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a bird in hand

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Ellie_H Junior Member Registered: August 2002 Location: Chicago users gallery	Boy, what did I do with this? First off, let me say that I am a graphic artist, but I work in one of those rare jobs where we do the bulk of our work in Illustrator, and PhotoShop is used only to scan. Most of the PhotoShop I know is self-taught. So I'm not sure if any of my techniques are... unusual. First, I cut out the hand by using the pen tool to trace it, converting the line to marching ants, and feathering it by 2 pixels. I then cut and pasted the hand into a new document. I had no idea what to put in the hand, and I was just looking through stock photos when I ran across the bird photo. It was only 72 dpi, (and here is where my "improvising" starts. I have no idea if this next step is something that I could make work again) so I increased the size of the document size, then decreased it with resampling turned off to get a high rez bird. It seemed to work. :/ I then cut the bird out (using the same technique as above for the hand) and pasted into the new document with the cut out hand. I decreased opacity of the bird layer so that I could place him best in the hand. I wanted to cover up some of the dirt on the hand, so I decided to make it look like the bird's wing was over that part of the hand. I defined the wing a bit more using the burn tool, and then I just erased the parts of the bird that overlapped the hand, keeping the wing in front. I then created a background. The bird has a feathery tuft on his head, and I didn't clip the background very well from it. So I decided to make the new background similar to the old background that the bird came from. I used a large paint brush on about 50% and stroked in some colors. Because I thought the results were rather flat, I used the rubber stamp to sample some of the background from the original bird photo. I used it at about 35%, just to get a hint. I think it worked well, because the colors in the bird photo background were very similar to the colors in the challenge photo. I used gaussian blur on the bird, because he was a bit more crisp than the hand, and I used lighting effects to get the light correct on the bird. When I was done, I realized the hand looked too "cut out" so I used the rubber stamp tool to bring in a little hair from the original photo. I know there are better ways to do some of this stuff, but I am still learning.
	· Date: 8/4/2002 · Views: 5257 · Filesize: 26.1kb, 53.0kb · Dimensions: 800 x 718 ·
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	Keywords: bird hand manipulation challenge
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Sharon

Junior Member

Registered: August 2001
Location: Everett, WA

8/4/2002 2:42am

Beautiful job. Very real looking. The background adds to the realism of the picture.

Sharon

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katie

Junior Member

Registered: July 2002
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 17

8/4/2002 2:45am

Very Nice. Only thing I would say is there is a bit of haze under the wrist area. This could be easily tidied using the eraser.

The bird is very pretty and sits nicely into the palm of the hand - well done.

pstewart

Registered User

Registered: July 2002
Location: Chicago suburb
Posts: 790

8/4/2002 3:23am

The bird does fit beautifully into the hand, like it is really there. The only flaw I can see is the same flaw I had in my bunny-in-hand pic--the bird is more out of focus than the hand. The best way I have found this kind of problem is to sharpen the eye. Then the bird will seem to be in focus and the feathers can stay fluffy and smooth if you like, or, in this case, you could sharpen up the beak and feathers just a touch too.

Very nice job overall.

Phyllis

G. Couch

Senior Member

Registered: January 2002
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 951

8/5/2002 2:25am

Nicely done and great description! I like the overall color and the bird appears very natural in the hand...I do agree with Phyllis on the focus. That is really the only thing that bothers me...well done!

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-Greg

DJ Dubovsky

Senior Member

Registered: August 2001
Location: Upper Penninsula of Michigan
Posts: 1,659

8/5/2002 12:52pm

Ellie,
Great job. Looks so realistic. Nice job of blending the bird with the hand. Love the blurred background for depth effect also. Excellent.
DJ

MiniRtist2
Junior Member

Registered: August 2002

8/10/2002 8:45pm

I'm new to Retouch Pro, but I just wanted to say that this is a beautiful piece. Well done, and very artistic.

tom c

Member

Registered: October 2001
Location: florida
Posts: 64

8/12/2002 5:31pm

The bird and bg go well together....very nice piece.
tom c

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tom c

Scott Rudy
Junior Member

Registered: September 2002
Location: Ohio, USA
Posts: 18

9/4/2002 8:32pm

I like how you used the birds wing to cover the area of the hand where the plant roots were. The birds tail is crisp and sharp but the sharpness fades toward the head, I sill think you did a great job.

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Scott Rudy

T Paul

Moderator

Registered: August 2001
Location: USA
Posts: 2,921

1/15/2003 5:03pm

Well done! I like the new background as it isn't as distracting as the orignal. The bird does fit nicely into the hand, and the only thing I would change is to sharpen up the bird just a bit so it is as sharp as the hand. Great job!

~T

ACTUAL iMAGE

Junior Member

Registered: September 2003
Location: Gurnee, IL
Posts: 4

3/16/2004 4:40pm

Excellent depth creation. I think this is an art piece! Nicely done.

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