Watch out - she's here

Eilaire was kind enough to let me try some photoshopping on her marvellously posed and strikingly angled Watch out photo, and here's the result after a lot of work. Compared to the original deviation, I've cropped things more closely for added impact and to make it more of a portrait, and I've made Eilaire considerably larger as the detail was good enough and it likewise adds to the impact. So now you can see all that lovely grime even better!

It was a tough photo to work with as Eilaire was in shadow and very underexposed, along with much of the stonework, while parts of the bright background were heavily overexposed - plus there was a strong green-yellow colour cast. I boosted the underexposed area a lot to bring our heroine out of the murk, adjusted the colours, and did some careful work to reduce the heavy graininess which had been caused by underexposure, especially on her skin and top where it was most noticeable. I also did some work restoring detail and definition which had been lost. Countering the background overexposure was another tricky task, involving a lot of work on the bush. The glare from the bright sky had eaten away at the leaves and stalks, and I did my best to restore them by painting lost area back in. Among other things, I also removed a branch which was arching in towards Eilaire's head, causing a significant distraction.

This was definitely one of my biggest jobs of salvage and restoration so far, but to get this eventual image and do the lovely Elaire justice, it was worth it. And PS: I hope to be adding more cosplay edits to my gallery from time to time, so 'watch out' if you're interested! There are also cosplay edits which aren't in my own gallery, and you can see those listed in a favourites folder.