My first PS CS project

[discinque]

I've been into photography for lots and lots of years but I recently got a minolta A2 to try my hand at digital. I had seen pictures like this in the past and wanted to do one.

The color saturation might be too much - but I like the contrast.

My problem is... I have no clue how I GOT this ... I can never remember what steps I take. Is there a setting that saves your processes in the file info?

[freddieanne]

discinque,

Nicely done! It's very striking and not too much saturation for my tastes.

Sorry, can't answer your question about saving processes.

Annabel

[Kraellin]

great image!

i used to think saving in .psd (photoshop's format) that it would also save the command history, but it doesnt. i dont know of any format that will do this, much is the shame. i'm like you also; i want a history kept of how i got there.

Craig

[Swampy]

discinque,

Very nice! I like this kind of graphic. It can really bring the focus up on a subject. I don't think it's over saturated. In fact, bringing up the saturation probably adds to the impact in this case.

[Janet Petty]

Very nice. Saturation and focus are perfect IMHO.

You got there by:

1. Masking out the leaf and/or cutting it out and putting in on another layer
2. Using the remaining material (i.e. the background) in a bw mode. You could do this any number of ways. My guess is that you used the channel mixer because doing just an Image>Adjustment>Desatuate would not produce the crispness and contrast of the final image.

Also IMHO, you used a hard-edged brush rather than a soft one for the leaf cutout. You may or may not have used dodge and burn techniques to further enhance the background. It is entirely possible that you did...and to excellent results.

Bottom line, keep up the good work and welcome to RTP.

Janet

[discinque]

Thanks for the kind words all... I have to fight my battles one at a time, and the first one was "Always save the originals" <sigh>

Janet - I remember spending a LOT of time selecting the leaf (all from the same pix - can't do the montage thing yet) but don't know enough to choose hard/soft brushes. I bought several books for PS so I'm sure I followed some guidelines in creating the b/w image - in fact I think I tried several of them. I did use dodge/burn - if for no other reason than that I was delighted to find that I COULD.

I DO remember that after taking the picture and converting it to b/w I found that the leaves and succulents were covered in a fine white powder - pollen perhaps - and I quickly (ha!) became an expert in cloning/healing brush.

[Paris]

Originally Posted by discinque

My problem is... I have no clue how I GOT this ... I can never remember what steps I take. Is there a setting that saves your processes in the file info?

Hi discinque,

You can save your "History" to a file in Photoshop CS. There are settings and options under the General heading in Preferences in the edit menu.

Alternatively, you could attach a note to your image listing the steps you took, that way it is always there for you to fall back on. You have to save at least one copy of your file in .psd format to keep the note.

Paris