FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE -or- NEW TO PHOTO-ART?
See below for "Information and Guidelines."

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PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #64 – Jake and Joey

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

The base image can be downloaded by clicking the link near the bottom of this lengthy introduction!


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Considering how much folks seemed to enjoy working on Colby the dog earlier this week, I'm sure you have just as much fun with these two, courtesy of Art Hill. "Thanks, Art!"

Have fun.

~DannyR~

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LEGAL VERBIAGE
Art Hill retains the U.S. and international copyright © not only for the original image, but also for any photo-art versions of it. Unauthorized distribution or use of this image without permission are prohibited.

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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 art form until the next major 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? Animated entries are definitely welcome. There have been some really funny ones submitted in the past. Fish jumping, leaves falling, wheels turning. You get the idea.
. * 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.


A special message to those who are new to Photo-art
… Who may be feeling a little uncomfortable about posting an entry.

If you’ve read this far, it means you’re at least curious. That’s a good sign. :)

But what if you’re feeling a little squeamish about posting your first image?

From time to time I hear from those who want to participate, but have considerable anxieties about posting their creations in these mini-challenge. “I’m just a beginner. My pictures don’t belong,” “I see the works of others and I know I’ll never get that good,” “How am I supposed to compete with those wonderful creations?” are typical expressions of concern.

To which I say: Put your fears to rest. This isn’t a competition. You will not be judged in the traditional “art critique” sense. Your honor isn’t on the line. This isn’t about who’s best.

Don’t hold back from participating and posting your creation because your initial attempts don’t measure up (in your own mind) to images generated by folks with more experience than you.

This is a no-fault, all-fun way to jump in the pool. Everyone started the same place: The beginning. Everyone who is more skilled and experienced than you got to that point by practicing, experimenting, asking questions, learning from others, and participating.

Can one learn without interacting with others? Sure. Can one learn as fast? Absolutely not.

When you participate, others get to know you. That makes it easier to ask them questions. Asking questions leads to learning from those with more experience than you. It just keeps getting better and better!

By all means give it a go. You’ll be glad you did.

The pep talk cheerfully brought to you by:

Danny Raphael
Photo-based Art Forum Moderator

here's my try at this one, it was all just filters and blending modes:
1. on original layer - Stylize>Diffuse>Anisotropic

2. new layer - Stylize >Find Edges Overlay mode. 75% opacity

3. new layer - Stylize> Solarize in Linear dodge mode
90% opacity

4. new layer again - Artistic> Watercolor Normal mode,
40% opacity

- David :)

Nice touch David, I like the effect.

Well mines is a combo of Oil Painting and History brush.

They are so cute I could not resist.

I call this photo enhancement tech. I came from a girla named Lisa from Dp Review and the thing I like about it is that you can do it in B & W as well as color. It has a dramatic effect, great for portrait conversion.

David, nice watercolor look.

Phili, wow, in the first pic they look like they overdid the catnip!
Nice work on that second one...like the b/w sketchy look.

Phyllis

David:

Really like the results you got. Appreciate the detailed "how-to" steps, too.

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Phil:

The Shan sketch is very nice. I liked general direction with the color version, but like Phyllis said, maybe you went a little too far. I know you won't let that stop you from experimenting further.

~Danny~

David and phili great stuff, I too appreciate the step by step procedures.

Here is my entry, cropped, sharpened, applied a mosaic filter, the sharpened again. the applied a dry brush filter.

Alan

Phili, Phyllis, Danny, Alan - thanks, all of you. When I do photo art now, I do any filters on a new layer and name the layer after the filter so I can actually remeber what I did :D
Alan - I really like your mosaic effect, I haven't tried playing with that filter yet.

- David :)

I started trying a watercolor effect, but didn'[t like it. Threw a copy of the original on the top of all the watercolor-ish layers and played with different blend modes and got this. I'm sure I could eliminate half the layers and get the same effect.
:wavey:

Oh, COOL Phil!! Any chance you can look back through your layers and give us some clue how you achieved that effect? It works so well for this image!! :D

Jeanie

Here is the system I used. I got from DPreview a girl named Lisa. YOu can use it for color as well just leave out the B&W conversion. I use Digi Daans conversion to B7W.

Have fun with it.

Blacknight - that effect combo really enhances the look of fur! Wonderful lighting also. I'm trying to recreate it, but no luck so far --- any hints? :) Graphic pen doesn't seem to do it...

Thanks, Phili! :)

Blacknight, I'm curious about your process too...

Jeanie

I didn't keep that particular Photoshop file, but I have a pretty good idea what I did, basically. The basis was Schwartzie's watercolor "explanation". which I have been trying to figure out - not very successfully. Anyway, I'll see if I can make it do it again...

Blacknight, wow! I love that gray and orange pic! Excellent!

David, thanks for a great idea on keeping track of filters! Hope I can remember to use it!

Phyllis

Hi, im new here, and i like to post my version of the cats, can I???

Thanks

No - you have to have been here for at least a year before they let you post anything. :tongue:

ANYONE can post, as long as they are a member. Down at the bottom of the screen you see when you either generate a new thread or reply, there is a box that says "BROWSE" in the "ATTACH FILE" row. Click on that find your picture. It HAS to have a 100k file size or less and be of the file type that is listed also in that ATTACH FILE row, but other than that it's all done for you when you hit reply.

One thing I have noticed that seems to be a quirk in the software or something is if you hit PREVIEW REPLY instead of SUBMIT REPLY it often doesn't put up the image. Just hit SUBMIT REPLY, and if you discover any spelling errors or want to add something you can always hit the EDIT button on your post and change it then.

Looking forward to seeing your cats, and welcome to Retouch PRO!
:wavey:

Too many Phil's here for me to know when you're "talking" to me or the other Phil. I answer to BK, even on the street (have had this "name" for years) so if you want to avoid confusion I can be BK (it saves typing out the whole word Blacknight - no sense wasting keystrokes, huh!)

ANYWAY, here's what I have been able to reproduce from the image I posted here. Grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable...

Copy the original and do a smart blur (this is basically SCHWARTZIE's method, in case you have it in an action already or something) 3, 25, low, normal.

Copy THAT layer and run MEDIAN (4 pixels). Blend mode to PIN LIGHT.

Copy THAT layer and run the WATERCOLOR filter, 9,1,1. Blend mode to LINEAR LIGHT.

Copy the original and put it up at the top of the layer stack. Blend mode to LUMINOSITY.

NOW I PLAYED with the hue/sat on the background copy (if you did it like I spelled it out, your layers should be defaulted to background copy,2,3,4.) darkening it and desaturating it. This works best with all the layers turned on and going back and adjusting them this way, or at least it did for me.

Did the same with copy 3, except didn't darken. Almost a grayscale, with just a hint of color.

Copy 4, if you look at it by itself, is an orangey-red, carpet green, with hue/sat. Again, this works better with all turned on and looking at the one I posted here for reference.

I then ran KPT Equalizer's bounded sharpen on all layers with the sharpness all the way up and RGB tolerance at 2. If you don't have that filter, get it! I imagine you could come close with unsharp mask, but KPT is superior in this regard.

Flatten and play with levels and hue/sat and curves (I always do that just to see if it can be made any better as a last step). I think I may have run sharpen on it again at this point.

Hope this gets you in the ballpark. If not, let me know and I can show you the individual layer pictures and how they each look after being adjusted.
:wavey:

Well, here u have my cats;)

can you tell me what do u think about my work, thanx

I have 7 wonderful cats!!! one is 20 years old




on new layer put a border and put a wave filter
put a graphic pen filter on bells
pencil filter on cats and adjustested opacity

Ka-El:

Welcome! Congratulations on your first post at RetouchPRO. Hope to see many more in the future.

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PJB:

Very cute!
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David:

RE: Labeling layers with filters applied.
I do the same thing. In addition I've found that including the settings, e.g, Gblur(2.0) or Smart Blur(20,40,high) is helpful too, especially if I attempt to recreate the effect six months later.

Recording results you like as actions is another brain saver.

~Danny~

Ok Phyliss I read all the post and I did not see a reply from David, I would like to knoe that as well.

Black Night hey we have something in common our names, yours is Phil to. Well your Blacknight I am Phili1 so we should keep to that.

PJb Great post, nice effect and wow how did your cat live for 20 years, thats a record.

KA-el, your post is a good one, there are no bad effeorts, just different. This forum is made up of people with fantastic imagination and talent, Welcome to our family.

Using PSP7, playing around with the chrome filter.

Phili - is this (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=39556#post39332) what you're looking for? re cat: well it's almost a record, my neighbor's cat just dies last year, at age 21!!

- David :)

Welcome, Ka El, nice use of various filters on the cats...like the squiggly wiggly fur. :)

Wow, there are so many good renditions here that I can't go thru them all to give proper praise at 4 a.m.! What talent we have there, though...just gets better and better and soooo creative lately...love it!

I used flaming pear's India ink filter followed by a touch of PS7's anisotropic diffuse and just a smidgen of notecard filter.

Phyllis

cool phyllis! that's a really different effect.

- David :)

This gets easier every time! Well, a little anyway!

quite simply (ish) J Buchmann sketch effect.

Collin

Thanx to everyone to post your opinion about my work


PStewart that effect was very good. I like it

Collin:

That came out great. Well done!

excellent work Collin, that's my favorite type of sketch, and it works really nicely on this photo.

- David :)

Once again, same technique I used on flowers, fish, and produce, using
outline with 2-layer b/w blur-dodge method, followed by equalize, anisotropic diffuse, and cutout set to vivid. (More detailed directions in the flower and produce minis.)

Phyllis

BIg Al - Collin great job

Phyliss your last post I like the effect, what do you call it. I tried to give it a name but it stands by itself, different from all the rest.

I am always amazed at the different submissions, all great and different.

Phili, isn't that what makes this particular forum so interesting? I always wonder (coz that's the way my mind works), how many other probably equally interesting effects get turfed out (hello chris h, CJ) because the submitter didn't like them.

Originally posted by phili1
Phyliss your last post I like the effect, what do you call it. I tried to give it a name but it stands by itself, different from all the rest.

Thanks. I don't have a name for it because I don't know what it is either...maybe "abstract" look? I like to try this technique (explained in step-by-step detail in the recent flowers and produce minis) on new pics just to see what happens, and it's usually a pretty good result, though some pics work better with it than others, which is not surprising.

Phyllis

Gee somehow I missed this whole series. Very nice stuff. Jake and Joey would love it.

I used the sepia heavy drama filter in BWorks and removed the parts I didn't need.

wanted to do so much more, but didnt pan out that way :rolleyes: but just loved the facial expressions

Palms

palms,

i just really do like your smudges! very lovely!

craig

Thanks Craig need to practice more though on humans !!!!!!!!

Palms

Not 100% happy with it, but I'm posting it anyway. I like the bedtop and shadow drop part better then the background. Hope you all like it anyway. :)

I assume you are using Photoshop.

Those of us who don't, are curious.

Steve

Too many Phil's here for me to know when you're "talking" to me or the other Phil. I answer to BK, even on the street (have had this "name" for years) so if you want to avoid confusion I can be BK (it saves typing out the whole word Blacknight - no sense wasting keystrokes, huh!)

ANYWAY, here's what I have been able to reproduce from the image I posted here. Grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable...

Copy the original and do a smart blur (this is basically SCHWARTZIE's method, in case you have it in an action already or something) 3, 25, low, normal.

Copy THAT layer and run MEDIAN (4 pixels). Blend mode to PIN LIGHT.

Copy THAT layer and run the WATERCOLOR filter, 9,1,1. Blend mode to LINEAR LIGHT.

Copy the original and put it up at the top of the layer stack. Blend mode to LUMINOSITY.

NOW I PLAYED with the hue/sat on the background copy (if you did it like I spelled it out, your layers should be defaulted to background copy,2,3,4.) darkening it and desaturating it. This works best with all the layers turned on and going back and adjusting them this way, or at least it did for me.

Did the same with copy 3, except didn't darken. Almost a grayscale, with just a hint of color.

Copy 4, if you look at it by itself, is an orangey-red, carpet green, with hue/sat. Again, this works better with all turned on and looking at the one I posted here for reference.

I then ran KPT Equalizer's bounded sharpen on all layers with the sharpness all the way up and RGB tolerance at 2. If you don't have that filter, get it! I imagine you could come close with unsharp mask, but KPT is superior in this regard.

Flatten and play with levels and hue/sat and curves (I always do that just to see if it can be made any better as a last step). I think I may have run sharpen on it again at this point.

Hope this gets you in the ballpark. If not, let me know and I can show you the individual layer pictures and how they each look after being adjusted.
:wavey:

Cute cuddly cats.

Steve

You can't really tell, but I actually used quite a few filters on this. Watercolor, cross hatch and halftone to name a few....

Then just colorized, added a wonky frame by hand and... :ditsy:

Not great really, but not awful.

You can't really tell, but I actually used quite a few filters on this. Watercolor, cross hatch and halftone to name a few....

Then just colorized, added a wonky frame by hand and... :ditsy:

Not great really, but not awful.Because of the requirement to squish down uploads to 100KB or less it's not easy to appreciate subtle effects like you achieved here. But for those who look closely, results like these can be appreciated.

Don't sell yourself short...

I'm glad you took a shot at this one and look forward to seeing more of your artwork. Welcome aboard.

~Danny~

Well here goes. Another cat pic.

Palms WOW !!!!


Peter

im apply some layers to grayscale and overlay, and brush for make highlights

Cats....had many so when it comkes to color and life like....my before and afters....

GoMango

Needless to say, I can not give you a step by step. Started out using GIMP's Seamless tiles, but then I had to do a lot of work to remove the ghosting (anybody have a better idea to remove the ghosting, I will be much abliged). Lots of iterations and half offsets (horizontal, vertical and both) and you get the result shown. :)

Stole the bauble topper from this image (http://www.flickr.com/photos/waxident/318973989/). Well, it is getting close to Christmas. :)

*First, I defined the shadows under the white cat's head.
then defined eyes of both cats with saturation and contrast.
*clarified image to bring out texture in white cat's fur
* reduced the saturation and contrast on background, including the rug.
darkened and clarified the white cat more
*cropped to improve composition
*applied virtual painter - oil, layered over corrected original and erased some of eyes and faces to reduce the painting effect. Very little of the oil layer was left visible.
*I darkened the perimeters of the image
* Layered it with a blurred layer and a sharpened layer and blended them with Multiply mode to add drama.
*Tweaked many of the image elements with saturation, contrast, etc.

53003