Photo editing..

[zannella1108]

Hello there,

This my be both a photography AND general digital topic.. so I will post to both..

here goes:

My family had some gorgeous prof. photos taken on Turks and Caicos and while they are amazing, my friend and her family had some taken as well, but her photographer took this one photo (at 5:30 pm BEFORE sunset) and made it look like they were silloutes against a dark (almost sepia) background of the sky.. I actually thought it was taken at sunset, but it was his setting on his camera.

Our photo is of us walking away from the camera on the beach.. can you tell me if there is an action I can buy or if there is some way I can do this on PS CS5 to make it look like a dark sunset sky and us as sillouttes??? If you need me to, I think I can post both pics so you have an idea of what I am talking about..

thanks so much in advance!!

Kristen

[anke]

just a very basic thing, did you try to lower the light? You could also separate the background from the foreground and darken accordingly. I don't know of any action that would do that, maybe Randy or somebody else has some more ideas

[zannella1108]

I don't think it's that easy.. my background is VERY blue and their background is VERY brown.. I did separate us from the background..and tried a gradient overylay.. but not coming out very well.. i will post the two pics..

[zannella1108]

Hopefully these will come out..

Well i have no idea how to post or attach or link my photos..

[zannella1108]

Okay this was the best I could do

Turks - Digital Scrapbooking Ideas - DesignerDigitals

[dugarner]

Looks to me as though there are two issues working against this here. The silhouette picture was taken from behind with the subjects facing the sun. That will naturally cause the silhouette effect. From there, all you would have to do would be to apply the sepia action to get the sepia sky. Their bodies and the dune are all almost without color, so you won't see the effect if you ran a sepia tone on the whole photo. It's also very easy to do a selection when the subjects are that dark.

Also, in your photo, there is a lot of texture and color difference on the sand, the water, the sky, etc. If you had been standing and the only things in the frame were sky or water and the bodies, it would be a lot easier to work with.

You could probably do this but it would be time-consuming. Any adjustment you make to the sky will be made to the sand, water, etc. as well. And as there is no sun visible behind the subjects (as in the sepia photo) it might look really Photoshopped.

[anke]

I still would try the darkening and use a golden texture overlay. Try blending modes. You could add a glow behind one person, it would take some masking. I don't know how badly you want this, Sarah is right, it would be pretty time consuming!

[zannella1108]

yes, the sun is behind us! Okay.. well it isn't like I don't like our picture.. it's beautiful I just wish our photographer did what my friends' did.. Not sure I want to spend that much time.. so perhaps I will just have another picture taken (not in Turks of course!!)..

thanks girls for your info

Kristen