FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE?
See below for "Information and Guidelines."

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category until the next offical challenge is posted here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/index.html).

- - - - - - - - - - -
PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge# 46 – English Ladies

Remember the English gent from a couple weeks ago? This is the other image from that set taken this summer at a festival in Tunbridge Wells, UK and submitted by RetouchPRO member Leah.

Obligatory legal mumbo jumbo: Leah retains the U.S. and international copyright © not only for the original image, but for any photo-art versions of it. Unauthorized distribution or use without her permission are prohibited.

Another fun image. Thanks, Leah, for letting me use it.

Good luck and have fun.

~DannyR~

- - - - - - - - - - -
INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES

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.

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) or replace the background
. * 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
. * Feeling animated? Something creative, but not too creative, with that strategically placed flower?
. * Any or all of the above

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.

Chuck,
It's a natural. I was thinking about that myself.

Here's an "oldworld" oil painting.
Copy the image 3 times
1st layer - Filter>Artistic>Pallette knife -6 , 3 , 2
2nd layer - Filter>Artistic>Dry brush - 10 , 10 , 1
3rd layer- Filter>Blur>Smart blur - 20 20 edge only. Invert , Adjust level to reduce busy lines. I might have put in a gaussian blurr (I can't remember)
Blending mode - soft light on all three
Erased background from original because it is too distracting. I didn't want to leave it white so I put ... New Layer brush style - heavy oil dry edge light gray opacity 25 to 30 and painted in some colors.
Flatenned , Filter, Render> lighting effects>spotlight. texture channel - blue, amount -3

Tony

Chuck, I love it! How clever of you!

Tony, really nice painting effect!

Phyllis

CHUCK:

The "eyes" definitely say a lot here. :D Brilliant concept and execution!

TONY:

Very, very nice result with some basic steps. Thanx for sharing.

~Danny~

Chuck -- You're a b-a-a-a-d boy! Good work, but a bad boy! :devil:

Tony -- Lovely! I've been trying for a similar look with this image and just couldn't make it happen -- next time, I'll have a new "recipe" to try! :

This painting was done with dustnscratches filter, sharpened with KPT equalize (Wow--worth the cost of KPT6 on its own!), overlaid with a texture from Andromeda techtures, and finished with a slight bit of render-lighting embossing.

You still have a week or so to order this awesome package deal from andromeda.com by the way...4 KPT's plus techtures (along with a pretty useless Dreamsuite2).

Phyllis

Thought I'd try a sketch. It's more heavy looking than the lovely sketches by Lynda and Trimoon and others, but then I'm not a delicate sort of lady. :)

To get a b/w version to layer/dodge/blur, I used the green channel, since it had the most detail where I wanted it.

And instead of gaussian blur, I used motion blur. I also overlaid an extreme motion blur of the resulting image then sharpened that a bit to give the strokes a gentle diagonal look.

I painted the mask with a spatter brush over the left lady's hair, the worst part of the pic, to bring out better texture.

Phyllis

Bit stuck for ideas on this one. :depressed

Wow..go away for 4 or 5 days and you guys go crazy with new art to look at..

Danny.. really interesting set of new art challenges..Got to try to dive in.. Thanks

Chuck.. very funny..reminds me of Barcellona in the 70's.

Tony.. Excellent painting effect.. I really like your technique.

Phyllis.. Your painting is great.. But you know that I am partial to your sketch.. It is Really Good..

Frank.. Very interesting mirror effect.. I like what you did with the color treatment..

I Thought I would give this one a try..Thought I would try for an illustration look...Who Knows???

Jerry

:D

Beware .....Filters are fun but can be addictive.

Used an overlay 100% on a blend mode layer, applied a couple of filters for the scan lines.
Filter--sketch--halftone. For the color used a gradient.

I Thought I would give this one a try..Thought I would try for an illustration look...Who Knows???

Jerry

Jerry, I like that, nice effect.
Frank

Jerry, great job on the illustration!

Goldcoin, that is wildly creative! I see you amplified her bust a bit too...cute! :)

Phyllis

Busted! The devil's return to this thread.

Excellent eye, Phyllis. Was the result of the sphere filter. :)

Hello everybody:
I have filtered this image in Photoshop with dry brush in the filters:artistic menu. After that I used the levels to lighten it up. Then I opened it in Painter 6 to hand paint it over with the soft charcoal brush to achieve a more natural look
Thank you for such inspiring image.
Joaco

Joaco:

W E L C O M E ! I haven't had the opportunity to say hello, yet. I'm pleased to meet you.

I see you're one of those people who uses Painter along with Photoshop. Painter is a wonderful program.

You have a nice touch with your images. Hope to see more of them in the future.

~Danny~

I had to take a crack at this one.

I'm really having fun with these oil paintings, so I thought I'd see what else I could use as a texture to mimick brush strokes.

Ran these ladies through several Paint Engine filters, most notably the impression 1 and 2 and soft pastel chalk. A little bit of underpainting and splatter in there as well. I ended up using a daisy as a texture...I liked the long, thin spokes as strokes.

Overlaid the layer a few times in soft light blend mode over a dark green background. I wanted it to feel luminous, but I couldn't quite get the depth I was after without blowing out the contrast.

Themanda -
That's gorgeous! It really looks like an old world painting. The lighting is wonderful. Great job!

Pam

Very, very nice, Amanda.

I'm going to add a post to the "Paint Engine" thread pointing to your creation. It's one of the best uses of PE I've seen.

Bravo.

~DannyR~

Chuck, nice impressionistic painting look. I really like your brush stroke style. :) <snicker>

Amanda, I had no idea Paint Engine could do that! Well...it couldn't have without your creativity and expertise and patience. I have put that one into my keeper file for inspiration...great job!

Phyllis

Wow, everybody! Thanks!!! :blush:

Chuck, I really like your impressionist painting. The colors in it are terrific...nice and light and airy.

Chuck, I love those bold brushstrokes. The pic is a bit too large to see all at once though.

Phyllis

Interesting. When I saw the original I thought of the dark heavy portraits you see sometimes. As I went down the thread I saw a series of wonderful, light renditions.

It took me a lot of doing and undoing to get the final look. I buzzed the original lightly before starting the final round to get rid of noise. I used Flaming Pear's Mr. Contrast with dups of thr original blended in for color. Then started on a new copy with Flaming Pear's Melancholytron again with dups of the original blended in for color. Then I worked on blending copies of the 2 previous experiments together with more copies of the original. After I had a good blend, I went to Flaming Pear's lacquer to give it depth. More blending and finally a texture.

Wow Cheryl,


This one is really different ! Thanks for sharing your method:)
I can find something to do with those filters then:tongue:
Till now I thought they were often too extreem to be of really good value to me.
Thanks

gina

Gina,

I couldn't agree more! Flaming Pear on it's own is way out there. But I'm finding that it does really nice things when blended with other filters.

If you've got their India Ink filter, you might like this posted by Andrew B. http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6446 I've tried it on a few pics and been very happy with the results.

Hope I am uploading this alright..... This particular image got away from. I used Photoshop paint daubs, kpt noise, xero lithograph and lineart, and ampisoft simplifier. Mostly it was playing with blending and opacity and this rather different image was what came from it all....
Cathy

Cathy, You go girl. :)

Here is a van Gogh done in Painter Classic. First erased some of the background (especially that uhgg shirt :) ). Then applied Effects, Focus, Soften. Cloned a copy and ran Esoterica Auto Van Gogh.

Catia

Again upon some beautiful old snaps and sofar everything is fine.
Tenneysmith.very good effects and so colourful.
catia, good result of Van Gogh and very sober also.
thank you...

-----
vijayan

And here is my ladies with Filter>poster edges and did levels and curves..
some thing like a kind of old illustration..
thank you everyone....

-----------

vijayan

Thank you Mauler,and again I thank for your Interests..
But I am with my own limitations and It is not at all to be delivered authenticaly or it is nothing but practice..
I do appreciate everyone in a deserving manner But , normaly I do not go after someone blindly..
One should allways have a mistake, then only it will lead to a discovary..

Ok now my turn, My ladies..
It is Filter>Brush strokes>Crosshatch+Sprayed strokes and many times levels in RGB..
Thank you all
---------
vijayan

I believe these two lovely English Ladies have been truly immortalized in all the lovely old world paintings. Lots of good ideas there.

I wanted to try something a bit different....



I used the control+alt+~ thing to select the luminosity, inverted that, and applied some bevel and emboss in a layer style. The rest is just a lot of texturing and contrast.


Sharon

I've learnt so much from this site. Thank you all. I truly appreciate it.
Here's my contribution. I've used tips from many, and from Themanda, i didnt know paint engine (impressionist 1 and 2)could do so much!! In addition, i've used impr plugin, vp, and my own slice of creativity.

Great result Photofixer! Lovely result Jaykita - you're on a roll!

PSP8.01

Levels to Lighten image.
Added a Brushstroke effect. - duped this layer.
L2 - Smudge Brush/Van Gogh all around the edges
Smudge Brush/Dry Brush all around the edges
Smudged to smooth skin.
Added a new raster layer between L1 and L3.
Filled L2 with white.
Reduced the opacity on L3 (top) 80%
Merged all and added a texture.

Cheers

First of all, I have to again thank Danny for passing this link (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8328) to me. I used Danny's djroil24 preset for the brushwork along with some minor mouse smudging. I added some addition texture by doing the following. Duplicate for three layers, Set the top layer to Overlay, run PS's Chrome filter in the middle layer and adjust the opacity down to 36, and adjust the top layer to taste. I also ran PS's angled stroke on the middle layer before flattening. Before all that, I did a lot of color/saturation/contrast work. :)

lkroll,

nice :)

you keep digging these up and i've not seen them before, so i just have to follow suit.

Craig

...this one, I had to give it a shot. We need some fresh mini-challenges though (listening Danny). :)

lkroll,

yup, need more :) i've got thousands of images, but they're not mine and i dont often have the sources any more nor the permissions, so, cant post them. i'm going to have to start saving and sorting by owner/permissions so i can find and use the ok ones. i do have some of my own, but these are mostly in the cleanup stage or only of interest to family. ah well, i'll come up with something :)

Craig

Impressionist style English ladies.

Steve

Nice work everyone.

I buzzed this in Photoshop, and used Painter for brush strokes. Back to Photoshop for texture and adjustments.

Cathy :classic:

Hi!

My name is Marti, and I'm going to try to post my first picture. I chose just one of the ladies, and used a little bit of this and that LOL! The fact is, I have no idea what I did to get this! Comments welcomed and appreciated!

Marti
South, Florida

thecanyon4me,

welcome to RetouchPRO :)

interesting crop. hadnt even thought of doing that. nice treatment...whatever you did :)

Craig

My sister got me "DEGAS AND THE DANCE" for Christmas and, after looking at Degas' sketches and paintings, I thought I would do another rendering of these lovely ladies. Hope this simulation is a little more in the Impressionist Style. Used DCSpecial's Edger, Impressionist (djroil24 preset) and Paint Engine (artic preset) for this rendering. Some additional steps for texture (too many steps, but included Crosshatch Silverpoint from Impressionist and GIMP's Bumpmap filter). :)

Here is my take on how this great image should be shown.

I started with the smudge brush and once I had that looking good I applied a simple sketched effect I learned a couple of years ago. After I had the sketch looking right I desided to see what it would look like if I added some tone at this point I almost stopped but after sitting here looking at a little while I thought hmmm wonder if I could overlay it over the original image and get a tad of color back into the ladies hats. Boy I glad I went the extra step cause it really make this image take on a totally different look. Kinda ole world.

Photoshop. I just like to thank the folks here for giving use such great images to start with. Danny you rock!!!! :rolleyes: LOL

TwoLaidBack
-------------------------------------------------

Ok after Crag's reply I had to go and see if I could rework this so that he would be happy! J/K :D Crag I do see what you were talking about and agree it did need fixing. WaLa now it's right. :lol:

Thanks for catching this cause I didn't even notice it late last night.

TwoLaidBack

Nice one "Two." And very original.

Steve

tlb,

i like this one too. it's a nice cross of sketch and color with great edge enhancements.

but, if you'll suffer me playing art critic for a moment, i'd suggest removing the gentleman's shoulder in this one. in the various color renditions this isnt that important and doesnt distract from the ladies that much. but in yours, that shoulder has been given an almost equal amount of importance by light and shadow and distracts from the ladies and looks quite out of place.

craig

Steve,

Thank you very much for the comment.

Crag,

Thanks for the reply and yes now that I look at it and it's not 2:30AM I couldn't agree with you more. I should have caught this last night when I was working on it. Oh well looks like I'm starting all over! :bawling:

Thanks for the comment and for pointing this out to me.

TwoLaidBack

Well my New Years resolution of quitting smoking has resulted in me spending way too much time playing with photos.. :dizzy:
I even noted all the steps!

duplicated original, blend layer - dodge 20% opacity,
merged down
dulipcated twice
inverted top layer, gaussian blur 71%, soft light blend 50%,
merged
duplicated
duplicated the inverted layer above, greyscaled(xero), color blend 50%
merged these (merged2 in layers image)
virtual photographer plugin, ambience setting, softest effect,
DCNR
my photoart Paint Shop Pro Script (http://restorations.garazon.com/psp/photoart.PspScript) PSPscript
added photo edge mask

( hope it's okay to link to the Paint Shop Pro Script, it's mine :) PSP9 users, right click, save to your restricted scripts folder. )

tlb,

perfect! i love it :)

and thank you :)

craig

Hey Crag,

Glad you like it and hope you know I was just joking around in the earlier post. I really do appreciate the head up on that cause I really did miss that last night.

Gezz I guess I'm going to have to start going to bed a little earlier from now on or at least stop trying to do graphic that late at night.

Again thanks.
TwoLaidBack

tlb,

i took no offense from your remark. in fact, even if you had meant it, i wouldnt have ;)

and you're welcome!

as for late night almost dones, been there, done that, got the giant coffee mug to prove it.

craig

Played with the image in Photoshop. Applied many adjustment layers, a couple of Xero filters and a lot of independent brush work.

Many amazing renditions in this multi-year thread !

TwoLaidBack, I like your dual high key renditions, great job, that smudge job gave a cool effect.
Garazon, cool edges !
Photomaster, like your rendition also, vivid and bright colors.

Here's my water color interpretation !

Chance

TwoLaidBack, I like your dual high key renditions, great job, that smudge job gave a cool effect.

Chance

Chance,
I'm glad you enjoyed the effect. I love this watercolor effect you’ve achieved. I've just received Photoshop Elements 3 and have been looking for a really good watercolor action that will work in elements. Anyone know of one I could find?

TwoLaidBack

TLB, thanks for your comments.
Regarding the watercolor tutorials, there are two good one's located right here in this forum.

1. Jaykita's watercolor tutorial in this thread at http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10772
2. Tim Shelbourne tutorial in this thread at http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12294

I am sure there are other tutorials as well, and I am for sure am always on the lookout for watercolor tutorials in particular.
Most of the tutorials are for photoshop, and I do not know enough about Photoshop Elements to know if any of it would work.

Chance

Chance_1,

Thank you very much for taking the time to look this up. I had a quick look at it and will go back later today to see what I can do with it. I think I have everything she is using to acheive this. LOL

Photoshop. You can view one of my latest attempts at a watercolor using Paint Shop Pro here if you'd like.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=28805

Again thanks.
TwoLaidBack

tlb,

that's an excellent watercolor! i've never been able to get that result using Paint Shop Pro. i can see i'm going to have to re-look at this.

craig

WOW thanks Crag,

One of the things I've found is it help if I use the colored sketch script I've recorded to be run before trying to apply the Brush Stroke effect set to watercolor it just give it a smoother finish in the end and makes it look more like a watercolor.

I don't know what version of Paint Shop Pro your using but this script works in v.8 & 9 but don't know about the latest version 10. If you'd like I could send you the colored sketch script off the board I'd just need your e-mail address. The rest that is need to acheive this comes with Paint Shop Pro.

The Brush Stroke set to Watercolor setting I used:
Softness=4,Lenght=15,Bristles=175,Density=16,width=6,angle=311,Opacity=0,color=#000000

TwoLaidBack

Here is another great Watercolor tutorial by Shan Canfield, from the book Retouching and Restoring by Katrin Eismann which is for Photoshop and is downloadable;

Unfortunately a direct link is not available, but you can get the information via the following method: Go to http://www.digitalretouch.org and
From there on the left side, scroll down to "Third Edition Photoshop CS2" and here click on "Tutorial Images", then scroll down to Chapter 8
and download "ch8_babyoriginal.jpg" and "ch8_BabyWatercolor.pdf" ... This will enable you to do and follow that watercolor tutorial.

Chance_1 I don't know how to thank you.

This is great i'll have to set down tonight and try them all out! LOL Oh my looks like I'm going to be busy tonight.... :D

I just tried the first link you posted and although half way through it I strayed off I got some great results. What it did do was get me on the right track. Hey but that's what it's all about isn't it? :wink:

Again Thanks so much.
TwoLaidBack

I reckon the one one the left is frowning because her bodice is to tight, you can't tell cos shes not facing the camera.

Peter

2nd attempt at a challenge
......Decided to go for a chalk style

Method:

Balanced Highlights & shadows

Colour balanced using levels to remove the green/blue cast

Impressionist chalk default

Line drawing action on the top layer dry brushed to reduce detail blend to multiply

hope this fits in with the theme

I've been itching to do a real impressionist for a while.
Snap art and impressionist.

2nd attempt at a challenge
......Decided to go for a chalk style

Method:

Balanced Highlights & shadows

Colour balanced using levels to remove the green/blue cast

Impressionist chalk default

Line drawing action on the top layer dry brushed to reduce detail blend to multiply

hope this fits in with the themeWelcome to RetouchPRO, dmint. I like what you did on this one and on your interpretation of "Gazing Model." You definitely have an eye for this type of thing.

re: hope this fits in with the theme
No worries. Theme is in the eyes of the artist and beholder. We're pretty flexible around here. :)

Appreciate you sharing the how-to info. Hope to see more of your artwork in the future.

~Danny~

My try of the Ladies.

Cupcake, yours looks as if it could really be old. Nice work.

Janet

very nice, cupcake. when i first glanced at it i thought it was a cameo. looking at it again at length, it has a nice 30's or 40's look to it. very nice.

trying out a new method....
bunch of random impressionist....

Glikster! What lovely colors!

I went for a more traditional? look. done in painter with oil brushes.

nice, sherry. but i'm surprised you didnt use one of your filter forge filters ;)

Glikster! What lovely colors!


Thank you... I work on each color channel separately, and the differences end up making vibrant colors...

Hi-
loved seeing all of your work!
Here is my rendition.

http://home.comcast.net/~saluki13/engladies.html

I used Painter X. Cloned the file. Chose Saturate in Photo Enhance. Added 50% blur. Filled image with color. Chose Cloners/Soft Cloner brush with Fade In/Fade Out stroke. Then ran auto-painting. Finished auto-painting with Oil Funky Chunky. Then used Restoration brush to restore some details.

This is my first posting here-looks like a wonderful forum.

Patty