RAWr Creativity! Show your raw self(ies)!

[Eva Knoller]

11 hours ago, kiramanell said:

 

Your stuff is always so fantastic! Beautiful, soft pastels, with an incredible eye for color-coordination! ❤️

My own post-editing tends to be lot cruder; yours really show that getting one's PS esstentials righht really makes a difference, however subtle. Your face and freckles really comes out much better, this way.

Thank you for your kind words, Kira. ❤ I often use the High Pass filter to sharpen. It is a great filter and only takes a few steps!  Photoshop does not come easily to me, but I watched a metric ton of YT videos over the past year, which is helping! 

[taisiyakarpenko]

Raw, uncropped...

[Marigold Devin]

12 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

Raw shot:

Processed version:

This features the original 'Heavy Fire' preset, which contains: glow, HDR, bleach bypass, and a subtle vignette. On/off video here, for comparison.

Well, that was truly interesting to see on the video, it made me look even closer at the photos - which are always faultless anyway.  I find I like the look of the face in the unprocessed version, but prefer the way the hair is in the processed one. Really though, the changes are so very subtle, and your photos are top knotch always. 

[Seicher Rae]

Ok, y'all PS gurus... Here's one of my rare PS'd images (bottom one). In the raw one I got the movement/blur by using a very tight DOF. It still wasn't quite what I wanted, so I did some very basic PS stuff: I added a little radial blur and some noise & the rare (for me) crop (I may have tweaked contrast? not sure). It got me closer to what I wanted but not exactly. I want some of the bees to be crisp, as they are in the raw shot, not blurred as they are in the edited. How should I have done that? Taken multiple shots? Layers? Masking? Btw, type s l o w l y because I'm rather dumb when it comes to PS.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Seicher Rae

[Eva Knoller]

@Seicher Rae Both versions are phenomenal. True artistry! 

To make some of the bees crisper I would do a layer mask in PS. Not sure if it's the easiest way, but it is one I am fairly comfortable doing. So you would add the blur, then mask, then remove the blur from the bees or wherever else using the brush with the foreground color as black.

 

 

[Seicher Rae]

4 minutes ago, Eva Knoller said:

@Seicher Rae Both versions are phenomenal. True artistry! 

To make some of the bees crisper I would do a layer mask in PS. Not sure if it's the easiest way, but it is one I am fairly comfortable doing. So you would add the blur, then mask, then remove the blur from the bees or wherever else using the brush with the foreground color as black.

 

 

I may end up reshooting this (I always think I'll do that, then get too lazy) because the weird shadow/skin tone change on the right arm is just starting to bug the beejeebus out of me.

And, thank you for the compliment, truly! ♥

[Panteleeva]

just shows my mood

[Momo Addams]

@Seicher Rae

Gorgemous shot! ♡ I really love the pose in it, too, and for some reason it reminds me of something you might see in a montage opener for American Horror Story...o_o

Not that it's scary, I dunno, my brain's weird. ♡

 

Anywho, to your question, I had a similar issue in my last post where I really wanted the fountain to not lose its sharpness despite my blurring in other areas--and using the in game DOF I found that difficult to do and still keep my avi focused.

This is the technique I ultimately used, I dunno if it's something you might try with your shot (o-or similar future shots...>>)?

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by momomoonusagi

[Amanda Dallin]

13 hours ago, Annie Nova said:

Oh yes! Thanks for reminding me about that plus there was also a lot of sim crossings that messed with the boat but it still was a great time, very relaxing and just fun to be away from everyone. 🙂

I sail in ship battles which are even tougher on the sim xings than cruising.  I have this where things won't detach all the time.  I also have things disappear when I remove something else like a hud.  For a long time  my pants would poof at the end of every ship battle so consistently that I was getting a "reputation."  I sometimes get this strange thing where an applier won't come off on my screen even if I change to a totally different copy of my body.  Other people don't see it. I assume it's stuck in cache or something as relogging fixes it

[Talligurl]

On 5/10/2020 at 8:07 PM, Seicher Rae said:

No, no, I'm not talking nudes here!

and why not? virtually 100% of my pictures get zero post processing already.

 

[Coby Foden]

Just cropped and resized snashot, nothing else done. I like how the default Windlight looks at 2200 meters up in the air late afternoon.

[Seicher Rae]

6 hours ago, Talligurl said:

and why not? virtually 100% of my pictures get zero post processing already.

 

Well, that was a quip regarding the name of the thread "raw" which is another word for nude, amongst other things.

Also, nothing about the type of photo you posted here because it complies with the weird rules that LL (not me) has imposed.

I don't know if the tone of your post was kidding or not. I hope it was kidding. Because of crap here in the Forum and also in RL, I readily admit I am humor impaired today.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Seicher Rae

[Talligurl]

1 hour ago, Seicher Rae said:

 

I don't know if the tone of your post was kidding or not. I hope it was kidding.

Yes just trying to bring a little humor to the forums. I guess what I was getting at was that virtually all my pictures are "raw" in the unprocessed sense, it is only the "raw" in the nude sense ones that are different from the norm. Of course if you are looking at my Flickr account instead of my forum posts you might not think so.

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Talligurl

[Seicher Rae]

24 minutes ago, Talligurl said:

Yes just trying to bring a little humor to the forums.

The Forums can use that right now. Thanks! (sincere)

Today I don't know who is snarking at whom or why, the Forum has been nuts (nuttier than usual) for several weeks. :::hug:::

[kiramanell]

1 hour ago, Seicher Rae said:

The Forums can use that right now. Thanks! (sincere)

Today I don't know who is snarking at whom or why, the Forum has been nuts (nuttier than usual) for several weeks. :::hug:::

 

I'm sad to hear it.  I hope your new thread, and the wonderful ppl in it, will lift your spirits soon. 🤗

[kiramanell]

While I was in my Windlass, I figured I might as well look over the security footage of last night. Nope, nothing untoward going on in the bedroom (I'll leave alone whether that's a good or a bad thing 😁). Because of the unusual angle, I call it "SecCAM 2". Apart from the red dot, it's completely raw.

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by kiramanell

[Scylla Rhiadra]

13 hours ago, momomoonusagi said:

This is the technique I ultimately used, I dunno if it's something you might try with your shot (o-or similar future shots...>>)?

I was impressed by this approach too, and I've used it, or tried to use it, a couple of times. Like you, I find it at least potentially useful because it gives you more control over the DoF effect. For instance, I've changed the brightness and contrast of the depth map to get particular effects.

Question, though. Anya uses a special Windlight to produce her depth map. I actually loaded it into FS to try it, but I don't think I have yet.

But both Black Dragon and FS (I think?) allow you to take depth maps using the in-viewer camera. Is there a difference? If not, it's a heck of a lot easier to snap the shot that way, than changing the Windlight, and going through the process outlined in the video.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

15 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

I want some of the bees to be crisp, as they are in the raw shot, not blurred as they are in the edited. How should I have done that? Taken multiple shots? Layers? Masking?

Eva's suggestion of using a mask (and adding the blur in PS) is a good one. So too is Momo's suggestion of a depth map.

Both, however, have the disadvantage of making it more difficult to get the "tight" DoF that you achieved here -- because a depth map, for instance, would just add more blur the further away an object is, and not add blur to objects that are closer than your focus.

I'd probably do this in a really rather ham-fisted way: I'd take two shots, one with DoF on, and the other with it off. Then I'd stack them, the non-DoF layer on top, and use the eraser to simply erase away the bits that I wanted out of focus. (Or, depending on the shot, you could reverse the order of the layers, and erase the bits you want sharper).

It's a probably a bit of a "cheat" . . . but then, so am I.

ETA: This is, again, a frickin' amazing pic. And I stand by view that the processed one is better, although I know some disagreed with that.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Scylla Rhiadra]

On 5/15/2020 at 3:19 PM, BeautifulXu said:

I just want to show breasts in a bra. you want to show yours bouncing, you should be able to do that too. I don't want to see topless women unless she's nursing a baby or something.

To those who were apparently confused by this . . . I think Xu was punning on Marigold's mention of the "tit" (i.e., bird) on the chair?

I thought it was rather clever, if not necessarily entirely clearly expressed!

[kiramanell]

44 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I was impressed by this approach too, and I've used it, or tried to use it, a couple of times. Like you, I find it at least potentially useful because it gives you more control over the DoF effect. For instance, I've changed the brightness and contrast of the depth map to get particular effects.

 

Hehe, having a blonde moment again.  I solve most any of these things just duplicating the layer, applying the effect to the top layer, then softly brushing out (with like 30% transparency on mask) the top layer, so the original shows in the places it needs to. The tutorial by @momomoonusagi was pretty instructive, though. 👍

 

ETA: Note to self: next time, read it all, LOL, as it seems that's exactly what you do. 😍

Edited May 18, 2020 by kiramanell

[kiramanell]

15 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

I may end up reshooting this

 

Speaking of reshooting, your new profile pick really freaked me out. 😬 It's entirely black.

[kiramanell]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

To those who were apparently confused by this . . . I think Xu was punning on Marigold's mention of the "tit" (i.e., bird) on the chair?

I thought it was rather clever, if not necessarily entirely clearly expressed!

 

I thought it was just a mis-post, meant to have landed in Beth's nip thread. Shows what I know.

Edited May 18, 2020 by kiramanell

[Annie Nova]

15 hours ago, Amanda Dallin said:

I sail in ship battles which are even tougher on the sim xings than cruising.  I have this where things won't detach all the time.  I also have things disappear when I remove something else like a hud.  For a long time  my pants would poof at the end of every ship battle so consistently that I was getting a "reputation."  I sometimes get this strange thing where an applier won't come off on my screen even if I change to a totally different copy of my body.  Other people don't see it. I assume it's stuck in cache or something as relogging fixes it

Yes, several times, my top would come off, or my pants, or my body or my hands and feet LOL! You get the idea. It was so odd because I've been sailing before and never had this problem. It was interesting to say the least. 

[kiramanell]

21 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

Ok, y'all PS gurus... Here's one of my rare PS'd images (bottom one). In the raw one I got the movement/blur by using a very tight DOF. It still wasn't quite what I wanted, so I did some very basic PS stuff: I added a little radial blur and some noise & the rare (for me) crop (I may have tweaked contrast? not sure). It got me closer to what I wanted but not exactly. I want some of the bees to be crisp, as they are in the raw shot, not blurred as they are in the edited. How should I have done that? Taken multiple shots? Layers? Masking? Btw, type s l o w l y because I'm rather dumb when it comes to PS.

 

The whole concept of this still alone is already mind-blowing. ❤️ Like an ancient Greek sculpture. You're a true photographic artist! To weave in a wee 'raw' pun myself, allow me to say "Seicher alone has looked on Beauty bare."

[Panteleeva]

1 filter selfie