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Sony Forums Challenges | all galleries >> Challenge 129: Children (hosted by John Dunn) >> Challenge 129: Children: Eligible > edit image
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24-OCT-2006 Denise

10th Place (tie)
EEEEEEKKK!!!!!!!! *Revised Version
by Denise

Sausalito, CA

Hope was having fun making faces in a mirror while we were waiting for lunch in a very dark restaurant.
The mirror was reflecting the noon time sun and water from the bay along with her great expression.
I played around with the image in PSE3 and this is what I came up with. I am open to suggestions ;-))
Link to Demo Images here: http://www.pbase.com/image/69223295

Sony DSC-H5
1/30s f/3.5 at 10.3mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Jerry Curtis01-Nov-2006 04:08
Great work, Denise! I just love it!
She must be a joy to Grandma ;-)
Harvey Rawn 01-Nov-2006 02:12
I agree, the spider completes it nicely.
mlynn 01-Nov-2006 01:11
Yep, that would spook me too...cute! --Melanie
Helen Betts01-Nov-2006 00:58
Simply a great capture, Denise! And what a look!
Katherine Stanback's Photos29-Oct-2006 22:07
Great expression - I really like the addition of the spider!
Martin Polanic 29-Oct-2006 13:55
hee-hee-hee! Actually, Denise, the darkness of the image combined with the spider works just fine! It puts a whole new 'spin' on things! :)
Denise29-Oct-2006 02:18
Frank,Martin and Katherine!! Bless your hearts for all of your comments and redo's of the original photo. I couldn't get Martin's instructions to look right no matter how hard I was trying. Due to lack of time and Frank's suggestion to stick a spider in the photo...that is what I did!! This was fun and that is what this is all about for me...learning and fun. You can be sure, I will keep working on Martin's & Frank's suggestions until I get it right. But it may not be this century. LOL.

JP thanks for your comments and support.
Guest 27-Oct-2006 12:56
Hey guys, good tries, but somehow I think Denise's still captures Hope the best.
And, of course, one mustn't lose Hope! ;-)
I'll pass cause I don't think I could improve on any.
jp
Franky2005 27-Oct-2006 11:32
Denise,
of course I could not resist to play with the image. Please have a look at the demo folder where also Martin has provided some interesting work on it. I did this in PSE3 using some layers, first cutting hope with an elipse and a feathered border, then removing the background reflection in the mirror completely and created an additional background color in a new layer. The plates in the reflection I selected with the magic lasso and then applied Gaussian blur. After all some smoothing of sharp edges, tuning of saturation and contrast. Finally some brute force sharpening. I hope you somehow like the result ...
Cheers,
Frank
Denise27-Oct-2006 01:05
Frank or Anyone who wants a shot. I posted the original image in the Demo Gallery. I don't have enough knowledge of PS to do the changes suggested but I follow directions really well ;-)) Thanks for your help, I am not nuts over the magenta but it matched her hair tie.
Franky2005 26-Oct-2006 20:33
Denise, the expression is priceless and I really love the shot. Still I cannot get used to the magenta at all. The color and the lack of texture does not work IMHO. Difficult to find a better approach without knowing the original one. Maybe you could try to emulate a circled lightsource from the back, which then softly smoothes out to a dark grey/brown area in the background. What I would to in addition ias a crop on the right and the top or at least I would clone out the stuff (plates etc.) with brute force. For me those dteails distrct only without helping the image.

Another idea is to completly leave the image as it is with respect to the light reflection, but to mount in a huge spider hanging from the ceiling. :-)))

Cheers,
Frank
Denise25-Oct-2006 23:14
JP, the photo is intact. The only thing I did was the magenta hue to "tone" down the blinding white from the sky. Hope is way too much like Nonna, it is scary sometimes!!!
Guest 25-Oct-2006 23:08
Looks to me like Hope has more than a streak of her gramma in her..;
I assume that's her actual expression from the original shot.
Whichever, it's just great!
jp