PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #14 - Gazing Model

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 #14 - Gazing Model

I thought this image had definite possibilities for a mini-challenge. 'Nuff said.

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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.
. * 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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OK. Time to put on your creativity caps...

Look forward to seeing more of your magic.

Keep having FUN in the mean time.

~DannyR~

Emboss filter on background layer copy (top layer). Blend mode to PS7'S Linear Light.

Curves. levels, and hue/sat on original (bottom) layer until I liked it.

Not overly complicated but I thought it interesting.

:wavey:

Well, it's hardly an original masterpiece, but at least I finally got up the nerve to do something with my new Painter 7.0.

I painted over the photo with Painter 7.0 clone brushes, along with some regular brushes to add more pink to the flowers (most of which got cropped away to get this pic down to legal size :(). I didn't like the dark gray between her and the flowers, so I brushed in some leaves with Painter's leaf pattern then painted over them with oils.

I mostly used Painter's "smeary" brushes--bristle for hair, and soft camel for face. The collar on the sweater was made with the appropriately named "furry" brush, which, in clone mode, uses the colors of the picture under the stroke. After I made the collar, the hair was covered with pink furries, so I had to paint in new hair, again in clone mode to use the color from the original hair.

After I painted it I opened it in Photoshop and gave it some fine tuning and added a bit of KPT "electrify" to soften shadows and give it a glow.

If I were to do this again, I would let some of the sweater fur overlap the hair, and I'd crop it and enlarge it FIRST, so the paint texture wouldn't get lost in the end process.

Phyllis

pstewart, I really like what you did. I wish I had half your talent.

Ken

Phyllis
If you're just starting with painter... wow! looks like you've been at it for a long time.Excellent rendition.
tom c
:thumbsup:

Beautiful Phyllis! :D

Since I don't have Painter and am pretty much clueless, can you please explain what a "clone brush" is? Does it take the color under the brush and use it as you paint?

Jeanie

Originally posted by jeaniesa
Beautiful Phyllis! :D

Since I don't have Painter and am pretty much clueless, can you please explain what a "clone brush" is? Does it take the color under the brush and use it as you paint?

Jeanie

You can set it to use different sources for the paint colors, but usually you use the original picture as the source of color. As you brush over the picture the clone brushes work by 1) smearing the colors together, 2) adding impasto (texture), or 3) both. There are tons of brush styles to choose from, and, if you smear it up too badly, you simply switch to a special featureless brush that clones back that part of the picture in its original state, then do that section over.

Painter's "cloning" is a wonderful feature. It alone makes Painter worth the cost of admission in my opinion. We "non-painters" can cheat up a storm, while the real artists like Fugitive etal have that much more to work with! I highly recommend the purchase--if you have a LOT of free time to study and practice! It has so many features and variations that you can easily get lost in the maze.

Phyllis

Excellent work Phyllis. Very nice job.:)

Gary

Hmmm - I just might be able to do something with the Painter clone brush! That sounds really intriguing.

Unfortunately, I don't have any free time for the next month or so - much less lots of it! :( Perhaps someday I'll have both the funds to buy it and the time to play around with it. Seems like that clone brush might really help in cleaning up "grainy" faces photos.

Thanks, Jeanie

This consisted of two layers:
One for the model which I made to look like watercolor.
Second everything else which i hope looks like oil painting.
Both layers using history brush tool after converting to line art.
If I had to do the background over I would have eliminated poster edge filter.
The thick paint was achieved using lighting effects directional type, 17 texture.

Jeez this picture is dated! Check the white bangle bracelet and hair bow!

Today I adjusted my method a little to give the image a little bit of a colored pencil effect. I started by duplicating layer and then selected all. Inverted and changed mode to grayscale. Then I changed blending mode to color dodge and used filter blur, gaussian blurr until I like the effect. Changed color mode back to RGB and saved it as mini-challenge charcol. Then I opened the original and selected all and copy and pasted it to my new charcol image. This time, I dragged the original below the charcol layer - and voila! I added a slight border with AutoFX to soften some of the darker areas.

Lisa

Here is mine - I couldn't take the 80's thing so I updated her a little. Body parts are just pieces from different pics I found and the art part is just poster edges and some blending modes and some blur.

:)
When I saw this beautiful lady I thought of a beautiful swan. I painted her in Painter Classic using mostly the just add water brush, a little air brush on cheeks. I had this background I scanned many blue moons ago, and thought this challenge was an opportunity to use it. I softened it alot. Selected her roughly and deleted her original bkgrnd and copy pasted her into the swan bkgrnd, cleaned up the edges w/eraser. That's it. Again thanks, Danny:)

Wanda

Lisa, I really like your colored pencil rendition! I have copied your instructions and will try it tomorrow...thanks for sharing it!

Chiquita, your "style update" is wonderful...LOL! I love it!

Wanda, that is really beautiful. I haven't tried the "add water" brush but will definitely do so after seeing your great results!

Phyllis

wOW, some really nice entries here this time. My kinda subject too.
Phyllis: you can keep your whole image if you just compress it in jpg. I do it on all of mine.
Phyllis, good work in Painter, it's a blast huh?
Wanda, nice colors and presintation.
Lisa, I like the light airiness, and the WC look of the colors.
Wish I had time to join in.

Fugitive: "Phyllis: you can keep your whole image if you just compress it in jpg."

Ya, but I really hate what too much compression does to a jpeg. I'd rather have less picture of better quality than more picture of less quality. With the increase in disk storage and speed these days you'd think over-compressed jpegs (on the web in particular) would be a thing of the past, but not so. Folks still seem to want to pack all those pixels into 8K so it opens in an instant! I'd rather wait a while to see a pic on the web than to see a blotchy blurry mess. Just a condition of today's "world in a rush" I guess. Maybe I'm just too old. :)

Phyllis

Lisa ;nice warm colored pencil look.

Chiquitita; Wow! great update.

Wanda ; right out of Elle or any fashion mag.





I didn't have a clue as to what to do so ...



opened photo in Photoimpact v6

1.Click edit...mask mode

2.Select paint particle brush grey 145...0 transp
...soft edge 90
various sizes,

3.Went over selected areas of the image.

4.Edit...mask mode

5.Selection...convert to object...copy ...paste as new image

6.Duplicate rt. click...select all objects

7.rt. click...merge as single object.

8.rt.click...convert to object.

9.Click edit fill...gradient 2 color circular fill
(tried many I think these might be the ones)
R G B R G B
213...157...167.....255...120...241

10. Eye dropper... selected colors from image and
filled small areas... small brush sizes.

tom clegg

Originally posted by pstewart
Fugitive: "Phyllis: you can keep your whole image if you just compress it in jpg."

Ya, but I really hate what too much compression does to a jpeg. I'd rather have less picture of better quality than more picture of less quality. With the increase in disk storage and speed these days you'd think over-compressed jpegs (on the web in particular) would be a thing of the past, but not so. Folks still seem to want to pack all those pixels into 8K so it opens in an instant! I'd rather wait a while to see a pic on the web than to see a blotchy blurry mess. Just a condition of today's "world in a rush" I guess. Maybe I'm just too old. :)

Phyllis

I'm interested in Quality more than most. I just smash the ones for posting here or another 1 or 2 forums, but they are not used for the archive or even saved for very long. Do mine look bad, or over smushed?

Originally posted by fugitive


I'm interested in Quality more than most. I just smash the ones for posting here or another 1 or 2 forums, but they are not used for the archive or even saved for very long. Do mine look bad, or over smushed?

No, not that I've noticed. But then your paintings tend to be soft, pastel, more "smeary" (because they are painted, of course) and not very contrasty --all very appropriate for your subject matter. Pics with more contrast are the ones most affected by compression, with those annoying blotchy patches at the edges of bright and dark areas, and the worst blotches tend to occur in saturated and darker areas. Your pics avoid both, so you don't lose that much by compression.

Phyllis

Phyllis: Thank you so much for your encouraging words. I am VERY impressed with your rendition. The clone tool sounds wonderful. I'm very glad you "got up the nerve" to try Painter 7. You have Painter - I'm jealous;) I can't wait to see more. It's really hard to believe it's your first with Painter. WOW!!!

Angue: You accomplished exactly what you set out to do, water color/oil. I really like it, it's always to our credit if we can accomplish what we're aiming for.

Lisa: Just wonderful, I'm trying to perfect your technique I love it so much. Have to admit I'm not doing too well:(

Chiquita: Fantastic manipulation! No one would ever know - except the model.

Fugitive: Thank you for taking the time. It certainly is your "kind of subject";)

Tom C: Thank you for your kind comment. For someone who didn't have a "clue as what to do" you certainly came up with something very creative and wonderful. But then you always do, I always enjoy your submissions so much.

Wanda

Another group of terrific entries so far. Another week of outdoing yourself!

Since it's way, way past my bedtime (yawn...) and I've some other things to do yet, I'll post a couple of my swipes at this one now, and provide some method verbiage, plus comments on the individual entries tomorrow.

eya later...

~Danny~

Here's #2. I kinda liked the way this one came out.

Danny, I like both of them, but I am partial to the first because of the color. It's really beautiful!

Phyllis

My .02...

PHIL: The added depth due to the textures is a definite improvement and a real mood maker. Glad to see you're maintaining your high standard of creativity.

PHYLLIS: Wow. This is your first swipe at using Painter 7? Thunderous applause. And just to think this just the beginning. Congrats on busting through that initial reluctance due to Painter's (some might say, way too) many options.

ANTONIO: Very creative: Oils meet Watercolor. I really like this combination of styles. Nicely done.

LISA: This is an interesting twist on the tried and true method. Like what you did here; more depth to the colors.

CHAQUITA: You're scaring me! This is gonna be my 6-year-old daughter in about 6-7 years. Guess I should start getting used to it now. Great job of manipulation.

TOM: You threw me a curve. When I opened the image, I was expecting her to blow up or an alien to bust out of her stomach! Glad neither happened. Very moody image. Appreciate the detail, especially for the PhotoImpact enthusiasts.

JEANIE: BTW - The clone functionality in Painter is similar in concept to the Photoshop Art History Brush, cept Painter's got more options that you can imagine. If you're interested in the very cool functionality w/o wanting to drop a couple hundred for Painter 7, consider getting a Painter v5... Functionality present; selling for $25-$60 on eBay at the moment.

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Comments on my entries...

The first is based on the sketchy technique Lisa posted sometime back, but I twisted it a bit. See the screenshot of the layers palette in the attachment.

The major departure was applying the colored pencil filter (for some texture) followed by a final pass with that lovely Paint Engine plugin (faded by 50%).

The second image started out with a cropped version of the first. As you'll see in the attachment, messing with blend modes yielded some interesting textures in her face. Restored a little color via History Brush.

Twas all in fun.

~Danny~

Here is my vision of the gazing model. I was taken by the bright light and soft colors of the model (as well as her "model" build).

I used George's Gouach Painting Filter, with the resulting layer set to Luminosity. Another copy set to Multiply came close, requiring adjustment by Levels, Hue/Saturation, and Selective color to set the color and light/dark tones. I could have played with it all day, but I like the results as it is.

Hey Bob:

I liked your interpretation on this one. The overall effect (colors, textures, etc.) works well.

Welcome to the Photo-Art forum. Hope you have time to tackle some more of these mini's, as well as share some of your favorite techniques.

~DannyR~

I love the job bob did, but I have to say I like them all
So here is my watercolor vision of the gazing model. Hope you like

:)
Trimoon, this is REALLY beautiful :) I just love it, one of my favorite techniques is the fading out of a composition. Unfortunately I don't know how to do it:( I have tried in my amateur way, but have never come up with anything acceptable yet. This is a wonderful job, VERY pleasing to the eye!!

Wanda

Wanda, you asked about fading. I use an oval selection (can use rectangular too for different look) larger than the picture I want to keep, then feather it a lot...gotta do 16 (the max) MANY times. Then invert the selection and delete. If you want to keep a hint of the background, put the original in a layer above this one and fade the opacity.

I'm sure there are other ways, and I hope someone will tell us.

Phyllis

If I were to guess at how Steve does this... I would say he uses a fill layer with white. Then uses a brush (heavy flow scattered) to reveal or remove areas he wants to show through.

Lisa

Phyllis, Lisa, thank you so much for helping me out:) I tried it on another entry for #20, I goofed it up I'm afraid. But I think I'm getting closer thanks to you two. Again, thank you, thank you, thank you:)

Wanda

I am a newbie having fun with old threads!

Hello everyone,

I liked your submissions to this challenge, so I decided I would give it a try.

erased the background, painted the girl, lassoed part of the flowers from original image, cut and pasted on to the other image, duplicated the layer several times, arranged the flowers, merged all the flower layers, used a watercolor filter, added a drop shadow to the girl layer, added new layer, painted it blue, put it on bottom, added illumination effect flood default settings to that layer, merged everything, added a glass filter, added a border, applied superbladepro amber to border.

I always try, and sometime actually succeed :) to get a picture that would look good hanging on a wall. The stuff I do is probably not good for anything else, like ads, portraits, etc, but it keeps me happy.

This one is a bit odd. I added a PSP8 rough leath texture, both light and leather colors at black and the blu and contrast set at 6. The I softened it and added the paper texture.

AmyHutton

Hi...

I've been trying to do some things that look like drawing. Was going to ask about how to isolate one channel but decided to explore and figure it out.

This is my attempt.

Convert to CMYK.
Click on black channel.
Do adjustments.
Crop with oval.
Run filters of choice. [in this case Wind]
Trash other channels.
At this point I found I couldn't save for web without converting to grayscale first. It turned to be a very small file.


Lots of steps I left out since most were experimental.

... Kent

I am trying to get the the impress. look with out the plug in
With Art history tool

Kent:

Another way to isolate a channel is (assuming RGB).
* Go to the Channels Palette
* Ctrl + 1, Ctrl + 2, Ctrl + 3 to easily surf among them
* If you see one you like, either drag the channel over the new channel icon at the bottom of the palette -or- choose Duplicate from the Channels Palette menu
* Select All
* Switch back to Layers Palette
* Create a new layer
* Edit > Paste. You've isolated a channel on a layer by itself to work with as you see fit.

Is this what you meant?

In any event "ya done good" with the CMYK K channel. Wind gave it a unique look on this one.

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Manju:

What brush/settings are you using with the Art History Brush? I have never had much luck with it.

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Mine:

More messing with Impressionist. I can't leave this plugin alone!

~Danny~

Danny
2 brushes I used with this tutorial
http://www.creativepro.com/printerfriendly/story/18863.html
The brushes are
Watercolour Loaded Wet Tip and Soft Wet 31
Manju :)

Danny...

Thanks for the tip. I kept trying to copy the channel and paste into layers but was unsuccessful. Now I see that I needed to create an alpha channel first.

Manjumena...

Thanks for the tutorial. I've played with the history brushes with varying success. I never thought of using different brush tips for different effects.

It's amazing how useful this forum can be. I've gone through books and tutorials for some time and haven't learned as much as I have since joining and playing with these photos. The feedback is great and I appreciate the community feel here. It's almost like being back in art school without the smell of turpentine [which oddly enough I miss].

...Kent

Sometimes things are better un_finished!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was trying water colour ............and someway on the way I thought I'll stop here!

Sometimes things are better un_finished!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was trying water colour ............and someway on the way I thought I'll stop here!

I salute your decision to "stop" at this point. This is a very unique and interesting interpretation, Manju. Well done.

~Danny~

My rendition of a watercolor look using Photoshop watercolor and Impressionist watercolor filters:

This was interesting and fun to do trying to get a watercolour effect.

"Impressionist"???? Seen it mentioned so much already in here, I must check it out soon.

PaintShopPro 8.01
Buzz Simplifier Filter (had it two weeks and using it a great deal)

Mostly experimenting but generally this is what I did....

(1) Smudged hair/Fine Hair Brush – lowered opacity
(2) Smudged/smoothed skin – default brush – lowered opacity
(3) Buzz Filter/Step 1/Light areas
(4) Cloned in some more flowers into white area
(5) Painbrush/dry brush…a darker shade of the flower…painted onto the flowers
(6) Smudge/dodged the darker leaves to lighten them
(7) Smudged/burned lower areas of flowers (not much though)
(8) Merged all visible
(9) Buzzed again/Both/just a titch
(10) Copied and pasted into a larger image, filled white.
(11) Top layer (image) erased the sharp edges.
(11) Merged and applied a mask.

This is another wc effect I quite like, worked well on this image.


WATERCOLOUR EFFECT USING GLOWING EDGES
PSP8.01

Smudge hair and skin.
Buzz Simplifer – Every image is different so you need
to experiment with Buzz settings.
Dupe this layer
2nd Layer – Effects/Artistic Effects/Glowing Edges –
settings 1 and 8 or to suit your image – experiment
Layer Blend Mode – Dodge – 30% - experiment
Merge both layers and dupe.
2nd Layer – Buzz again to suit and erase the eyes
and mouth to show through at a lowered opacity.
Merge when happy with result.

Optional – Some images benefit by duping the layer
- Trace Contour. Blend Mode – Darken.

This image didn’t benefit at all.

Beautiful model. Enjoyed all the superb renditions.
First i reduced colors using a vector software that i have, then many manipulations using image-selective color and replace color, finally with vp watercolor, and buzzpro for some simplification.

ok I can't really say how I did this since I was playing around and since not really good at this stuff yet and with any idea how most of it works..but here is my try.

TokenArt

ok I can't really say how I did this since I was playing around and since not really good at this stuff yet and with any idea how most of it works..but here is my try.

TokenArt

Hey, TA:

Welcome to the Photo-art forum and congrats on making your first arty post. All of us who play around at this sport started from the same spot: The beginning. The more you play and practice, the more methods you'll discover, which will lead to improved skills.

As long as you're having fun, that's what counts.

Keep 'em coming. No sharks around here.

~Danny~

Hi Danny,

This is MelissaM from dpreview. I came over here to have a look and see how I can help others. I still am unable to post over there. I guess Phil changed his mind about my one week ban. Oh well, I can't change his heart but wish him a nice holiday.

Anyway, I took this picture and used Isabels Pastel Sketch (one of my favorite actions) on it. I hope everyone likes it.

The picture can be found here at http://www.pbase.com/mnewco/image/37711252/original

Melissa

Hi Danny,

This is MelissaM from dpreview. I came over here to have a look and see how I can help others. I still am unable to post over there. I guess Phil changed his mind about my one week ban. Oh well, I can't change his heart but wish him a nice holiday.

Anyway, I took this picture and used Isabels Pastel Sketch (one of my favorite actions) on it. I hope everyone likes it.

The picture can be found here at http://www.pbase.com/mnewco/image/37711252/original

Melissa

Melissa:

You picked one of my favorites to arty-ize, and I like your results a lot. I believe that action is available at www.AtnCentral.com, is it not?

Welcome aboard. Hope to see A LOT MORE of you creativity here at RetouchPRO.

~Danny~

p.s. Generally speaking we like folks to upload/attach images to their posts (click "manage attachments" button) vs. pBase links. That way when you revamp your pBase gallery sometime down the road, your creativity lives on here. That avoids the annoyance of "broken links." :)

Yes the action came from atncentral.com. Some really good actions on that site. Dave Jaseck comes up with some good ones too. I love actions. Do you have a website with actions and tutorials?

Melissa

Melissa, good to see you over here. Maybe Phil will have a change of heart over Christmas, but this is a good place to hang out, too.

Patricia

I duped the Background layer. Then I made a selction around the model, inverted it and ran Find Edges. Desaturated. Diffuse: Anisotropic. Then I ran Angled Strokes a couple of times, playing with their Fades. Then I inverted the selection again and duped the Background layer again (So only model was duped) Stuck that on top of the stack. At this point duped the Background (without a selection) and I selected only the foliage in the pic and desaturated the rest. I made the layer "find edges/diffuse/angled strokes" layer a luminosity blend, and the model by herself a Lighten blend. Then I stamped everything and stuck a texture on it.

Not sure you guys call this artistic work but here is something did and thought looked really cool....

TokenArt

Not sure you guys call this artistic work but here is something did and thought looked really cool....

TokenArt

Art's in the eye of the beholder. You definitely manipulated the base photo to achieve a unique result. Nuthin' wrong with that.

Just trying to modify my technique to watercolor as well. :)

Mine wasn't water color manip....I took the picture..changed it to black and white colors then imported it into a terrain program and made it into mountains..then just adjusted the lighting.

TokenArt

Nice image....beautiful pose and model.

Here are two interpretations, but not because the photo needed anything.

Steve

Just tried out this watercolor technique. It was from a free chapter in the book "Adobe Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow!"

It can be downloaded here http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321125312&rl=1#

Basically it uses the pattern stamp tool with a custom brush. Create a pattern from the image and on a new layer start the painting starting broadly and then going for detail. I varied from Impressionist checked and unchecked.

There is a an action for putting texture onto the canvas also.

Once I was satisfied that it looked like a water color [quick and dirty though] I played around with ways of enhancing it. The eventual image came about after I used the UM filter pretty heavily.

Seems like a pretty interesting book. There is a cd with about 100 presets with it.

...Kent

steve,

i like that 2nd one. i'm somewhat partial to the colored pencil look and i like your choices there.

Craig

Combined several blends when I came up with that one.

Thanks.

Steve

steve,

i like that 2nd one. i'm somewhat partial to the colored pencil look and i like your choices there.

Craig

I made something simple: http://www.jereme.com/clients/challenges/model.jpg

I wanted to put a purfume bottle or something in there somehow but I couldn't find one I liked.

Used Xero's Pastellize on a separate layer and duplicated this layer. I set the duplicate layer to Multiply and duplicated this layer a few more times. I turned off the base layer and merged all visable layers. I then merged the top layer with the base by setting the top layer to value. I then added some smudges and other magical things (i.e., can't remember these steps; lol) and voila. :)

jereme,

i like that. and i agree about needing something like perfume, but you'll forgive me, i thought 'feminine hygiene' :)

craig

jereme,

i like that. and i agree about needing something like perfume, but you'll forgive me, i thought 'feminine hygiene' :)

craig

I never considered that, but it would be quite fitting now that I look at the image. haha.

I just went for something pink and soft. Lots of layers, retouching and recoloring with a couple of small filters at the end to add a tiny bit of texture.

Done in Painter using camel impasto brush and soft cloner for details. Applied canvas texture and then painted over some areas for more natural look. Not really ready to quit but an having a spa delivered and ITS HERE! I have my priorities.
MargaretM

Cropped and used ByRo's Art history setup action to help (Thanks Ro).
Art history for the rest. Oh yeah, plus a texture and a frame.

Peter

First post - so I hope I've followed the etiquette all OK

Just a little messing around with loose watercolour techniques - mix of drawing - median noise filter and impressionist

- hope this meets with approval

Done with the pattern stamp tool and some smudging.
Sylvia

I used Virtual Painter 5 to create two different versions. I blended the versions. Then some touch up.