Retouching: Before and After - DPChallenge Forums

Olympus 7-14mm f/4.0 Zuiko Digital Zoom

05/10/2008 10:49:43 AM · #1

Here are a few websites featuring before and after images. Some images are awesome. Some are downright amazing.

Glenn Feronol
Sugar Digital
Amy Dresser (not all of the images have before and afters)

one2one

Olympus E-5

05/10/2008 12:31:22 PM · #2

Thanks for posting these. Love these sites. You're right, some are absolutely amazing.

mpeters

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

05/10/2008 12:37:36 PM · #3

Amazing! Goes to show that even the best capture takes a lot of PP to make it shine. At least in the fashion/portrait market.

The Sugar site seems to be more digital creation with and underlying photo theme. Lots of added elements, but super in its own right.

05/10/2008 01:56:19 PM · #4

Originally posted by dwterry:

Here are a few websites featuring before and after images. Some images are awesome. Some are downright amazing.

Some are also pretty abominable though, especially from the first link... a couple real photoshop disasters in there!

05/10/2008 02:30:09 PM · #5

I haven't been through all of them, but I don't think "abominable" or "photoshop disaster" ever came to mind. Do you mind sharing/linking to the ones that you felt were disasters? Perhaps with some insight we could avoid similar disasters ourselves.

05/10/2008 02:53:08 PM · #6

I thought this one was particularly brutal... It looks nothing like her at all, and shes missing a hand!

The "beach" shot is pretty brutal as well, the lighting, the fake spray... ugh.

And how about Conan? I mean, Conan himself looks fine, but there is nothing about the shrunken midget dude that looks remotely convincing. Wheres the light coming from? The light on each guy is coming from a different direction, yet theres no spill whatsoever on the other person?

I mean, some of them are all right... but alot of them are pretty brutal. The other two links are much, much better.

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

05/10/2008 02:54:12 PM · #7

I used the word brutal alot in that post, eh?

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

05/10/2008 03:43:36 PM · #8

Originally posted by option:

The first one isn't all that good but you'd be amazed at what people want done and it's not like she's a super model to begin with. Besides, it's probably on the site because of who the client is. The spray in the beach shot does look fake but so does everything else about it. I doubt they were trying to make it look 100% real. Most mag covers fail that on a regular basis these days. What they probably wanted was something that stood out from all the other not so real images you see. What I would critique is the background not being processed enough to match the model and make the spray look better. As for the Conan shot, nobody is going to notice the light direction other than a photographer. At it's most basic level it works (i.e. convey's Conan's tall stature in real life and the strong lighting is all on him where it should be.) That said, it could be way better but who knows how much time and money was actually put into this image.

ETA: and yes, it's brutal that you used brutal so much. :P

Message edited by author 2008-05-10 15:47:40.

Sunniee

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

05/10/2008 03:54:58 PM · #9

Attic Fire Architecture is a great architectural retouch site with stunning before/afters....

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

05/10/2008 03:55:23 PM · #10

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

05/10/2008 04:13:21 PM · #11

Originally posted by Sunniee:

Attic Fire Architecture is a great architectural retouch site with stunning before/afters....

Well, they are doing more than just retouching. They are photographing the places themselves and so they are showing what it looked before they professionally shot it (i.e. it's natural state without extra lighting, styling, etc) in the befores. The retouching seems to be more like replacing skies and such. For instance, I seriously doubt they are spending the time to turn day into night for instance but rather photograph the exterior during the day as the before, crappy photo and then photographing it in the evening when you can get that balance of light perfect between interior and exterior. It goes without saying it's impressive work just not the more typical "here can you fix this photo and not reshoot it", type of retouching that is more common in the industry.

Message edited by author 2008-05-10 16:18:51.

ikopanas

Nikon D7000

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Nikon

05/10/2008 05:06:38 PM · #12

Originally posted by yanko:

Originally posted by Sunniee:
Attic Fire Architecture is a great architectural retouch site with stunning before/afters....

Well, they are doing more than just retouching. They are photographing the places themselves and so they are showing what it looked before they professionally shot it (i.e. it's natural state without extra lighting, styling, etc) in the befores. The retouching seems to be more like replacing skies and such. For instance, I seriously doubt they are spending the time to turn day into night for instance but rather photograph the exterior during the day as the before, crappy photo and then photographing it in the evening when you can get that balance of light perfect between interior and exterior. It goes without saying it's impressive work just not the more typical "here can you fix this photo and not reshoot it", type of retouching that is more common in the industry.

The shots are identical though. I mean they fit together! Same angle, same size, same cropping. Are you sure?

Techo

Canon EOS-7D

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

05/10/2008 05:15:11 PM · #13

Thanks Dave. Those are good links.

I have 3 more to share as well...

//www.iwanexstudio.com -> Celeb retouching

//www.taylorjames.com/cgi-retouching/index.html -> more like photomanips but the detail steps in how they're put together is fun. Especially the shot in Paris.

//www.retouch.ca

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

05/10/2008 05:17:13 PM · #14

Originally posted by ssocrates:

Originally posted by yanko:

Originally posted by Sunniee:
Attic Fire Architecture is a great architectural retouch site with stunning before/afters....

Well, they are doing more than just retouching. They are photographing the places themselves and so they are showing what it looked before they professionally shot it (i.e. it's natural state without extra lighting, styling, etc) in the befores. The retouching seems to be more like replacing skies and such. For instance, I seriously doubt they are spending the time to turn day into night for instance but rather photograph the exterior during the day as the before, crappy photo and then photographing it in the evening when you can get that balance of light perfect between interior and exterior. It goes without saying it's impressive work just not the more typical "here can you fix this photo and not reshoot it", type of retouching that is more common in the industry.

The shots are identical though. I mean they fit together! Same angle, same size, same cropping. Are you sure?

There are many that are not identical if you look closely. You can use more than one photo to fix a scene but that isn't the point. If you read their site you'd see they are photographers. They shoot the "befores" to show the natural state and then they reshoot professionally (most likely at the same time as the befores) and enhance further in post. They are not working with the befores to create the afters. That I am 99% certain of. You can't recover image data that isn't there and many of the befores are woefully too dark.

Message edited by author 2008-05-10 17:24:59.

05/10/2008 05:20:23 PM · #15

Yikes... the girl on the beach with the outstreached arm/hand ... I'd mark that one down just for making her hand look huge and claw-ish. I don't mind the rest of the image, though I think the "skunk-like" line that is supposed to make her look curvy was a bit over done.

That's funny about the missing hand. lol

Hmmm... I can't make Conan come up. Broken link?

05/10/2008 05:21:22 PM · #16

Those architecture ones are pretty cool ... I hadn't seen anything like it before. Some look HDR'ish. Some look like they simply brought in better lighting. And some look retouched. An interesting set of images.