This week’s Re-Edit is cosplayed by Superdebz Creations, cosplaying as Mercy, from the Overwatch franchise.
Mercy’s Valkyrie Suit helps keep her close to teammates like a guardian angel; healing, resurrecting or strengthening them with the beams emanating from her Caduceus Staff.
2020 EDIT PROCESS
I started with the basic changes I always do, by adjusting the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, HSL, and etc. Throughout this project of re-editing my older photos, I do not refer to the original edited the photo so I can see if I would make the same steps or make alternative decisions.
I wanted to give the updated photo a bright white light to give an illusion of the sun. With a raidal filter placed in the top left corner to create that “sun” effect.
Transferring the photos into Photoshop, I started work on smoothing the skin and contouring as I wanted to get that out of the way first as I wanted to concentrate on the armour.
The armour I wanted to brighten up and remove the dark shadows where best I can. Using the burn tool over the shadow areas of the area. With the wings, I did a selection over the area, created a new layer and did a seperate brightness to it.
Also with the armour, I used the same smoothing technique to smooth out the armour a bit more.
The last thing I did add a purple gradient filter to the bottom left corner of the photo to give the photo a more colour match with the purple on the armour.
COMPARING THE TWO PHOTOS
Looking at the two photos, the first thing with I noticed was the are areas which look dark on the armour compared to the original edit. I will need to look into at better techniques are improving the brightness on the armour.
The overall feel of the photo in the 2021 photo looks a lot brighter and fresher, with the photo not looking dark or shadowy in the original 2017 edited photo.
I find the 2021 edited photo more colourful and easier to look at.
Please feel free to have a look a the individual photos below or the slider above to compare the two photos.