FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE -or- NEW TO PHOTO-ART?
Click here (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4977) for "Information and Guidelines."

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PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #91 – Vietnamese Lady

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 below the photo description.

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Jeanie (Jeaniesa) took this wonderful photo of a woman in Vietnam. What a story her face could tell! See what history and moods you can bring out with different artistic techniques!

Phyllis

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LEGAL VERBIAGE
Jeaniesa 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.

Quite often my abstract technique doesn't give good results on faces, but it seems to work just fine on this weathered face.

Phyllis

oooooh --- very nice effect on this! Weathered yet soft. Fabulous.

Phyllis, Love the eyes! They seem to draw you in.

Jean

What a wonderful subject to work with.
I wanted to make everything around her face to look more eroded and soften her face.

Made a layer and applied Craquelure filter, opacity to 35%, added some noise. Erased the face and neck part of the layer.
Made new layer from the original selected the face did and inverse and deleted (to bring back the crauelure in the bg). Used the smudge stick filter to soften the face, opacity to 46%.

Phyllis-
You have a way with that abstract look, I can't get it to work for me no matter how hard I try!

Jill-
Very nice effect. I especially like the tone and texture you achieved on her face. It almost looks like a dye transfer print.

I tried Phyllis' anisotropic filter (I call it "her's" cause I learned it from her :) it's a great one), along with some other stuff and kind of worked it into an airbrushed look...kinda sorta...

Pam

Jeannie -- wonderful image! I wanted to emphasize the face - used palette knife over glowing edges with a layer mask to bring back some detail...

This is a very interesting portrait to work with..

Phyllis.. Your abstract is very effective with this portrait..

Jill..The Crackle..texture works well with this lady..Nice work..

Pam.. Your isolation of the portrait and new background are very artlike..

I started with the smudge painting technique..Sharpened several times..Used a glazing technique to add new background..Sandstone texture..Edge action #4 (I think)...Buds double matte action..

Jerry :D

Pam – I love the soft pastel look without compromising the character in her face. I also like how you choose to crop this --- very effective.


C.J. This effect works very well with the image. Very dramatic.

Jerry the frame and scalloped matt puts the finishing touch on your image. The burgundy just enhances her face even more!

CJ
Sorry I missed seeing yours..We must have been posting at the same time..

Your glowing edge effect is really unique..Very artlike technique..

Jerry :D

Once again, stellar entries.

Phyllis--I love the strenght of the black lines juxtaposed against the coolness and softness of the pastels. Probably a lot like the woman herself...she has so much character.

TwinB--this has fabulous texture to it without being distracting from the subject's face. love it!

Pam--I really like how soft this feels without being washed out. You've got a wonderful light touch and it plays well with this portrait. very good!

CJ--great! i love how the texture of the palette knife plays against the glowing edges. terrific!

Jerry--I really love this. You've presented her perfectly. your attention to detail is great, too, all the way down to matting and framing. she's ready for somebody's wall!

I used my newest favorite technique--The Smudge Tool as introduced to me by Phyllis.

I wanted her to look a little more worn and sad, so before I went in with my tool I played with her features a bit in liquify. Made her eyes droop a little more, made them slightly smaller, gave her more defined jowls, dropped the edges of her mouth. Then I upped the contrast a bit to bring out all of the fine lines, which I then pulled out a bit more with the burn tool.

Using a small brush, I smudge painted her face. I used larger brushes for her hair, wrap, and clothes. PE'd a background and painted it in with a layer mask. Then I used many different layers of blend modes topped off with a crossed light render lighting effect to add some more depth.

I'm very happy with her!

Amanda

Jill Craquelure hmmm wonder who told you about that filter? Very nice use of the filter.

Pam you pastel background brings out the face. Lighting and blending on the face is very natural.

CJ I love the glowing edge effect and have not figured out how to use it yet. Never thought to use the palette knife. I will have to play with this. Needless to say I love the effect on your submission.

Jerry The border is a nice touch. Sandstone texture works well with the subject.

Took the orig. layer and made a copy used the lasso tool to cut the face in half. Used the brush strokes accented edge on multiple layers to smooth out half the face. Added a little more red to the lips added eye shadow. Used lighting effect on multiple layers and worked the opacity for the background and shading.

Jean

Amanda

I'm REALLY likin' everything about that one.. Your turning into a smudge teckie like me..

Jean..The young/old concept..Very interesting...

Jerry :D

Here's my attempt. First converted to a sketch with heavy outlines, copied this sketch onto a new layer of the original. I then created a new layer , filled with while and used the history brush to paint some color back in. Gave a little texture and saved.

Ken

Thanks, Jerry! I love that technique!!! It's too much fun, and I love how your image sort of flows like paint under your brush. Instant gratification with none of the nasty side effects. :tongue:

Jean--LOVE IT! What an inventive approach!!! Great application of your idea.

Amanda...You and I posted about the same time so I missed yours. Dial up! takes forever to upload. I like the overall flavor of your work. The face is so full of expression.

KenB very soft younger version. What is the filter you used on the overall picture?

Jean

The plugin used to texturize was Alien Skin Splat.....I think that's what you were asking TwinANJ.

Ken

Ken yes that is what I was asking. Jill had alian skin at one time I will have to check and see if she still has it. Thank you for the quick response!

Jean

Amanda -- truly wonderful rendition! Your subtle use of Liquify changed her expression without changing her features, and your lighting (plus all your painting strokes) created a true portrait. Your eye matches your skill!

Jerry - I love your matting and frame - unusual and fits the subject.

Phyllis, Jill, Pam, Ken -- it's so much fun to see her look so many different ways, and yet retain her expressiveness and character!

Jill, your craquelure idea is so similar to my most recent attempt that I won't even post it. I did pretty much the same thing but used an embossed leather pattern instead of embossing with craquelure. What's that they say about "great minds"...? :)

Pam, CJ, and Amanda, love how you show just her head and scarf...and brought out different aspects of the woman’s life. Pam’s shows a gentle softness in the aged face, CJ’s intense dark image shows determination in adversity, and Amanda’s shows pain and anger. All those moods from one face!

Jerry, a lovely and complete portrait. I really like the framing effect you created, and how you faded out the background. You definitely softened her look...even looks a bit like a smile now!

Jean, you have such a great imagination. Clever idea and very well done. And great job making her look young!

Ken, great illustration...just enough outlining to emphasize her expression, and the coloring and textures are subtle enough to add interest without distracting the eye from it.

Chuck, dreaming of better days? WOW! This one is beautiful and powerful!

These are all so inspired...what a wonderful batch of photo art here tonight!!!

Phyllis

Outline done with strong motion blur, then unsharp mask, touch of crosshatch, parchment pattern overlay.

Phyllis

Phyllis… You are the master of sketches. Your rendition is specatacular. I have seen challenges that I wanted to try that effect and have no idea where to start. Do you know of a site with a tutorial that could help me try this type of rendition? You have inspired me to try this technique!

Jean

She reminds me of my grandma.

Phyliss nice pencil sketch as always

Twins NJ love the pattern

Pam brings out the pain and suffering.

CJ nice tp see you again., Very nice brings out the harship she had.

Jerry nice effect.

Thermanda, awsome effect.
Ken nice combo pencil & water.
Chuck, I like the dream effect, make her pretty.
Agnu, nice painting effect & frame.

Being a Photog at heart I tried for a dramatic effect.

A wonderful image, Jeanie. Thanks for sharing it. And thanks, too, to each of you for sharing your creativity.

Here's how I did mine...
1. Applied Levels adjustment layer to original layer to bring out some shadow detail (selective via layer mask).
2. Merged levels and BG into a separate layer.
2a. Duplicated layer created in previous step.
3. Added Noise (5,Guassian,mono)
4. Applied olored Pencil (4,14,38)
5. Duplicated BG and dragged copy to top of layer stack; changed blend mode from Normal to Color.
6. Created a new layer at top of layer stack.
7. ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+E to merge all visible layers w/o collapsing.
8. Applied Gaussian blur (2)
9. Applied Watercolor (7,0,1)
10. Duplicated layer created in step 2; moved to top of layer stack, created a layer mask which was inverted (CTRL+I)
11. Chose soft-edged brush, selected airbrush, low opacity, low flow, foreground color=white and airbrushed in some eye and facial detail.
12. Flattened and applied Bud's blackwood matte frame (with a Hue/Sat adjustment layer).
13. Applied texture via separate layer filled with 50% gray and blend mode set to Overlay, opacity=10%.

Originally posted by TwinANJ
Phyllis… You are the master of sketches. Your rendition is specatacular. I have seen challenges that I wanted to try that effect and have no idea where to start. Do you know of a site with a tutorial that could help me try this type of rendition? You have inspired me to try this technique!

Jean

Thanks, Jean, but I am not the sketch master...lots of folks here really excel at pencil sketch techniques that I am, frankly, too lazy to tackle. :) I just started with the basic outline technique and made a change in the "gaussian blur" step. You can read the detailed method here: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4770

The change I made was this: Instead of gaussian blur, I used motion blur set to a large distance (you can see just how much by the size of the dark blur behind her head). I overlaid this version onto a layer which had been treated with Videorave convolver plug in, but you could also use a layer with another method which emphasizes and/or raises edges without eliminating the photo's solid areas.

The rest of the job involved a few other filters and a pattern overlay, but the basic "sketch" resulted from the method in the link above. I later blended it over a b/w version of the original which had been treated with artistic>film grain and a bit of (faded a lot) brushstroke>crosshatch. Lots of little tweaks along the way which I can't recall, but you are off to a good start with the basic blur>color dodge layers method that most folks use somewhere in their sketch.

Phyllis

Thank you for the link Phyllis! Went out did the tut --- played with texture, brightness contrast, and used the art history brush to bring in some color. Had a great time learning how to do this !

Danny - loved the look
Jill - nice first sketch!

bubba

Hi everyone,

Wow! All of these renditions are superb! I've been visiting my sister and having a difficult time keeping up with everything here are RetouchPRO. Her unusually slow AOL dial-up connection is driving me crazy. (I'm used to a cable connection.) Plus, chasing a toddler around doesn't leave much time for being online. So, I don't have time to comment on everyone's individual entries :(, but I did want to let everyone know how much I've enjoyed all of the different versions of this photo! :D

You all are the best! :bigthmb:

Jeanie

Lots of neat renditions. Nice photo as well.....

I chose to transform her into a canvas portrait.

The steps I used were:

1. Soft Focus
2. Added a white frosted edge
3. Softened the whole image
4. Added a soft canvas texture using a depth of 1
5. added a ficticous signature and frame

Semara:

I like what you've done here; a subtle and soft approach. Well done.

~DannyR~

Angue, the mottled brush texture is just perfect for this picture! Excellent!

Phili, I like the way you made the background elements all one color...really emphasizes her face, and the warm gold tones are the perfect choice.

Danny, that's amazing! Looks like it's appliqued from bits of fabric. There is no end to what you can do with pixels, is there?

Jill, really nice job with the sketch method, which was hard to use on this picture due to all the speckles it left on her face. You managed to work around that problem however and got a great result. The vignette is a good finishing touch too.

Semara, great portrait. Your softening method got rid of the boring background at the same time it softened her wrinkles while still letting her age and wisdom show through.

Phyllis

I'm going to have to look at all the renditions....from the comments they are gonna be good. Been busy processing all my pics from a day trip to Molokai.

Here's mine...I've got to start writing my steps down cuz I might want to do it again LOL

what a varied batch
Phyliss- abstract is unique and with bold strokes and your sketch is, again, an intrest holder. thanks for the link to the tutorial, gonna print it out and give it a try.

Jill- that craquelure background is very effective...great texture. your 1st sketch came out real good too.

Pam- good background replacement...a nice soft yellow, and smooth face. looks like an illustrator did it.

cj- so mellow and rich

Jerry- that matted torn edge is super...nice texture.

themanda- glowingly rich

Jean- like the fountain of youth...i'll bet she would love to see the full version. like the comparison.

Ken- love the brush strokes...makes it look like a real painting.

Chuck- dreamy is right. another good torn edge. thanks for the steps.

Angue- nicely matted and framed

pili1- another good torn edge. this pic works well with it.

Danny- 13 steps! wow! wrote them down. great matte and a real painting effect. thanks.

semara- very nice framing

these were all super!

Here's my try. And unfortunately, I was working very fast and feeling very sick (I have a bad cold), and I didn't save all my layers or take notes. But I can tell you the basic technique.

I made several Virtual Painter effects, each on a different layer. I am almost positive that the Drawing effect was one of them. Then I set blending modes with the layers and the original. And I remember doing a slight dose of buZZ at one point. This gave me a rough result. Then it was all standard photo restoration and adjustment techniques to remove oddball filter results and to tame the lines and color.

Andrew, that's a wonderful result! Too bad you can't recall exactly how you did it. I hope you can recreate the effect, since you will want to use it on future pictures I'm sure...it's great!

Chuck, your wife is a pretty lady! And that's a great painting of her. What did she say?

Phyllis

Andrew sick worke great job.

Chuck you dio a super job of inplanting.

But wow awsome portrait I really like it great job. I cant find anything I dislike, it is what I call a wall hanger.

What a wonderful portrait of your wife. Are you going to submit this as a Mini-Chalange? I think you have peaked all our interest to give this picture a try.

Here's my try, using Mike Finn's Slap-Dash2 action (http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~mikefinn/files/Slap-Dash2.zip ) and a couple of texture overlays.

Jim

I used a texture program I have, it works good to cature an effect.

There have been so many great versions of this picture that I hate to enter mine.

Paint Shop Pro - desaturated and did find edges

bubba

One more sketch and I will try to get on another track. Used PI colored pen and desaturated. (I really must get back to my laptop and PhotoShop - but some times I just like what PI does.)

bubba

Hasn't she been through enough in her life?

Mig

Bubba: Thanks for reminding me in this (and other recent pics) how effective the PI Colored Pencil effect can be.

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Mig: Nice facelift; very subtle. She's most certainly earned a little downtime.

First of all - I changed my name! coughlin47 didn't seem friendly enough for this site....so, now I am BillC.
Wasn't sure what effect I was looking for after viewing all of the other great submissions! I wanted to keep detail in the face and yet have a bit of 'dramatic' lighting.
Bill

BillC ......wOw.... Stunning effect, I like it very much.

Bill, that is wonderful! Excellent idea...turned out great! Want to share how you did it? Pretty please?

Phyllis

Yes, that is neat...........I would be interested in knowing as well... Thanks

Sheryl

GoldCoin, Sheryl, and Phillis - Thank you very much for the kind words - you sure make a 'newbie' feel welcome. I like to 'experiment' a lot in PhotoShop and most of my 'experiments' end up in the trash heap. Sometimes I get lucky and end up acceptable results. On this particular 'experiment' I ended up with quite a few layers with different blend modes. I'll go back and see if I can recreate it, and write down the steps! (really, I'm not being evasive and not wanting to share - its just that I didn't write down the steps!)..after all, these forums are all about sharing! I guess I didn't expect feedback on it!
I know that:
Convert to BW using your favorite method

I painted back some color in the face using history brush (with only about a 10 percent opacity - maybe went over 2 times)

Duplicated the background layer and added a huge gaussian blur (something like a radius of 70)...this layer eventually ended up on the top with a blend mode of Multiply
I also had several other layers with different blend modes.... So - I guess I better go back to the digital darkroom and see if I can recreate the 'experiment'.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Bill C

BillC.....Thanks for what you were able to remember, maybe more later....:)

What an interesting face...... Wished I could have taken more years away.

Tried this......

Bill C I agree with the rest. I love what you did. Hoe did you achevie the lighting, real nice touch.

Goldcin very nice.

I'm still playing with impressionist.

I've reached the conclusion that it works best with lots of layers. Started with the very blurry water color damp translucent and worked my way up to paint soft fine haired brush. In between I put 4-5 layer with degrees of blurriness that ranged between the top and bottom layers, putting the blurriest ones at the bottom. Blending mode was usually soft light, but I went with whatever was most pleasing as I added each layer. Even though I'm using Impressionist, the general process is to get several layers that range from blurry to semi-detailed and blend them--any plug-in (including native photoshop) could give comparable results.

After getting the impressionist blend. I topped it with find edges, then a gaussian blur sketch, then a photocopy sketch. Experimented with blending modes. Transparency between 30-40.

Added texture.

Used Invert Color (only inverts colors; greyscales remain the same; not the same as color invert; i.e., black is still black and white is still white) Script-fu on a duplicate layer set to screen to screen in order to remove midtones. I then used Flaming Pear's Mr. Contrast to give the image that sketch feel (not wanting it to be a sketch though of course; still want it to be photographic). I then used retinex after flattening and duplicating the layer. I set the top layer (the one I ran Retinex on) to Overlay and duplicate this layer a few times till I got the look I want. I then used GIMP's Sample Colorized filter and a Sepia Gradient image to create a Duotone on a separate layer and blended it in with the previous. :)

This Lady looks like she has seen a lot of life.
Used Lucis, Aniso, some blurring, Selective colour, plus a lot of minor stuff.
Frame added using 2 different layer styles.

Peter

lovely character face i think i ended up giving her some anti wrinkle paint though

Palms

I thought this was worth revisiting.

Just cleaned up the image and changed the background.

Ahem, Mining Art, did you clean up too much. Her whole left shoulder is gone!

" Face of a Thousand Stories"

Steve C.

:-) I thought it made it look like she was looking across her right shoulder. This one I smoothed her skin and than put texture back in. The left shoulder looks out of perspective to me?

I finally decided to try one of the mini-challenges. This was done with a combination of Impressionist and Portraiture with a little bit of BuzzPro for good measure. Basically, my "work flow" has all the co-ordination of a bushel of jumping beans. I can only aspire to get better. Are there any new challenges (I say that like I've just conquered Kilamanjaro)

Hi Geezer! If you are interested interested in creating art from photos, scroll down the PhotoArt Forum and look at some of the "Creative Interpretations" threads. Lots of wonderful subjects to paint and play with.

My second attempt at the mini art challenges.. Must write down how I get to these!!

This is fun!!

This lady has seen alot I bet.....opened with curves/hue,sat/curved down to darken background, applied a little Lucis for age lines,blurred clothing,applied the frame,applied color pencil at multiply opacity 20% painted in her face and then staying at 20 painted in clothing until pencil was thick enough, curves to brighten the face.

Nice Swampy...... Im new to forum, I really like what you did with her, Im going to go and hit your links and learn a few things.

Xrider...Thank you! :-) My version was done with the Pattern Stamp Tool. I do remember that I used a tiled design graphic with shades of brown for the background and a spatter brush with impressionist turned ON. The rest of the painting was done per the tutorial with a line art pattern saved as well as a slightly buzzed or distorted version of the color shifted portrait. Basically three different patterns saved and I switched between them as I painted.

Swampy....I started off using your method, thanks for posting a tutorial, and ended up with a base that look like she was stuck in ice so I went with it, used the stamp tool,Lucis,curves,painted on cracks, used the glass and ocean ripple filter for ice, brushed on snow and used the dodge. Swampy you have open my eyes to a new style thank you, nice gallery.

Xrider; That's a pretty neat effect.

Xrider... Wow, that is a "cool" effect. Thank for peeking at my gallery. So many paintings to do, so little time! :-)

Thanks Mining Art and Swampy, I hated to add any more drama for this lady she kinda looks cold in there.