Batter Up!!!

[Paul Mitchell]

This figure stood on a base. She has a steel rod coming out of the bottom of her left foot that plugs into that base. Since I didnt want to use the base I had the rod to contend with. I wasnt going to poke it through my road base and she wouldnt stand up otherwise, I positioned it on the edge of the foam base and had my son prop her up which left a shadow of his arm. So I then propped her up from the other side so I could get a clean shadow. Then just a matter of having the background shot, a shot with my son propping her up and my shot for the shadow.. Then it was just a bit of clone work to fix construction problems, like not enough sidewalk, the edge of the foamcore.

[Isac]

Well that's different Paul. What method do you use to blend the surfaces?

[Isac]

Thanks Paul, It seems to do the job really well. However a few cloned areas are visible near the legs. If you're using the clone stamp tool, use it with a soft brush and on a new layer above so you can change the blend modes, luminosity and opacity etc without affecting the original layer. Another method is to use the Spot Healing Brush Tool (Type: Content Aware) on a new layer - which really worked well on this image to clean up the clone remnants. I hope this helps.

[Paul Mitchell]

Isac I see you have a good eye. Mine not so good. After blowing up in Photoshop I see the errors with cloning. I have replaced the image with just her. Does it pass inspection now? I reposted the image before I opened your email to me. You were able to reallly show the error with the cloning on the road. Thanks. I will endeavor to pay closer attention from now on. Now thats what I call constructive criticism. Thanks.

[Isac]

Much better Paul, just a tad above your watermark. It's nice to have CC acknowledged, I love to help out. I do a lot of Photoshop editing, problem solving and assistance on the Reddit forum and now and then I have to pixel peep to check that my work is up to a high standard. I use Curves layers to check for flaws in edits, which mostly highlights variances in colours and tones when using the clone stamp. That's because of the many of colours that can be in a small section and when the clone stamp tool is used it's just copying and pasting and doesn't do any colour blending. Better tool is the Spot Healing Brush tool because it blends the copied part to match its new position. I also cheat a bit by copying and moving a selected part to a new position and blend it using curves and/or blending modes. It's all fun and a very big learning curve. If ever you need help just ask - more than happy to help out.

[wigz]

Looks good to me Paul