PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #12 - Last Chance

IMPORTANT ==> Due to a software glitch, attachments to many of the following posts were lost. They can be reuploaded by the original author. However until that happens, many posts will remain "empty." Sorry about that... ~DannyR~

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Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category.

Unlike “official challenges” for this forum which can be found here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/index.html), this one will be self-contained within this thread. It is intended as an opportunity to engage in this artform until the next official challenge is posted.

The rules are more-or-less the same:
* It’s a challenge, not a contest -- intended to provide opportunities to experiment, share methods and/or techniques and, most importantly, have FUN.
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

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PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #12 - Last Chance

I was surfing over at www.DPReview.com and followed a link to the gallery (http://www.pbase.com/wbrosen/photoart&page=1) of one of the regulars there, Bill Brosen.

Among Bill’s collection of very nice images was this one, “Last Chance,” which I thought would make an inspiring base image for this mini-challenge. Bill has graciously granted permission to use it.

Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to convert it to photo-art using your best and/or favorite techniques.

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Guidelines:
1. Use any method, application(s), style(s) you like:
. * Convert to sketch, grayscale, abstract, watercolor, oil painting, pen-and-ink, Conte crayon, impasto, van Gogh or any style of your choosing
. * Add elements from other images (collage)
. * Hand painting? Tracing? Freehand? You bet. Always appreciate entries of this nature.
. * Feeling a bit animated? How about some blinking lights or jumping fish?
. * Apply filters from your favorite application(s) or tweak it with 3rd party plug-ins

Bottom line:
How you create this masterpiece makes no difference. Whatever floats your boat as long as you follow guideline #4 in the process.

2. When done, reply to this thread and attach your work (don’t forget the 100kb size limit).

Note: Multiple entries OK if you’re so inspired.

3. By all means include some verbiage on how you achieved your masterpiece so others will benefit from your skills and experience. Make it as descriptive as you like. Grammar and spelling will not be graded. Priority given to content, not how it is written.

4. Have fun.

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So, “Ship ahoy, matey,” “Anchors aweigh” and “Swab that deck!” The fun lamp is lit again...and you don't even have to "Walk the plank!"

Keep having FUN!

~DannyR~

Copied the image twice (two layers) and disabled top and bottom layers. Inverted and then ran Eye Candy's Antimatter on middle layer, which I thought gave me a nice "sunset" look to the clouds. Ran Rough Pastels Artistic filter and played with the settings a while.

Enabled the top copy and ran Underpainting filter on it.

Played with blend modes, and ended up with double difference (top and middle layers set to difference).

Did a little hue/sat playing, but not much.
:wavey:

I used PaintEngine plug-in to do this.
Looks like snow to me :)

Here's another of Last Chance. I also posted this one in another forum. I used Filter/Render/Lighting Effects and fiddled around with it. I used Flashlight and Omni direction.

A little cooler image for the summer. :)
A combination of glowing edges and wind filters.

That is beautiful in its simplicity, Gland...looks like icicles! I have to try your technique! Thanks for the pointers.

And Woody, love that filter...sure looks like snow all right! That "paint engine" plug in you used...is that for Photoshop?

Gee, with all this horrible winter weather looks like Last Chance might not get a chance after all!

Phyllis :)

I used the impasto process to add texture, a slight touch of the ripple filter to give an all-over waviness, KPT diffuse-anisotropic filter to soften the edges, several directions of different colored low opacity gradients to give sunset effect, then cut out a piece of the water and turned it upside down and stretched it to fit sky area, then added impasto and diffuse to sky layer and erased away where it covered the boat and details.

Added 12/23/02: This is weird. I looked back here to find a link to this boat for the "favorites" challenge, and see this post with no picture listed now! Where did it go? Very strange indeed...do we have termites? Anyway, here it is...again.

Phyllis
www.innographx.com

Great job Phyllis. I like it a lot! I will be trying out your methods for my education :)
The Paint-engine is a plug in for Photoshop but
I don't recall where I got it. When/if I do I will post it here.

(almost) Everything you ever wanted to know about Paint Engine can be found in this scintillating thread (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2972). :)

IMHO it's the best "free" photo-art plugin on the web.

Carefully read the "read me" about where to place the .ini file. That's where the canned presets live.

~DannyR~

Thanks Danny. I hoped someone with a better memory than me would speak up :) I hope you find it Phyllis. I believe, now that I think on it, that I got it through a tip somewhere on this site. Is this a great site or what? :tongue:

Thanks for the info, Danny. Turns out though that Paint Engine is just made for Windows. At least that's all I found on their site. Anyone know of good packages like it for Macs?

Phyllis

Phyllis:

I created a new thread in the Photo-Art general forum to give your question more visibility.

To my knowledge PE is a Windows-only plugin. Sorry 'bout that.

~Danny~

Nice job Phyllis. :) I'll try some of your techniques.


Danny thanks for the link to Paint Engine. I can't believe it's still free.

Some great entries so far, love your first one Woody and I really like the Icicle look:) Well done everyone so far, whats next?

A darker feeling came to me when I saw the words "Last Chance" --

I distorted the image with the Pinch filter, did the Ink outlines and then faded the effect to taste, solarized to get the ominous copper sky, and ran another ink outline/fade.
(I think I may have overdone it and lost the image of the boat..., but it was fun, and THAT'S the MAIN rule!)

Phyllis... very nice, I like the effect. It really stands out.

Earl

I played around with this image in Photo Impact 7, trying many different things. This is the one I liked best. :)

Here's my version. I used Auto FX's Dreamsuite 2 and the mesh effect from within that. I tried it and found I needed to expand the canvas first in photoshop.

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight".

Added sky detail with the "Four Seasons" plug-in, simplified with Smart Blur, added two Paint Engine filters, adjusted color with a Hue/Saturation/Lightness layer mask, eliminated the mask from most of the boat and finished off with Filter/Render/Lighting Effects.

JB, what a beautiful painting you made! Love the sunset colors and the texture...great job!

Phyllis

Phyllis,
If you hit the edit button on the bottom right of each of your posts, it will bring you to the edit page. On the top of that page is the option to delete the post.
Jeanie

We finally had rain here (needed it badly!) and it inspired me to try to make a rainy scene. I made the rain with vertical graphic pen on a solid gray layer, used KPT electrify to give it some glow, then blended that into the painting I had made. The splashes on the water are done with KPT pixelbreeze.

Phyllis
www.innographx.com

Thanks, Jeanie. I had only been looking at the options UNDER the edit box...silly me! As you see, I have successfully deleted the post in which I asked the question, so now your answer makes no sense! LOL! Sorry.

Hmmm...Unless SHE deletes HER post, in which case THIS one will make no sense...

I'm getting dizzy.

Phyllis :)

Can you believe 2 in one week! Well, I thought I'd tackle this one - although I think Jim did a wonderful job on this!

I started out with by duplicate layer and then inverted the duplicated layer. Then I changed color mode to grayscale without flattening layers. I changed blend mode to color dodge - this made the picture entirely white. To bring back the color, I then used filter, blur, gaussian blur and fooled with the slider until I liked the result. I saved the image calling it charcol. Then I changed color mode back to RGB. Opened Recent which was the original picture and selected all - and copy and pasted it into the charcol picture. Then changed the blend mode to hard light. Flattened the image. Then duplicated it and changed mode to multiply. Then I used Paint Engine to apply a painterly texture. After that I used Pictographics to change the hue a little... and voila.

Lisa

There are too many good images in this group for me to comp each one. Most look pretty good. One did hurt my eyes though. Art shouldn't hurt one's eyes. IMHO.
Comps all around.
greg

WOODY, GARY and PHYLLIS get the blue ribbon for the "All Weather Team." It's too early (August) to be thinking icicles and (cold) rain, though we could actually use a little rain to lower the local fire danger.

WOODY: Your night / spotlight version really caught my eye. A very creative use of lighting effects.

PHYLLIS: REALLY LIKE the oil-like effect on #2. Well done.

CJ: This is an exceptionally creative interpretation! Did you have this in mind when you started or did it "just happen"?

PHIL: Your textures and colors, as usual, compliment each other well. Very moody effect.

JIM QOM: I was temporarily distracted by the slightly-fuzzy-looking ropes, but other than that the overall effect is outstanding. One of my favorites.

KEN: This AUTO/FX effect is very, very cool. You pulled it off just right. Very impressive and unique result.

JIM JB: Ditto what Phyllis wrote. Dynamite textures and sunset. A definite thumbs up.

LISA: 2 in a week?! What's up with OhThatGirl2001? Wonderful to see your works again. Your tweaking of "the technique that helped launch this forum" just shows (again) that your creativity just keeps happening...and I'm sure glad about that. Likin' this one a lot.

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I dusted of good ol' BuzzPro and ran the watercolor.stk preset. Applied a little crosshatch for texture and desaturated a bit to tone down the BuzzPro enhanced colors.

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Thanks again to Bill Brosen for loaning us his masterpiece.

Remember: No expiration! If you are yet to be inspired or inspired again, give it a shot.

~DannyR~

I lost track of this thread ...thought it ended ...now i
m way behind:bawling:

Black knight and C J...2 ghost ships

Two wintery entrys were brightened up with Phyllis melting it all


excellent images all.

Danny you must know what's coming next :tongue:



Created in Photoimpact Gif animatorv4
tom c

Tom... I knew I could count on you for a little comic relief!

Brings to mind one of the classic movie understatments of all time said by Roy Scheider's character to Cpt. Quinn in Jaws: "We gotta get a BIGGER boat!"

LOL! Great stuff.

~Danny~

Danny you must know what's coming next
:lmao:



Tom -- > you ":devil: "
That's a Definitive image for "Last Chance"!

Tom, I love the way your shark takes a bite out of the boat! Nice job--the missing chunk looks believable, and that makes it really effective! Not to mention scary!

Phyllis

I just can't get enough of that wonderful boat! First I made it at sunset, then in the rain, now at night with a full moon. Folks have done different weathers, different times of day...hmmm...is there anything left??? If there is, I want to try it!

I finally found a use for that "difference" mode which helped get the night time look. I added "wave" filter and KPT's pixelbreeze to make the water light and sparkle a bit in the moonlight, and put lights on in the cabin so it looks like someone is inside. Other than those three things, I really can't recall all that I did to get the night look, but it was fun!

Phyllis
www.innographx.com

Phyllis... The nighttime effects with the moon, reflection on water and cabin light are brilliantly implemented. I like this one a lot!

~Danny~

Phyllis I think you've outdone yourself with this one. The nightime effects are awesome. :)

Gary

Phyllis - you have created a beautiful image!

Phyllis
night rendition great...eerie ... ghost like...Lights on and no one around....lonesome...pretty

tom c

Phyllis

"FRAME IT"... I really like this version of this mini challenge. All of the entries in this thread are really good. Must get back at the machine soon and try some of these.

Jerry :D

Wow, phyllis, thats amazing. Here's my attempt :
First i cloned out the dark thing at the front of the ship, it jsut looked strange to me. Then i converted the picture to grayscale, duplicated the main layer, set the top layer to divide, and blurred it. Then i copied back the original colored picture, after setting mode back to RGB, and set the blend mode to color.

Very cool, DS... kind of a combination of pencil/charcoal sketch + a touch of color.

Darkstar, I really really REALLY love your rendition! And you make it sound so simple! Are you using Photoshop, because I don't have a "divide" mode on mine.

Phyllis

No, im using gimp. I think divide is also called dodge. Its a blending mode. And thanks alot.:)

Thought it was time to get this boat out of dry dock and see what else can be done with it.

Phyllis

Been messing with Redfields again.

Peter