Week 33 good to WOW Edit Shadow

Today in shoot and  edit Ashley taught us a little more about filters.  In photoshop/elements they are easy to use, so it isn't so much the how to as the reminder that they have a purpose~a very useful purpose at times.

First I just did basic editing+ and was considering it good since I really liked the picture.  Mouseover for the original if you missed it on flickr.

In LR3 I used the presets that came with the program~General Punch and Tone Curve Flat  (I really need to start learning and understanding curves better so I have better personal control.)  Then I cropped to remove the foot on the right.  I took it into PSE in order to clone out the extra shadow on the left.  It told you there was more than one bagpiper, so I thought about leaving it in but decided not to.  That is it for my first edit.

Then since we were learning filters I applied a cooling filter (82) with the default settings.  I took it back into LR because I thought maybe I should try to make it more moody and dramatic~the filter cooled the picture, but it was still clearly a peaceful, sunny day.  However, I wasn't finding anything I liked.  But in the process I realized my first edit was a little too warm, while the cooling filter was too cool.  So I boosted my blacks by 8 to make the shadow darker, lowered the exposure a tidge (-.20), and warmed the temp by +11.  This resulted in this next photo.

I am very fond of warm photos so I'm not really sure, but I do think the slightly cooler image is better.  (Mouseover to see the warm edit vs. cooler edit.)

The biggest thing I regret about this photo is that it wasn't a little later in the day so the shadow was  a little longer, so since I can, I decided to play with lengthening the shadow.  I have not been successful with stretching the canvas before, and I would choose the above edit over this one, but here it is "later in the day."

I couldn't stretch it any further without covering the tassels.

Now just in case you are still debating the value of filters~there are other ways to accomplish the same thing~I thought I'd share this photo of Sunflower that I love (and will probably show up in another post) but was too warm, even for me.

The only thing I did to this photo besides resizing for the web is apply a Cooling Filter (80) default settings.

Make sure to go look at the other shadow photos and edits!  There was a lot of creativity and beauty in this week's SOOC shots.