My #FixItFriday edits & tutorials - Photo Games Week #7

I decided to get a trial version of Photoshop and make my edits based on tutorials that I could find on YouTube. And this way it might be educational to you too. #howdidshedoit

@jarvie

@jarvie pointed out the low noise in the photo (and some other things) and said it was more challenging than it looked...

I like a challenge just a little too much(that will ruin me one day) and so I started Googling how to remove noise in photoshop. I found a video with an extensive explanation of noise reduction, made by PHLEARN.

But this photo needed more than just noise reduction. The milky way needed attention. It already looked pretty good to me and at that time, I had NO idea what it could turn into. The first tutorial that I tried focussed on dehazing (by PSDESIRE). But the autoplay option looked so promising, I had to go for another one: How to edit the Milky Way - Photoshop Tutorial (by Kenneth Brandon).

I am glad that I did. He explained not only how to make the sky pop, but also how to use masks to only edit specific areas of a photo. That way I was able to just edit the sky and not have it affect the way that the car looked (and vice versa).

Before I knew it, @jarvie's sky indeed popped and his car looks cleaner than it was (uhuh... "noise"? Just call it dirt!).

@vmoldo

Next up, @vmoldo. I love this photo, but I really had no clue what to do with it. He talked about not wanting to bore us with the same shot again and preferring a good atmosphere and/or a creative approach.

So I was playing around with sliders to see if that would generate an idea. And so, with the knowledge I gained from the Milky Way tutorials, I was able to only select the sweater and change that colour into something that fitted the steemit colour scheme a little better. Now he is wearing a different sweater and he isn't the guy "that wears the same thing every day" anymore. I still need to learn how to edit it into exactly the right colour, but that will probably be a lesson in one of the future #fixitfriday challenges.

Atmosphere... If only I was able to fill the room with smoke... I found How to create a smoke in photoshop (Nemanja Sekulic) and gave that a try. I think that can look better if I spend more time on it...

Not super excited about the options in this one I called it a day after playing with some lights, contrast and colours. I just love a guy that dares to wear pastels ;)

@skiesandsports

Guest photostar this week is @skiesandsports and he posted a photo of his favourite lake. I made a mental note not to ruin this photo.

But what to do with this photo. Emulating HDR already did a pretty good job, but for a landscape this gorgeous, I really hated the boring sky. So I started Googling for a way to fix that sky and I found it in the video How to Easily and Quickly change a Sky in Photoshop CC 2017 Tutorial (by Serge Ramelli).

Layer multiplication is now one of my favourite Photoshop tricks and might use it too often from now on. But can you blame me? Look at what this photo turned into! All I was missing was the Loch Ness monster, but that one already showed up some time ago. So for now, this should do.

@derekkind

I had been watching the news about the gold falling from the sky in Russia and the people looking for it in the middle of the night. And then @derekkind posted his photo. It is nothing like Siberia, but I could see a little gold rush in here. "What if the river was of fluid gold?"

I found the Golden Skin Effect in Photoshop tutorial (by Nemanja Sekulic) and started colouring the river gold. Then the "yellow brick road" reference popped into my head and before I knew it I was also colouring the walking trails gold. With all that gold in the river, the tree must suffer from that right? So now bits of the tree had to become gold too. And "how would this be possible", you ask?... Golden Unicorn.

So at first, I thought that adding lightning was going to be awesome. Electricity / Lightning Effect in Photoshop (again by Nemanja Sekulic) helped me fix that. But it just didn't work for me. And since I had a Unicorn, I clearly needed a rainbow instead. And I learned a trick earlier and this boring sky was perfect for it! Rainbow #ftw!!

PS. It looks more like piss than gold, but you get the idea ;)

@caseygrimley

Today @caseygrimley also posted his challenge. I didn't have a huge amount of time, but the photo was interesting enough to try some things.

I have a weird interest in the color splash effect and the idea was to separate the stone from the rest and just do a color splash in just that area. I found a Photoshop Tutorial: Color Splash Effect and realized there wasn't an easier trick to do that than to work with masks again (or did I not find the right tutorial?).

I created the mask through color range select and thought "I'll fix the selection of the woman later". But when I turned the layer black and white I actually liked this result. So yeah, a quick one. Would probably have tried other things too if I had the time.