Photo help - suggestions

[stg1988]

hey everyone! I have a photo that i quite like but there are a few things about it I'm not too sure about. I am new to photo editing and willing to try different things to improve it so just wondering if anyone has any suggestions of what could improve the image? also does anyone recommend any free programmes online where i can fill in the colour of the nails and maybe remove the dolphins in the background, while making it look natural? I have tried basic paint but it looks very obvious that I have painted the nail area? are there any more subtle ways of doing it? or recommendations about the colouring / saturation etc?

thank you very much!

[0lBaldy]

stg1988, Welcome to RetouchPRO Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends.


A FREE Program that is very powerful is GIMP

Your picture looks a bit out of focus and blurry to me..

I don't do nails, Soooooo I made some very quick modifications....(And I also flipped the image, just in case you hadn't)

Good Luck with your Photo editing!

Just one of many avenues of approach.

[stg1988]

Hi 0lBaldy, thank you very much for the welcome and help with the suggestion of the GIMP programme.

The background is exactly the kind of effect I was looking for, thank you but I think I prefer to keep the image more natural. Can I ask how you changed the background? Did you use the GIMP programme for this or another more advanced one?

Thanks again!

[0lBaldy]

made a copy of the original and put it on a new layer, I selected a color from the background, added a new layer between the orig and the copy, filled new layer with the color, made a selection around the things I wanted to keep on the copied layer, added a mask to the copy layer... combined everything on a new layer and darkened the corners

OR you could just use the clone tool, healing brush or patch tool to cover the dolphins

All is easily accomplished with GIMP

[lkroll]

Lazy to extract tonight; good work OB. Image way too dinky to work with, but I did use GIMP to remove the dolphins and re-create natural nails among other things. Been using GIMP for over 9 years now and can tell you it's quite powerful. Check the site below should you have more questions about GIMP. Lot's of cool folk over there and they are more then willing to help.

http://www.gimpchat.com

[Gary]

As I use CS5, I am not familiar with the many other programs that are out there. Gimp is highly praised and turns out some great work, especially when in the hands of members like lkroll. With yours, I used various adjustments to correct for the color casts, painted color back to match using a new layer in color mode, added lighting and contrast with curves, softened the skin and then extracted the subject to a new layer. For the new background, I used a linear gradient and colors from the original and finished with some selective sharpening using a mask.

Cheers.