Winter Sonata Photo Retouching Tip

Jolene Neo June 24th, 2007

Have you been to the Winter Sonata Shooting Scene in Korea? The shooting scene is located at Nami Island which we need to take a short ferry to reach there. In my last Korea trip, I was very hopeful & excited before going to the island. But when we reached there, it was already 5pm in the evening. Night falls at about 5.30pm during the winter season in Korea. So we had only 30mins to explore the island before night falls. It took us 20mins to reached the famous 2 rows of trees where the exact shooting scenes were located. So we had only 10mins to take photos! It was really a rush! Luckily, we had a great travel mates who loves to take photos like us. So we helped each other to take pictures. All the photos turn out really bad due to the lighting condition. To make matter worse, there were many passer-by which we couldnt get rid off when we were taking the photos.

When I came back to hotel that day, I was really disappointed looking at the photos taken. So I was determine to use photoshop to help me beautify the photos.

Samples of photos that I have retouched

Before: After:

Before: After:

Before: After:

In this tutorial, I will show you step by step, how you can save your photos, courtesy of Jenny, my travel mate

Before:

After :

1. Open file in Adobe Photoshop CS2
2. This photo is far too dark, so I would like to apply some brightness before I proceed. Still under the layer palette, Click on the “New Adjustment Layer” icon & select “Level”.
   
3. Under the level control properties table, adjust the cursor until you get satisfactory result in the preview. In this example, I have moved the white cursor towards the center to make the photo more contrast.
4. Now, I can see the people behind Jenny. Its time to make them disappear. You need to zoom into them by selecting the zoom tool (Z) & click on the passers-by.
5. Now select the clone tool (S), hold down the “Alt” Key, to select a point that you would like to start cloning. This is referred as sampling of pixels from an image.
6. For the brushes of the clone stamp tool, click on the “Brush” drop-down arrow to select the size of the stamp located at the top menu. In this example, I am going to use “80″ for diameter & “0%” for hardness. Or you can use “[” or “]” to “decrease” or “increase” the brush sizes. Do play around with the sizes so that its suitable for your area that you need to clone away.
   
7. Now you are ready to clone, click & drag on the areas that you want it to disappear. Notice that as you drag the mouse, you will see a cross cursor nearby that moves along your path. Remember this cross cursor is the point that you indicated in step 5.
8. If you do not want the stamp tool to align with the starting point. You may uncheck the align check box located just below the menu bar. By unchecking, it also means that every time you release the mouse & start clicking again, cloning will restart from the starting point again.
9. 
10. Remember, you need to change the starting point of the clone stamp by holding down the “Alt” Key, to re-select a place close to the area that you would like to clone from. Then repeat step 6-8. Keep doing this until all the possible areas to be clone is completed
    
11. After removing the person’s body on the left. I am ready to remove his head. You may use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) again to sample an area near the “Hut”.
    
12. Now the head is gone, the challenge is to remove another person in front of another hut. This seems quite difficult task. The fastest solution I can think of is to copy the hut from the right & paste in over the center hut.
    
13. Select the area around the left hut. Go menu > Feather. Key in 10 pixel.
    
14. With the selection still on. Press Control + J. This is a short cut way to duplicate this selected image into a new layer above. The new layer will automatically be named as “layer 2″
    
15. Now, select the Move Tool (V) to move this layer over the 2nd hut.
    
16. After moving over, I realised that its covering part of the tree trunk. So now I need to move some parts of it. Now, select the Eraser Tool (E) & start erasing the area that is overlapping the tree trunk. When you are satisfied, you may merge down this layer with the background layer by selecting Ctrl + E.
    
17. Now, the 3 person have disappeared. Hmm, I noticed that there are 2 rows of “Stones” along the walkway & part of the left side “Stones” are found missing.
    
18. Hmm…How should I do it? Let me try duplicating some stones from the right to the left. Select the Marquee Tool (M). Select the 2 stones on the most right side (you may hold down the shift key when selecting the 2nd stone). Give it a 5 pixel feather. Click Control J again as taught in step 14. Move the new layer over the the left side as mention in step 15.
    
19. Perform a transform, so that the stone is aligned witht he left stones. Go Menu > Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal
    
20. Position the flipped stones over the line. Now duplicate the 2nd stone on the most left to create the 3rd stone so that the stones now appear seamless.
    
21. Finally, you are ready to change the colour of the photo. Remember to merge the duplicated layer that you create for the hut & stone with the background.
    
22. Select the background layer & group into smart object to preserve the image quality. Go menu > Layer > Group into Smart object.
    
23. Under Layer Palette, drag the background layer to the new Layer icon to duplicate the layer. Renamed the new layer as “PhotoFilter”. Remove the “Smart Object” for this new layer by selecting Menu > Layer > Rasterise > Smart Object so that you can add effects to this layer.
    
24. Now I want you to make the level adjustment layer disappear to show the true colour of the photo.
    
25. Select “PhotoFilter” Layer & go Menu > Image > Adjustment >Levels (Ctrl + L) . Play with the slider so that your photos appear to be nearer to skin tone photo.
    
26. You need to add some warm tones to the photos. Go Menu > Image > Adjustment > Photo Filter.
    
27. Now duplicate this “PhotoFilter” layer (check step 23) & renamed the new layer as “Hardlight”
    
28. Now I want to add some dreamy effect to this photo. But I want to retain the sharpness of the face. So I need to select the face by using the oval Marquee Tool (M). Go Menu > Select > Feather. I used 15 pixel for this example.
    
29. Go Menu > Select > Inverse to inverse the selection.
30. With selection still on. Go apply a blur filter for the areas other than the face. Go menu > Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
31. With selection still on. Apply a noise filter. Go menu > Filter > Noise > Add Noise. User the same setting as below. Remember to check the “Preview” box so that you can see the live update on your screen.
    
32. At last, Its completed. Hope you like it! Do give your comments/feedback/problems!! Last but not least, I want to thank Jenny for allowing me to post her beautiful picture in my blog! Thans Jenny!!
    

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