The grandbabies and Mommy are visiting Nana and Grada (Grandaddy doesn't quite roll off the tongue yet!) for two weeks. We've taken them out nearly every day to do something fun.
On this night, we went to the petting zoo at the county fair. He doesn't stand still for long, but for one split moment, he had his arm around that sheep. It was precious! I cannot believe I was quick enough to catch it!
I've tried several ways to get that top railing out of the shot, but nothing looks natural once I'm finished. Grrrr!
@frankhymus Finally have a naptime that I can sit and play with a photo. I put this one thru PS for the b&w treatment. No outside program presets. I played with all the color adjustments on the b&w slider, increased blacks and whites thru the Camera Raw filter, Gaussian Blur all the background, adjusted the Contrast, Brightness, Exposure, and probably more that I can't remember. Cannot seem to master the removal of that top railing tho.
Just grab the spot healing brush, start at new, blank layer, and paint over the rail in pieces. you may have to work them over a few times. When you get close to the vertical in the middle, change to the "clone stamp" tool, select the "from" spot from a clean vertical below the rail, and clone over the remaining rail piece. You may need several small efforts. Enlarge a lot so you get the join aligned. After than you may need to work on the dirt some to even it out. Clone from some other place, paint it in, and then perhaps go back to the spot healing brush and run over it again a bit to smooth out the joins. Something like this, which took me no more than 3 minutes from the small jpeg. https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wpa1beyiacugbr/my%20sheep%20boy.jpg?dl=0
It is a sweet picture. Like Frank @frankhymus, I don't mind the top railing. As a matter of fact, when I compared Frank's quick fix, I think I prefer the railing left in. I probably prefer the rail in because I intuitively know that it belongs there and taking it out seems unnatural.
@frankhymus Thank you Frank! What are your thoughts on the b&w conversion? It doesn't quite pop like yours do, but it's a start as opposed to presets. :-)
@shesnapped It seems adequate to me. You might want to sharpen it a little more, and mask in around the animal and the boy. You can also play with the Clarity Slider, the bottom one on the Basic Panel of Lightroom/ Camera Raw, it's really a "mid tone contrast and sharpener" control, but it's somewhat heavy handed I find, so be careful the image doesn't get too much "in your face."
Another simple way to add "pop" is to duplicate the final result on a new layer and then on Blending Options | Blend Mode (or quickly the drop down box next to Opacity Percent on the Layers tab), try a different option other than Normal. I like the Overlay group towards the bottom. At 100% opacity that will be usually way too much, but back it off from 100%, maybe even to 10-20 percent even and see if that works for you.
Also, I do like to "tone" digital B&W images. As is they often seem grey and cold to me. A simple way is to covert the final image back to color (Image | Mode | RGB will do) and then add a Color Balance Adjustment Layer. Choose "Shadows" in the drop down box and drag the blue/yellow (bottom) slider a little to the yellow (negative) and perhaps the red/cyan (top) slider a little less to the right. You can overdo it a little, and then back it off with the opacity slider, even down to 30-40% or less. Not so it's obviously "colored" but just "warmer" and "richer." You can give it even more old-world film character by adding a little grain (Camera Raw Filter | Effects | Grain) but I seldom think to do that. Adding a little blue (the bottom slider to the right) in the highlights can sometimes work too, but not too much. If you try that again as always do it on another adjustment layer to you can adjust the opacities independently. But just adding warmth to the shadows (dark greys and blacks) usually works just fine.
By all means try the "Split Toning" tab in Camera Raw or Lightroom, it's simple, but it doesn't work that well for me.
@shesnapped And as regards "pre-sets," they are often a good place to start and then further modify manually for the specific image content. Especially the silver Efex ones if you have Nik. It can often go much faster that way...
Your critique will be greatly appreciated!!!
But I really don't mind the rail at all, as is.
Another simple way to add "pop" is to duplicate the final result on a new layer and then on Blending Options | Blend Mode (or quickly the drop down box next to Opacity Percent on the Layers tab), try a different option other than Normal. I like the Overlay group towards the bottom. At 100% opacity that will be usually way too much, but back it off from 100%, maybe even to 10-20 percent even and see if that works for you.
Also, I do like to "tone" digital B&W images. As is they often seem grey and cold to me. A simple way is to covert the final image back to color (Image | Mode | RGB will do) and then add a Color Balance Adjustment Layer. Choose "Shadows" in the drop down box and drag the blue/yellow (bottom) slider a little to the yellow (negative) and perhaps the red/cyan (top) slider a little less to the right. You can overdo it a little, and then back it off with the opacity slider, even down to 30-40% or less. Not so it's obviously "colored" but just "warmer" and "richer." You can give it even more old-world film character by adding a little grain (Camera Raw Filter | Effects | Grain) but I seldom think to do that. Adding a little blue (the bottom slider to the right) in the highlights can sometimes work too, but not too much. If you try that again as always do it on another adjustment layer to you can adjust the opacities independently. But just adding warmth to the shadows (dark greys and blacks) usually works just fine.
By all means try the "Split Toning" tab in Camera Raw or Lightroom, it's simple, but it doesn't work that well for me.