Assignment

Using one of your photos —
Fix something......examples: change eye color, fix blemish, give yourself a new moustache, etc.
Filter it.....

Implementation

Before: This is a scan of a photograph of my grandfather back when he worked for AT&T (“Ma Bell”, not the recent incarnation). As you can see, the original photo had some serious damage done to it due to creases and rubbing.

Before:

Fixed: Straightened, cropped, removed color cast, corrected exposure. Removed dust and specs of dirt. Lots and lots of healing brushes, patches, smudges (especially smudges with varying filters, like “color burn” even though it was B&W), and a lot more stuff that I can't remember to try to eliminate the damage.

Filtered: I used the “Adaptive Wide Angle” filter two or three times with the fisheye setting, followed by cropping and a few other tweaks to fix the artifacts the filter added. I wanted it to look realistic, not flashy—like something that could possibly have been done in-camera rather than as an effect. I really like how the room seems to curve around him. It kind of looks like he's inside of a nuclear reactor control room or something.

Instructor's comments

Great photo to start with - fix is well done - filtered is art!

Assignment: Post an image you have taken of an animal. Apply an adjustment layer and a filter to the image.

Implementation: This was my cat when I was kid. I always thought it was so cool that I had a black cat for Halloween. He, however, was much less thrilled with it, since it meant the doorbell rang for hours, and he'd go off and hide. I thought the B&W adjustment looked good on this, especially since the old 1970's kitchen colors looked much better as textured patterns of gray. for the filter, I chose to sharpen it to enhance the texture.

I know he's cute, but please do not share this photo anywhere. Thanks.

Instructor's comments: I like the contrast of textures in this photo - wood background, cat, and patterned paper. Nice