SaturnRing wrote...
AtlasMickey wrote...

I'm very curious to know what you're working with (or is it just photoshop)?
Yeah, it's just Photoshop (CS4 to be exact). I'm an amateur and mess around in it as a hobby. Mass Effect gives me a great opportunity to do that because I notice details about my femshep and in the end I feel like the whole image is more my creation and not simply an edit or adjustment to a screen cap.
In that particular picture I was trying to bring out more of the details in what was a very dark screen cap. The game itself looks great but one thing you can't say about Mass Effect is that it always has great lighting. So I raised the exposure, adjusted shadows and highlights, and used the smudge stick filter and a radial blur to smooth over the more coarse ugly-looking details that resulted. Here's a comparison.

I wanted a bit more color too and started messing around with the "curves" editor, which I think I'm just now developing an eye for. This next image of a slightly different shot is the result of some fairly complex work, editing the curves in each of the three primary light colors (red, green, blue) independently, as well as together. After that some more shadow/highlights to even it out, cutout filter for solid colors, some more smudge stick, and finally radial blur. I just keep looking and watching as I edit to see if I find something interesting and over time I fill a mental toolbox or at the very least a bag of tricks.

I kinda like this one, though. It looks like she just came in from some ice planet, doesn't she?

Almost every time I make an edit, I will fade it and look at the blending options, so not every edit is full blown. Maybe I'll overlay it at low opacity to find the best of both worlds, or use it as a lighting map, or just use it adjust colors instead of lighting.
Well I do spend quite a bit of time on them sometimes and I'm really happy that a thread like this exists where I can share them. I'm even happier that you seem to like them. Thank you for encouraging me, SaturnRing.
Modifié par AtlasMickey, 15 février 2012 - 05:36 .