Dreams Can Come True

This is part 2. If you haven't already you should take a look at part 1, yesterday, to see what this is all about.

Here's yesterday's photo except I've added notes on what needed to be done.  I mentioned in yesterday's post that the camera had somehow got jostled and none of the photos were in sharp focus.  So the first thing I did was apply some sharpening in Adobe Bridge as well as some clarity and brightness. 


It was a full month later before I was finally able to get with the two missing girls to get their photos.  Now all I had to do was insert them right??  Wrong.  In the photo above I had tried to leave room for one of the missing granddaughters, but I severely miscalculated in all the rush and confusion.  So of course I had to slide the girl on the left side over to make room.  Of course I had to make both brightness, color and even size adjustments on the two added people to match the rest - and since their photos were in focus, I had to soften them just a touch to match the others who I had had to sharpen.  The original photo was taken in late August and the one of the two girls to add was taken in late September, so the grass had changed colors.  Therefore I had to fix the grass in front of the seated girl to match the grass of the original. Of course I still had to blend and smooth the edges so that they looked as if they had been there all along.

For the hidden girl on the far right I was lucky enough to find a photo that was snapped during the setting up and focusing process where the two girls were positioned in a way that did not hide the girl in the back, when I inserted it it just naturally hid the purse showing in the lower right.  Of course I still had to make brightness and sharpness adjustments and blend the edges again.  The same was done for the other two faces I had to replace, though the lower one was much more of a challenge because I also had to tip his head and replace what would have been revealed behind it.

Originally I tried to just blur the chain link fence in the background and remove the polls sticking out of heads, but I just wasn't happy so I decided I was going to have to replace the background.  Going through my scenic photos I found one of a canyon with a river running through the bottom, but leaving mountain side and the appropriate color of trees etc. in the top.  I simply placed that behind the family photo and erased out the background I did not want.  That sounds easy, but just try blending those heads in with the new background so it looks natural.

Of course there was lots of other lightening, darkening, blending, trimming that I did on the fly that I don't even remember.  Since I'm no expert with Photoshop and I probably did a lot of this the hard way, overall I would say I spent about 10 hours to accomplish what you see below. 

The net result is that even after "The Nightmare in West Point" we came out with a photo of our entire family that we can hang on the wall and look at with pride and joy.

Next time, if there is a next time,  I will hire a professional.  I promise.




S C R O L L   D O W N 

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