Ghostly Possibilities

This is a bit new to me and I'm already seeing that I will have to devote more time to perfecting this.  This technique involved working with inner and outer glow.  Unfortunately while I could not follow along with the instructions because the menus that were available to them were NOT available to me - but I was able to do enough in order to create this effect.  I'm getting MUCH better at selections and in this lesson learned the
"Control T" option which adds a little box around an object you have added to your photo so that you can re-size that alone.

Here are the photos that I started with:

I had to first rotate the photo and then make a selection of the person shown above and then dragged them to the other photo where I worked on making it ghost-like.

Again, I have a lot of working to do with this one but here are some of the results I was able to achieve.

In this photo, I adjusted the hue/saturation to make it look fall-like and to hopefully give the appearance of a sun setting on the trees...

Covering Skin Using Different Textures

I was a photo in a text book where a person's skin was completely swapped out by with another texture and I decided to take what I learned and see if I could duplicate it.  This goes right along with selections and is actually great practice considering this is one of the hardest things to do for me.

The photo I decided to start out with was this:

Once I was able to make the right selections (because thus far I have only made selections around landscape or windows) I followed the same instructions for swapping out backgrounds and instead swapped out the skin.  My first attempt did the trick but wasn't very interesting - jut merely a plain swap out.

But I soon learned that by changing the modes out of normal that I was able to get a much different effect.

This is shown in "Difference" 

This is shown in "Overlay"

This is shown in "Soft Light"

Filters and Hue / Saturation

While I'm still trying to master lighting and giving new textures to photos I did a very simple filter change on this photo.  I'm hoping to master the art of softening complexions.

Before:

After:

A Multitude of Techniques

This was quite difficult as I had to do a lot of trial and error with selections however in the process I learned about "Refine Edges".  This is a feature found as an option after using the quick select tool.  Once selected I changed the background to black and was able to "color" over the edges and get rid of the choppy edges that tend to exist when you are attempting to place a selection on a different background.

Another great trick I discovered after you have finished refining edges was to look at your photo for those unwanted edges that transferred from the original photo.  You can actually get rid of these much easier by creating a layer mask, selecting that layer mask, choosing the brush tool (with black selected) you are able to create the transparency!!!  This came in handy as you will see because my subject's glasses held a background that I couldn't get rid of from her original background.  It was by using this tool that I was able to get rid of this.

Now while my creation isn't perfect by any means, I learned so much from this.  I was able to give her a more interesting background, retouch the photo and played with the lighting to see which would look more realistic.  

Believe it or not.. I think this one looks the most realistic.  What do you think?

Salted Paper Prints Technique

Upon perusing the Photoshop magazine, I found a technique that was particularly complicated but especially intriguing.  This technique, the "Salted Paper" This involved adding many different layers and filters.  Here are the photos at their different layers.

This photo looks amazing and if you look closely you will see something that looks like water spots.

Selections

Because I needed so much more with selections, I decided to re-visit them.  This is a very challenging technique and I'm determine to get it right.

This was the photo I began with:

Here is the first background selection I chose:

I added some effects to the background before swapping it out but here is the final photo.

Here is another view with a different background

Color Swapping with Curves

The photo I selected below I envisioned being found in a furniture ad but I felt that it was a bit too weak to be featured as is.  While the focal point was certainly the furniture, so is the amazing widow behind it and I felt that it along with the drab color brought the "ad" down.  Doing some minor changes using some licorice as a sample, I reinvented this scent.

The beginning photo:

By changing the color of the furniture and using curves I was able to romanticize this scene a bit as well as to bring out some of the details in the backdrop out of the window that was originally shown washed out.  While the first photo looks staged, the below photo actually looks like it could be a home.