different terminology. And I think it's making things overly complicated. So, let me state what my understanding of the situation is and feel free to correct me if and where I'm wrong.

Here goes...

Doonee, you're doing some work for the Brazillian Historical Society and want to show how the landscape has changed over the years due to deforestation, expansion, and construction, etc. To accomplish this you want to have a series of before and after pictures of the landscape to indicate just how much things have changed. In collecting the images for this series you discovered that in some instances you had both historical photographs and modern photographs from the same or similar points of view. And with the historical photos you do have, you'd like to restore/colorize them so they more closely match the modern photos.

On the other hand, you also discovered that in many instances all you had were modern photographs and no historical images from the same point of view. So, to that end you want to "re-create" the historical photos by either altering the modern photo to look as it would have had a historical photo been taken from that same point of view, or using a 3D application such as MAX, Terragen, or Vue51 to generate the base photo and add historical vegetation to it (taken from other photographic sources) and getting as close to photorealism as possible.

Let me know if I have summarized the situation correctly. If so, I have a few more questions, and based on the answers may be able to make a few suggestions that would simplify the task.

--Racc

@racc
i sent you private msg with the pw to download a file.
rgds
:)

racc :)

-didn't see your post before posting my last msg., sorry-

You want to have a series of before and after pictures.
Yes, leave out the Brazilian Historical Society, and you summarized the rest so well that it hardly needs any addition.

Theres only two things Id feel like adding.

1
Usually people do not take photographs before they deforest a landscape, nor did they paint pictures in past times. Therefore, visual documentation of these changes is usually very scarce.
Also, without storing their memory in visual art etc., people tend to forget
rather quickly, hence the general fascination for old pictures etc..
Ive noticed that any single one of these graphics creates a comparatively larger impact than 50 sentences written about the subject, provided that this graphic is percieved as depicting a particular location, ie that it is 'recognized'.
Why, because it gets the fantasy of the person going.
I think this is a great example of visual communication, i wouldnt like to miss that in my work, and i dont care too much which application i use to get there.

2
The work extends back to times before photographs and even paintings.
The DEM approach is therefore choosen in an attempt to create a pipeline for a fairly wide range of different kinds of images, as some of the forested areas were wastelands during the ice age, for example. Recognizable POVs in these
cases are less important and less probable, but still interesting in terms of visual communication. Anyways, this goes to explain how DEM work got into the story in the first place.

I think we're all talking about the same thing but using different terminology.
I was wondering about this as well. :)
But you said you wanted a DEM, right ?

regards and thanks ! :)

d

Okay. First let me say that I currently work in the TV/video production field as a graphic artist. But, I have also worked as videographer, photographer, editor, director, etc. So, the following questions may sound a little silly, but are typical production type questions.

I completely agree with you... visuals have a tremendous impact when it comes to getting the message across. Nothing can communicate an idea or concept clearer or faster than a good image (moving or still).

The task you have before you is quite daunting, even when you have a good command of the proper tools to use. It won't be easy.

1. So, my first questions is this... How important is it really to have absolute photorealism in the recreated historical photos? The reason I ask this is because in my industry we face the same type of situation all the time. We'll want to document something, but there is no visual record available and no way to shoot it. The typical solution here is to generate an animation or artistist's rendering when actual imagery doesn't exist or can't be obtained. You see this a lot, especially with scientific analysis. So, in your situation where you don't have historical photos, wouldn't an artististic rendering be acceptable, especially if based on real data and research?

2. Concerning the recognizability of the landscape... (and you may have thought of this) What if you were to present the more recognizable modern image first, then present them with the historical image (real or recreated)? I think that this might raise the recognition rate of the historical image since the honus of recognition wouldn't rely so heavily on an unfamiliar landscape. People would be able to pick out the points of similarity much more easily if they start with what they know, and at the same time, it would probably give the historical image even greater impact making your message even stronger. And in reference to question 1, would seem to lessen the need for true photorealism since you wouldn't be relying on the historical photo for that recognition.

3. Concerning the need to have the historical photos look like modern photos... I suppose this would be a matter of personal taste, but would not images that looked historical (aged) have more impact on the viewer? If the two images looked modern, the historical one might be more easily confused with a modern image that was taken at a different location. Whereas an aged historical image might be more of a visual cue that this image is of the same place but represents the past. And following that logic, it would also make the recreations easier because by doing them in grayscale or sepia tone, etc. problems like the blue cast would become less of an issue.

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. These questions are not designed to try and dissuade you from trying to recreate modern looking photorealistic historical images, but rather to help you (and me) think about the message you want to convey and the most impactful way to do it without driving ourselves completely mad in the process. Getting these recreations to look absolutely photorealistically perfect is going to be quite a difficult task, even for a seasoned professional. The question then becomes... is it necessary? If so, we'll do our best. But, if not, then many more options (like some of the above) make themselves available.

--Racc

along with what racc just said, i was thinking a rollover would also be a good way to show the 'before' and 'after', especially if the pov is the same.

another help in things like this, is to make it real to the viewer. if they can see their house or surrounding area as a before and after, it personalizes it for them. a shot of a bare, remote area they know nothing about might get their attention for a small bit, but not like if they can see how things looked before their house or school or place of business was there.

Craig

racc

the following questions may sound a little silly, but are typical production type questions.

there is *nothing* silly in what you are saying.....
keep it coming ....

1.
How important is it really to have absolute photorealism in the recreated historical photos?

I had asked myself that question.
I came to the conclusion that abstraction is a necessary part of the entire thing, and a great help to define a style and a technique.

To give one example, the area here is topranking in terms of biodiversity (440 species of trees on a single ha. in undisturbed forests, not counting other plants, which is actually world record), and thus approaching these scenes to a level where individual species become identifiable is outright suicidal, in several respects. (3D modelling and scientific acurracy, to only mention a few).

Maintaining a certain distance from the motives is thus simply necessary. ('abstraction as a healthy constraint'.)

Once this far, further abstraction is possible as long as
* it makes the project more makeable
* it still hits the recognition-nail on the head
* it maintains a CONSISTENT STYLE.

I could thus imagine the final pics looking somewhat similar to 'PIXAR Style' etc, (i doubt tho, in this case, that this would make anything any easier), but i could not imagine just one or two looking like that.

I feel that as long as such a style is not defined, the strive for photorealism should remain the guide, since it is helpful to find such a style ....

Do things really get "any better" with artistic rendering ?

Another point is, of course, that photorealism is in vougue and usually (if well done!!) good for PR, so i guess no stone should be left unturned to determine
whether it can or can not 'be done'.


2.
What if you were to present the more recognizable modern image first, then present them with the historical image (real or recreated)?

Yes i think that may be even necessary in some (most) cases.

(To make sure here, when we talk about before/after pairs, the after-twin
is always to be an original modern unaltered photograph.)

I lately did a small presentation for some folks who work for an environmental agency (prime audience, since, in theory, they read maps all the time)
and was a bit surprized how long it took them to get going ...

For urban areas, I also thought of placing small graphic icons (such as the lighthouse in one pic i sent you), or arrows, numbers, etc, and thus marking the notorious sights of scene with a legend. Such a 'legend layer' could very easily be drawn if the POVs are identical for the 2 pics.

would seem to lessen the need for true photorealism since you wouldn't be relying on the historical photo for that recognition.

see point 1.

3.
Concerning the need to have the historical photos look like modern photos...

I thought about this too, since it makes work so much easier and i guess
when historical is available, which it rather rarely is, there is no true need
too colorize the old pics.
Its more important to revert them back in time to even earlier stages, in a nice way.
And, of course, its essential to go to particular location and shoot a modern 'version' of the old photgraph or painting.
Mind that this proess is interesting because it produces triplets, not twins. :)

What speaks for colorizing is of lesser importancy, i would say it mainly has to do with PR, and since the project is totally non-comercial, that is *never bad*.

Anyways, i feel that this question poses itself (sadly) rarely, since not too much historical footage is out there.
If it does exist, it always shows somewhat already urbanized settings.
For plain forest pics, i would say as a first shot, and a second too, since i had thought about that as well, that artifically aging plain forest pics is 'too cheap'.
:)

BTW, what would you recommend in the case of paintings ?

Racc, although im talking a lot, i stand speachless in front of all your concern and interest ! :)

I hope I've answered all your questions more or less to your satisfaction ...

--Racc

@craig :)

along with what racc just said, i was thinking a rollover would also be a good way to show the 'before' and 'after', especially if the pov is the same.
for web applications, this is certainly true, but then i would prefer flash, where you roll over by pushing a button. I guess thats something i'll worry about once i have enough of anything i can 'roll over'.
But i got you, craig, when you say that rollovers emphasise the common-ness
of the pair, and thus reduce the need for realism, and i think thats a very good thought.



if they can see their house or surrounding area as a before and after, it personalizes it for them.

Youre right, but its unfortunately not always possible, hardly ever, infact.
I think this 'personalizing effect' may be best reached by choosing 'hardline' postcard motives, which is probably second best.
If I was to do such a thing with San Francisco CA for example, Id have a
pic of Coit Tower and Alcatraz, plus one of the Golden Gate and Sausalito....

(Chinatown at Night would be a pretty funny choice, right ?) :)

rgds
D

Racc, although im talking a lot, i stand speachless in front of all your concern and interest !
Well... this touches on a few different areas of interest for me. Remember, I got involved on the other thread where you were asking about DEM imaging plugins. I used to tinker with DEM images. Then as the conversation evolved, I realized it was related to this thread.

I've never worked with anyone on another continent like this before, so that's kind of fun. And, I love this type of photo manipulation and don't get to do much of it at work.

Plus (not to go all Green Peace on you), I've always been concerned about the Earth's environment and saddened over the loss of so much rainforest. However, I've never felt like I'd be able to do anything about it. I don't live on the same continent and don't have money to contribute to organizations that are hopefully legitimate. So I guess that in some small way by helping you make people more aware of the issue, I'm helping to contribute to a cause that I never thought I'd be able to participate in.


I am working on the city image you sent me to see what I can do with it. I have a lot of deadlines coming up at work right now, so progress has been slow. But, I am about a quarter of the way finished and the results (so far) are not bad. Once I've finished I'll post it here and if it's what you're looking for I'll tell you what I did. Also, so far I've used no other source pics, just what's in the picture already.

--Racc

Well thats really nice to hear. :)

For this particular area down here, southern Bahia state, the issue is rather of qualitative than of quantitative nature. In terms of quantity the loss is pretty much a matter of fact, since apr. 90% of the vegetation cover has already been lost, mainly since the 1950s (in terms of quality the few remaining patches still boast high rates of endemism and biodiversity).
Analysing the story of these landscape changes as pieces of Frontier History is not equivalent to actively protecting rainforests. It's rather trying to put the finger on how and why it happens as it does.
Whenever that leads to better understanding of these processes, it may, in the best case, amount to beeing helpful in terms of protection.
Anyways, working with these pictures fascinate me since i've seen how they make people reflect and forget less rapidly, which is already something, I guess.

I am working on the city image you sent me to see what I can do with it. I have a lot of deadlines coming up at work right now, so progress has been slow.

Dont worry, racc, theres no rush.

Best regards and thanks
D

We have similar issues up here in the States, especially near larger cities. We call it "urban sprawl." Forests (although not nearly as biodiverse) and farms are paved over with concrete parking lots, strip malls, and Wal-Marts. Patches of green can get pretty scarce if a city and its suburbs aren't careful.

Actually I read somewhere a while ago that the U.S. actually has more trees now than it did when the Pilgrims arrived back in the 1600s. Only problem is, there is not nearly enough biodiversity when the forest industry replants. And that's what's hurting the ecosystem. And combine that with the urban sprawl....

--Racc

racc ...

(I'm holding back a little here, cause this is a Photoshop thread after all, and im worried about me chatting away too much on history and ecology ....

MD is for Maryland, and thats practically DC, right ?
I could imagine a fair deal of urban sprawl ....

3rd world tropical urban sprawl exists as well, i reckon ..
tho its slighty different looking .. :)

rdgs
doonee

As a matter of fact, Rockville is about a 5-10 minute drive from the famous/infamous (depending on your feeling about politicians) DC beltway. Baltimore is about 20-25 minutes up the highway from DC. And I live smack-dab between the two.

I'm going to hold off working on the City image until I have the higher res version. No offense, but I'd rather just do this once and give you something you'd actually be able to use if it comes out well.

--Racc

racc
sure .. :)
plz check your msg. box for details .........
rgds
d

I did, and sent replies. I replied before, too. Don't know what happened.

--Racc

hm, yea, answers to the latter 2 of the last 4 msgs arrived here.
strange.
anyways, pic is in the mail, and ill add more later ...
:)

Doonee

I don’t think many people apart from Racc can help with this project But I like, probably others, have been reading and following along.
Please don’t forget to post some results here. I’m sure others would like to see them.

Ken

@cameraken

I like, probably others, have been reading and following along. Please don’t forget to post some results here. I’m sure others would like to see them.

Absolutely, goes without saying.... :)

Actually, im as curious as you ...

Also, if you, or others, have any ideas or suggestions, you're more than welcome to share them...
:)

From Cameraken:
I don’t think many people apart from Racc can help with this project But I like, probably others, have been reading and following along.
Please don’t forget to post some results here. I’m sure others would like to see them.

Well, I finally have doonee's higher res city image that I was working on. I've also got back to the same point I was before and perhaps a little further.

Once, I've finished I will most certainly post a before and after and explain what I did to it.

As it turns out, what doonee wanted to do was nothing more than a photo manipulation. To take a current aerial image and add the forest back in as it might have been in the past. Thus, creating a past and present set of images from the exact same point of view. He plans to create a series of these image sets. I'm, so far, only working on one of them.

I know there are others here at RetouchPro that could help, too. All the discussion about DEM elevation data and 3D renderings from Terragen, etc. were all different possibilities he was considering to help get the manipulation done. So far, I've just used what's available in the source image.

--Racc

i fell asleep somewhere back there and they carted me off to the photo art forum.

now, if we're just talking Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro photo-manip, i'll sit up in class and offer what i can ;)

Craig

k,
i just reread the thread and noticed that, infact, the pic that racc is working on is not yet posted, so here it is...

its the same scene as the other cityscape covered with forest-footage, but from a somwhat closer and more lateral angle.

The city is Salvador Bahia Brazil ....

@craig
yes, i guess were "just" talking photo manip right now. :).
btw, did you see the foto of how the landscape we discussed earlier
looks today ?

rgds
d

doonee,

that pic is the same as the first one you posted in this thread? turned 90 degrees?

so i guess i just dont see what all the problem is. if you've got a pic of how things look and an idea of what it used to look like, pull out the clone tool, some pictures of forests and so forth, and away you go. ok, i know it's not quite that simple, but given that last picture you just posted, that's just about how i'd go about it.

Craig

craig


that pic is the same as the first one you posted in this thread? turned 90 degrees?

just making sure ..
not the pic is the same, the city on the pic is the same.
the pov has moved some 90 degress, yea ..
I guess I choose to give the last pic to racc mainly because it has a somewhat better quality.

pull out the clone tool

as a serious Photoshop user, i am, as i told you, a newbee.
as a superficial Photoshop user, as i told you as well, i was all over quite a few pics with *nothing but* the clone tool and the erazor, quite a few times, off and on over like a few weeks or so.
personally, i was not too happy with the results, so I came here, wondering what serious users might be doing to it, and how.....

Clone-wise, the difference with the other pic you had looked at in the beginning (the one involving a terragen render) is that there are some trees in the original. So, of course, one starts off the cloning material in the pic.
Thats a natural thing to do and its how it all started for me as well.

One step further, i guess, is when the reference pic has no trees in it, so the cloning footage has to come from somewhere else.

Also one up is when the reference pic has horizon and more depth, (like the first cityscape picture i had shown) because one gets to deal with distant haze etc.

Then the treefootage pic may be taken from a different angle than the pic where theyre supposed to go. This gets you to skewing etc.

It may sound silly, but Im new to that, so i get sidetracked.
I may have, for example, tried to create a particular angle in a 3D app just to try matching the angle in which my treefootage is taken, simply because im not confident with skewing. I would thus work *around* Photoshop rather than *with* it.

When i noticed that, i came here, and yea, thats pretty much it.

doonee,

ok. you might be making this more complex than it needs to be. i understand about sizes of trees and haze and i think even the skewing you were talking about. if the pov is high up, a tree wouldnt look the same as if the pov were close to the ground. ok, fair enough.

but, here's the secret; it doesnt matter. there are TONS of pictures you can reference and clone from. i often borrow other pictures and clone pieces of them into another picture. if the size is off, then i simply resize the source image to make it fit the effect image (the one receiving the clones). the haze can be put back in AFTER all your cloning. shadows can be put back in AFTER the cloning and so on and so forth. it's really pretty simple. you do want to pay attention to tree types and things like that. you dont want palm trees in canada :) but, really, it's pretty much that simple.

in the very first picture you postedd in this thread, the ONLY thing i see wrong is that you started from the front of the image and worked towards the back. that's backwards, at least in this case. start from the back and work forwards. this will overlap your trees nicely. and, unless you're working with VERY high res pictures and up fairly close, there's really not going to be all that much detail you'll have to correct after the cloning.

and, if you're lucky and do a good search, you can sometimes even make this simpler by doing whole sections cut from one and pasted into another.

now, if you really dont like the idea of cloning, there are other ways to do what you want. take your original picture and one with a lot of trees that you want to implant into the original. make a new layer and paste the tree image into it. then, lower the opacity of the tree image which is on top of the other so you can sort of see both. then, use your eraser to simply remove the bits of the tree layer that dont fit in the lower layer.

you can also do this with masks, either hide all or show all and simply remove parts of the mask to allow the image to show through to the other.

heck, there's prolly even other ways i havent considered, but those might get you started or further along.

Craig

Another way may be to make a tree into a brush and paint on trees. The brush could be changed in size for different distances.

All you would need is one good tree and you could make all the others from it. Just vary size and hue (This could be built into the brush)

Ken

This post is just to show that the blue cast can be removed quite easily

Ken

craig ..

you might be making this more complex than it needs to be.
here's the secret; it doesnt matter.

Not knowing Photoshop in depth, i try to be sure im not missing anything ...
Ive been doing this on my own for a month now, and i thought it was time to make sure.
If you tell me thats basically all there is to it, thats fine.
Thats exactly what i needed/wanted to hear then...
:)

if the pov is high up, a tree wouldnt look the same as if the pov were close to the ground.

I still think thats important.
Of course i want to know if i can tweak my hundreds of jungle aerials around to adapt them to the perspective of the target fotos.
Maybe theres even some cool skewing-plugin out there that skews stuff for me after i draw a horizon and a basic grid. I wouldnt want to miss that kind of thing. Ive even seen some kind of 'perspective texture brush tool" on the web, with one eye, a while ago.

heck, there's prolly even other ways i havent considered

please, keep them coming, craig, i want to know them all, thats why i came.
you dont have to go into depth, some keywords are probably enough ...

many thanks and best regards :)
d

Cameraken ...

Another way may be to make a tree into a brush and paint on trees. The brush could be changed in size for different distances.

To tell you the truth, i only discovered Photoshop brushes 3 days ago, when reading through the tuts here. :)
I'd be very interested in making some 'canopy' brushes ...


This post is just to show that the blue cast can be removed quite easily
nice, how did you do that ? :)

however, im more worried about loosing the haze in the *clone material* ..
theres an example in the attachment.
id like to learn how to do that, if theres a way.

also, id like to learn how to adapt the haze of the clone material to that of the target picture.

thanks for your suggestions, ken
:)

Doonee

Here I have removed the Haze and replaced it with a blue one. This is very easy in Photoshop. I am just throwing these ideas in, as I think (like Craig), that you may be over complicating this.
I may not understand POVs. But Trees and haze are easy. As you will see I have also cloned some trees in.

Don’t worry about loosing haze etc. Just tell us what you want.

Ken

Quote:
if the pov is high up, a tree wouldnt look the same as if the pov were close to the ground.


I still think thats important.

yes, it is important, and that's what i was saying. that and the size are about the only things you need to worry about. so, you just find images that match up.

let's do this, doonee; post two images, one, the image you want to change, and one that you're going to 'borrow' trees from. you pick them, match them up well so the pov's (point of views) are the same to your eye and let us work on them a bit. the folks here are VERY visual oriented. they like pictures! they 'think' more in pictures than words. post two pictures and turn them loose. you'll probably get more ideas in an hour than all the days we've spent here talking about this :)

Craig

@craig and ken

LOL, ok i got you.
next post will be s i m p l e :)

it will have 2 pics attached, A and B.

and it will say:
hey, how do i get A into B ?

ok ?

:)

thanks for all your patience & concern, guys
doonee

Okay, here is my first pass at this. I used almost no cloning. Nearly everyting done here was simply cut, paste, and blend edges. All of the foilage used came from the source image. Some of the topology and beach decisions were made based on converstions I had with doonee outside of this forum. All mistakes, however, are totally mine.

The cutting and pasting was done in little tiny steps each on its own layer. I lost count of how many layers I used, but there's a lot of 'em. I put them into groups as I went just so the layer palette would be manageable.

Once all the cutting and pasting was done, I created a couple of curves adjustment layers to generate shading in the topology. Then using the layer adjustment masks, painted the shading in.

If anyone would like more detailed steps on what I did, I will be happy to post them when I get back into town on Tuesday.

--Racc

racc,

good job. but a bit too uniform. vary your spacing and rows and such. just break it up a bit.

Craig

ok...

heres an example of what i'd like to do:

i have texture2.jpg for close distances: A1
and texture3.jpg for long distances : A2

the target is guara02.jpg: B

question:
whats the best way to get A into B ?
(fill B with forests in a credible way..)

this example here includes most obstacles we discussed here before.
angle. mist, colour, depth etc.

A1 would be perfect for the front of the pic, since it contains vegetation that actually used to occur in B.

A2 is a random distant rainforest shot, and therefor replaceable.

the landscape and the rocks were covered with forests almost entirely,
except on the steepest slopes.
the huge hole in the boulder to the left is manmade.

all ideas on how to get this done are most welcome

thats it ...:)

regards
d

That’s looking good Racc. It looks a bit dark in your post but when lightened it looks much better.

POV. Point of View. Silly me. I thought it was technical rendering jargon.

Doonee

Thanks for your latest challenge. I think a few people may have a go now.
Just a couple of questions before I start.
Do you have a picture of one single tree you could post. Or failing that do you know the names of the trees then I can search for one also are all the trees the same Make (Type)


Ken

ken


Do you have a picture of one single tree you could post.

Individual rainforest trees are hard to come by, you usually get a lot or none.
I have a gig of footage here, and ill go through it and post you one once i find one.

Tell me what your plan is, and maybe i can help you....
Without wanting to complicate stuff, one 'trouble' with tropical forests is the high biodiversity. You usually dont get to see more than 3 or 4 specimens of a species in like a hectar, or even less....

do you know the names of the trees then I can search for one

typical local rainforest hero-trees could be, for example:

jequitiba
guapuruvu
angelim

the latter is a classic rainforest 'emergent tree', some 50 m high, sticking out of the rest of the canopy for like 10-15mts. These 'emergents' are a major trademark of rainforest canopies, btw., so you want to look that term up as well (so will I..), as youd get the emergent tree together with the rest of the canopy in the back ...

also, its often less the trees themselves that make the picture, but all the stuff they got hanging from them. Thus, when searching, try "epiphytes" as well, which includes lianas, bromeliads etc., which grow on these trees, so pictures of them often include classic tree-footage as well.

they didnt have coconut trees back then, btw :)

also are all the trees the same Make (Type)

ken, i didnt get this part, sorry, please explain ...

rgds and thnks
d

ken
btw.
the kind of jequitiba (theres quite a few) you'd want looks like this here:

rgds
d

Doonee

Here is My attempt No.1
Please tell me what you think. There is no point doing too much if I’m going in the wrong direction.

How is the scale?
Do I need different trees?
How is the colour?
How is the mist?
Etc. Etc.

Ken

now that's primordial, ken :)

Craig

Ken :)

1
As for the colours, its hard to say at this point. You have to imagine this area as covered with *thick* rainforest almost entirely, pretty much like in raccs pic. Thus very few of the colors now present in this landscape will been visible in the final.
Ideally, A2 is 'draped' over B entirely, leaving only the steep slopes of the boulders looking out. If I had the area as a 3D model, my first try would be to drape it with A2 (or similar) compeltely, to see how that looks. Next, I would use slightly more detailed material as i approach the foreground. Intuitively, I try to follow this approach with Photoshop.

As for the mist, since the scene is nicely divided into slices by the hillsides, i dont worry about that too much yet. I worry more how to get the mist OUT of A2, so i have more options for my cloning.

As for the different trees, as i said, its a box of pandora.
Theres over 400 species of trees alone on a single ha, not counting whats growing ON them and around them. Im quite convinced that this botanic madness can only be shown in abstract terms, or from an adequate distance.
Although it does look good, a 'Jequitiba monoculture' can't do it, unfortunately.
Its a good start, since J. trees are emergents and stick their tops out of the rest of the canopy, so once we find a good canopy cover, we can add an occasional J. tree. But without that canopy, and in groups, J trees contribute little in terms of realism.

2
I had my own go with this.
For *me* -for now- the center of interest is to learn how to skillfully paste *entire forests* over landscapes. Thus, the lake and the 2 palms, beeing closer in the foreground, protagonists if you will, in my eyes represent an unwanted 'additional problem'.
I percieve them as a trap, since, besides of the lake beeing obviously man-made, they invite work on the level of individual trees, which opens yet another technical abyss (at least for me).

Too bad for me, cause i did not really notice that when choosing the motive.
I liked the boulders and the other distant stuff and got off on that. :)

Note theres also the option of cropping the original to get rid of the lake and the foregroud alltogether, but since were working on it together, I tried to tackle the problem. The first was to find out what my options were to play down the lakes importancy or even hide it if I deem that necessary later on. I googled, got some closer distance forests and played with their colours, until i felt safe that the foreground issue will be somehow manageable.

Next, I tried to divide the rest of the landscape in layers, hillside by hillside, and to experiment with adding canopy structures and textures i found at google. I searched for colours inside the original as a guide, to which i tried to adapt the paste material.
I want credible mid-distance and long-distance rainforests, and so i need to worry about structure and variation. Im very unexperienced in color matching etc. in Photoshop, and so that took a while.
I guess the more distant parts will be easier.
I have some hopes that adding a final haze layer will harmonize the colors.


Sorry this msg became so long again, but, hey, I try to do my best.
:)

doonee

ah yes, craig, and heres what came out of my go at raccs pic so far.

i left some of the clone material layers open so you can see what i use.

I need to learn how to adjust colors better, and i need to find out how to make myself a 'canopy brush', so i can paint forest edges my easily.

regards
d

doonee,

looking good. i dont know all the tools in Photoshop, but i know they have some sort of color balance adjustment layer. you might try that. you could also mask areas and then apply the color balance. in paint shop pro i have a couple of handy brush tools that i could use, hue up/down, saturation up/down, and lightness up/down. but i dont know if Photoshop has those or not.

Craig

craig

just out of curiosity ...
could i open my psd in Paintshop, apply these brushes you mention and then go back to Photohop ?

greets
d

doonee,

yes, paintshop pro will handle .psd files and with all their layers intact. Photoshop, however, doesnt handle .Paint Shop Pro files, the snobs.

Craig

From Kraellin:
good job. but a bit too uniform. vary your spacing and rows and such. just break it up a bit.

Yes, it is a little too uniform. That's due the the limited number of samples available in the image. As I mentioned, it was just a first pass. Some work does still need to be done to break up the repetitive pattern.

--Racc

racc,

ok.

i'm playing sideline coach on this one, so if i get too annoying, just tell me to shut up and go away.

Craig

Nah, Craig. You're fine.

I was actually expecting everyone to point that out. I just wanted to post what I had done so far because I had been working on it off and on for a while, kept talking about it, hadn't posted any results, and was coming up on a long weekend (for me).

Plus, I haven't decided if it would be better to break up the pattern using only what's available in the picture, or using some of the other source images doonee has (which don't match exactly in color or perspective).

And now I'm not sure when I can get around to fixing it. Since I had to take the day off yesterday I'm now sunggled up real cozy like with a bunch of deadlines.

--Racc

naw Craig, stick around, youre doing fine ...
:)

cool beans.

Craig

he coach ... :)

see the area in the midleft (forest<->background) ?
do you have any idea how i could get these to blend more inconspiciously ?

also i have trouble to create the impression of height in that first row of forest,
which i was lucky enough to hack into that forest over to the right, along the beach. (it has to do with shadows i guess.)

rgds
d

Entering the fray late.

The last image looks OK except that I think that it lacks contrast.

Try using Curves with a mild S shape on the RGB channel to increase the overall contrast.

Then to increase the micro contrast, use USM with ~20, 250, 0. This has a tendency to cut the haze.

I tried this and the picture looks fine.

Larry

doonee,

most transitions from one texture or one tone to another arent all that sharp. there is usually a bit of a blending that goes on, or at least some shadowing or something. use the clone, smudge, or push to achieve this.

also, the images you're posting are so small that there is a lot of pixelization to the edges. in other words, the 'jaggies'. larger images would be better. to get rid of those jaggies, use a light smudge or push along the jagged line to smooth things out.

i went ahead and did this one a bit anyways.

Craig

he leuallen ... :)

welcome to join the fray, and you aint late at all...
Thanks for the tip about the contrast. Your right about that :)

Your suggestion does improve the picture as a whole, however, what i was worried about is the transition between the pasted forest and underlying grass, right around the tip of the 'cape'.
I wonder how i could get that to look more smooth.
(I gues I have yet to find some pic where of a forested cape recieving direct sunlight.)

rgds
d

Craig .. ..

yup, that looks much better
will give that shot :)

d

Photoshop
Sorry about the small pics. :)
I'll remember that from now one.

doonee,

if you use the clone (which i did in many parts there), use it at a low to medium opacity. you dont want to get a whole tree cloned in, just a vague coloration of it.

Craig

Doonee, if the pasted in section is causing the problem, then you have to work on the contrast/color/saturation of the pasted section separately.

Of course you could always make a selection of the offending area (sometimes difficult) and work on that, but if you have not merged, the desired area is already separated on its own layer.

So paste, the paste is on a different layer so group an appropriate adjustment layer with the paste (to limit the adjustments to the paste layer) and see the effect with the underlying image visible. Don't limit yourself to one adjustment layer: try Curves, Selective Color, and Hue/Saturation. Sometimes a correction is easier and more obvious with one or the other tools. Mix 'em up according to need.

When working with pasted composites, you often have to balance one of the images contrast, color, and saturation to blend with the other.


Larry

Craig and Larry ....

thanks for your ideas
will try to consider all that ... :)

d

What I did for that area way back in my other post was to add a layer mask to the foilage that was pasted there and carefully paint in a gradual transition.

--Racc

craig and larry :)
hi racc, how you been ? :)

i found some aproppiate textures and got them into the pic.

im confident now that ill manage to structure-wise blend them in at the sides, but i have doubts if i can deal with adapting the colours of each 'section' to the other.

i attached two pics and i hope theyre large enough this time ...

pic 1 shows current degree of 'reforestation'
pic 2 marks the three areas which need adaptation.

i find the area to the bottom right best adapted to the light of the pic.
Compared to that, the area to the left doesnt get enough 'yellow/orange sunlight', a contrast which shows mostly when one compared the colors of the shadows in the two areas.

the area in the back actually has the original colours of the pic, but at this point id like to adpt these to the bottom right area, which simply has the best looking forests.

im a 100% fool in colour correction and adaption, so any hint is appreciated.

:)
doonee

there is also an issue in abrupt change of blurriness between the front and back areas, but i guess this can be easily managed.
nicest of course would be a kind of gradual blurr of the areas in the front, as they fade into distance, but i dont know if this option exists...

Oh, I'm hanging in there.

I think you finally found some good forest sources. One possibility to get the warmer sunlight feeling on your pasted trees might be to try the Photo Filter in IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS. Select all and copy merged then paste that at the top of the layers. Run the photo filter adjustment on the image and select a warm color. Then, apply a layer mask to the layer and fill it with black. Then paint with a soft white brush where ever you want the effect. Haven't tried this, so don't know if it's what you want.

You can get a gradual transition to the more blurred trees by using our friend the layer mask again. Paste more than you need of the sharper trees so they overlap the blurred ones. Apply a layer mask and either use a black/white gradient or paint with a very soft brush to get a gradual transition between them.

--Racc

doonee,

here's what i'd suggest as a workflow:

do ALL your cloning first. get all the basic elements in there. dont worry about the other stuff yet, blurring, haze and all that. just ignore it for now. start at the back of the image and clone forward, making your adjustments for size as you go.

then, do you edge blending and any other oddities that might have come up in the cloning. this is still a clone/smudge/push action stage.

now, if areas need shadows or blurring or haze, mask that area with a show all mask and the rest of the image with a hide all. then, make your adjustments for haze, blurring and so on. go over each area that you want to correct like this.

if everything looks good, then good. if not, then determine exactly what's not right and make corrections or go back through your workflow and edit. you may also want to flatten all to make any final minor changes/edits.

and yes, that's a MUCH better image size to post here. thanks :)

you're looking good. bear in mind that shadows can exist because of clouds, so, variations in shadow/light arent necessarily 'wrong'. it could actually look that way.

Craig

Craig

thanks ...

I'm going over so much forest footage here, that I feel its essential to test *first* whether final colour adaption wil lead to appropiate results.

Besides, its what I need to learn most badly, so let me rephrase the above post quickly, like so:

Suppose that all pasting etc. has been done in the above pic.
How do i adapt the colours of the area to the bottom left to those of the area to the bottom right, especially the shadows ?

Any clues ?
Best regards and thanks
d

doonee,

you mask or select the area you wish to change and use things like channel mixing, color balance, or even curves on the various channels to adjust both color and lightness. if you use this method, it's best to feather your edges so they'll blend into non-affected areas.

or, if you have the brushes/tools, you can simply use something like the lightness/darkness brush, the hue up/hue down brush, saturation up/saturation down brush over the areas you want to alter.

Craig

craig

it's best to feather your edges so they'll blend into non-affected areas.

that was a good one, thnks
d

you're welcome :)

Craig