One-Four Challenge: February Week Two

Posted on by Louise Bunting

Here’s my second edit for Robyn’s One-Four Challenge.

Ponies week 2
Week Two

This week I wanted to create a soft, dreamy effect.

I began by opening the original in camera raw on Photoshop Editions (the first time I’ve ever explored this area of the program). I reduced the contrast, shadows and saturation and increased the exposure, highlights and whites. I then also slightly increased the luminance and luminance detail. After that I opened the image in PS and selected in turn various different areas, using the levels adjustment to reduce the darkness of the top right-hand corner, some of the shadows among the dandelions and then to increase the shadows on the ponies.

The image was then opened in PicMonkey where I added a frost to the edges and some different sizes of glowy bokeh, both of which I faded away from the horses. To finish it off I brightened the colours a touch using the Orton effect.

Here’s the original image and last week’s edit for comparison:

Ponies Original
Original
Ponies edit 1
Week One

If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I’ve just downloaded gimp (though I haven’t installed it yet and it’s then that my dinosaur of a computer often throws a fit!) so I’ll hopefully be able to explore that for next week’s edit. I’ve been finding Photoshop Editions rather limiting!

onefourchallenge

21 thoughts on “One-Four Challenge: February Week Two”

  2. How did I miss this last week? What a lovely image to work with. Love the dandelions sprinkled in the grass and the horses are so lazy. I like the effect this week, gives it a nice soft feel.
    I think there are a couple of choices for cropping this image, like I could see a black and white image as a possibility with cropping to the brown and white horse on the right. Bringing the horses out of the center could do a lot for the image too, just depends on what you like. I might play with bringing them into the lower third of the image or cropping them tighter, you might find something interesting 🙂

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    1. I’m really glad you like it! Thank you for the feedback and the ideas. I’m currently thinking along the lines of a black and white image for next week and you’ve given me a few more things to think about… 🙂

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  4. Very dreamy image, it has a light, summery feel. I enlarged your original and I must say it looks so lovely, very nice quality, especially horses and the foreground. Sometimes we are too eager to change it, forgetting that even a light touch can do wonders. I would play with the crop to lose that fuzzy background and then just a slight adjustment of exposure to deepen the image. But, that’s me. I am sure you’ll come with something beautiful, again.

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    1. Thank you. 🙂 I’m glad you like it the picture – both the original and the edit. Generally I do like to use quite a light touch with my images. This challenge is pushing me to make alterations that I wouldn’t usually even consider! My thoughts for next week’s edit are currently, among other things, working around the idea of cropping, though exactly how and where I’m going to cut I haven’t decided yet… 😀

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