Topic: Please post a "troubled" image you would like us to take a shot at....

[ThomasD]

Hello
Croped picture. Adjusted in CM Lab mode with curves. Used neutral and Skin pin. Back to PSE. Made a selection of foregound. Adjusted background and foreground with levels. Blured Background. Did an extra adjustment of eyes with levels. Applied unsharp mask.
Thomas

[Gary]

My try...I opened the photo in camera raw and did some adjustments for the background because I was getting a reading of 255 in several highlight places before doing anything with the child, I then brought it into PS as a smart object and made a "smart object via a layer" then put on a layer mask and painted over the background with a soft black brush then I flattened the layers and opened CM and tried some pinning but could not get what I wanted so I did some adjusting in RGB. I know its not great but thats were I'm at right now.

[Gary]

Sorry I missed a step above the first layer was adjusted for the background, the second layer was taken back into camera raw & adjusted for the little girl.

Gary

[ThomasD]

I liked the photo better in B&W, What do you think?
Thomas

[Greg Groess]

How did you do the conversion to B&W. 
The skin looks a bit dark on my monitor...

Greg

[Greg Groess]

It think this might be more of a brightness issue than a skin color issue...

Shot 1 is after setting a neutral and adjusting the L curve to open her features.
Shot 2 is after adjusting the saturation slider a bit and setting hue clocks to see if we have to adjust the skin tones any more.

For the current discussion the skin looks ok...the rest of the image is more troubled than the the skin....

Greg

[ThomasD]

Used PSE 7 B&W conversion. More or less default and applied a contrast curve. Blured skin a bit as too few pixels. No idea on how to convert to B&W and if possible in CM. Yes it seems my monitor is a bit brighter than yours. Also I am maybe a darker mood man:)
Thomas

[Greg Groess]

You know I was worried about this right up to the last line...thanks for the laugh....

I usually convert to B&W by splitting the channels and taking G and possibly the R and making a new image from them.  You really cannot do that in PSE...CM does not create B&W images per se.  I use it  <CM > to tweak the split channel images when I convert. 

Greg

[gremurphoto]

this is my solution.I had a background copy layer with blending mode set to screen at 51% opacity,then CM in Lab for a color boost,I wanted a nice red to the lips and a bit of splotch for the baby's complexion.I also cut back the yellow a bit in the blue yellow channel,the yellow wifebeater T shirt was a bit overpowering.If I did it all in CM my approach would have been similar to Greg's though I might have chosen the brightness channel in HSB.

[kessi]

Hi Thomas,
Your Scotland photo is beautiful. A lovely composition. I like the way

the road meets the river forming an inverted V, drawing one into the

landscape.

Here is my take on your shot:

1.   I cloned the hightlight in the clouds away.
2.   Selected the sky in PSE and opened CM
3.   In LAB mode I used L to darken the sky.
4.   Exited CM and opened it up again. Used RGB to change the light

a bit
5.   I really like the way the clouds throw their shadows over the

patchwork hillsides and the broodiness of the clouds.
6.   In PSE I darkened the highlights a little bit and resized,

that's it.

kessi

[Greg Groess]

Well done Kessi...

Everyone,
Later today we will be posting the link for the course work and closing the class to the other users...

Greg

[kessi]

Hi Greg,
Just a quick question.
Is there a history thingy in CM to be able see what one has done to a picture? I keep on forgetting to write it all down.
kessi

[gremurphoto]

ThomasD,the B&W portrait is a great idea but it highlights a problem with the original image,three eyes and only two catchlights.I left the baby in to obscure that.

[kessi]

One way to make this pretty little girl with her saucer-sized eyes stand out from the interfering factors on both sides is to crop and clone.
But I thought to try and accentuate her face so it would draw ones eyes to her before noticing the hand and the shoulder and the baby's face.

The steps:

1.   Opened CM in LAB mode.
2.   Used the skin pin and moved it around a bit until I liked the shading.
3.   Changed the L curve to make the face lighter and applied the change.
4.    Back in CM I fiddled a tiny bit with Hue, Saturation and Brightness
5.   I made two versions. One cropped, because the baby on the right drew attention with his dark eye, and I cloned the hand away.

kessi

[ThomasD]

Kessi: Liked your improvements very much and the mood was kept:)

Gremur: Yes I noticed the problem but it was an idea.

Thomas