Like a Glove...

Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here)

This is a shot I took of an old shoe quite some time ago -- two years ago, actually.

I wanted to try to work with an old photo to get a dreamy look. Unfortunately I think I only wound up somewhere a little north of nostalgic.

(2006-02-19-shoe-2670-new)

Comments

Simple Shot says:

Just in time for Spring Training...
Nicely done, very nostalgic
Posted 3 months ago. ( permalink )

blogrodent says:

Thanks, Simple Shot!

Posted 3 months ago. ( permalink )

blogrodent says:

I wrote this out for one of the Flickr forums and thought I'd share here what I did to arrive at this photo -- for anyone who might care.

I was a little bored one night so I thought I'd return to an old photo that I'd passed over now that I have a little more experience at post-processing stuff. I found a picture of some old shoes that I took when I first got my digicam. So, I thought that'd be a great candidate.

I played around with this image for probably half an hour and didn't take notes, but at one point I did accidentally lose the image and had to start over, so I was able to replicate my work fairly quickly. As I remember it:

â€¢ Duplicate the background layer (I always leave the original image untouched as a reference point)

â€¢ Smooth and "de-noise" the image using various tools such as "digical camera noise removal", "edge preserving smooth" and "noise ninja" (plugin). I use Corel's Paint Shop Pro, in case you don't recognize those terms.

â€¢ Duplicate the smoothed layer and leave the original alone (I treat the basic smoothed layer as a second reference image in case I want to start over).

â€¢ Play with local contrast enhancement (unsharp mask set at 50 pixels width with about 30 for strength) and PSP's "Clarify" command until I'm happy with the contrast.

â€¢ Play with the histogram until I have the highlights blown out a bit and the shadows blocked up

â€¢ Duplicate the layer, reverse the colors to a negative image, run the "soft focus" command to further diffuse the dark areas of the image. Convert it back to a positive image. Play with the opacity until I like what I see and merge the active layer down.

â€¢ Duplicate the layer. Run Red Paw Media's RPM Beautifier plugin (free plugin) on a new layer (There are other plugins that do similar things - you're basically increasing the hue, diffusing the highlights and increasing the contrast all at once). Play with the opacity until I like what I see, merge the layers down.

â€¢ Play with the HSL until it's where I want it.

â€¢ Duplicate layers again and run PSP's "Sepia Tone" command. Play with the opacity until I like what I see, merge down. (I do this to warm the image without killing all the saturation.)

â€¢ Add noise to taste

â€¢ Add border. Add slight vignetting.

â€¢ Et VoilÃ !

Please feel free to comment.

Posted 3 months ago. ( permalink )