I know this isn't the most professional photograph. I am defintely not a photographer! ;) But, I had to submit this photo to see what all of you can do with it.

This was part of my attempt at a "photo shoot" of my son last October in or yard. He's three months old in this pic. I had snapped a roll of B&W and part of a roll of color film (before he had had enough). This is the lst picture I took, and he's actually in the process of falling over and rolling down the hill a couple of times. So needless to say, I moved to catch him and he's off-center a bit.

The smile was priceless and made the pic! :D

Here's my attempt at Lisa's pencil sketch that didn't work like I wanted, so I revised it with some color, etc.

Jennifer -- it's a great expression, and one you'll be overjoyed that you caught throughout your life!

I'll want to try several, but this one just keeps the photographic style with a bit of tonal correction, and an action created by Bud's Frames.

Jennifer--this is a wonderful picture. It's always been my assertion that mommies and daddies take the best pictures of their kids because they can capture the *real* smiles that are too shy around professional photographers that they don't know. Your son is a real cutie, by the way!

I really like your sketch treatment. It works very well for this photo!

CJ--that is great! It also really works with the texture of the photo.

Amanda -- I think you're right about parents being able to capture the REAL expressions, and it is a great image, isn't it!

I tried the usual sketch technique, with a bit of burning and leveling.

Finally had a chance to get back to this smile...

I went for a heavy chalk on paper kind of look.

Jennifer - what an expressive shot! I think your sketch came out very well! The color is very soft and the way you cropped it works perfect.

CJ - nice frame and subtle corrections! --- that is ready to be hung on the wall. I have such difficulty with sketches ---- your is very good. The display and drop shadow complete the effect.

Amanda - Bold colors with the heavy green! It makes the image just jump out at you!

Have to agree with everyone here -- Mom's and Dad's get some of the best pictures!

Jennifer, what a beautiful child! I think the sketch came out great.
CJ, nice frame, and colors.
Amanda, I love the way it just pops off the screen at you.
Jill, what great texture.

I tried my own sketch instructions to see if it was dumb luck(it might have been) or not. I think when I have you change the mode to hard light I was playing with shutting some of the lower layers to get the right look, but I didn't really pay attention to which layers I was turning on and off. The other thing I did this time was to add an overlay layer of this parchment paper pattern that I have at around 30% opacity. Anyways, here's what I got, I did a b&w and color version.

-Lisa

Thank you so much for all the compliments on my beautiful baby boy! I know all mother;s think their babies are adorable, but I just think he is amazingly so! ;)

I think the best photos are the ones with a story behind them. I try to tell all of you the story whenever I submit a photo. Would you believe that it's hard to get a picture of Cameron now? Every time he sees a camera he breaks out the big tears. :bawling: The only thing I can associate with it is the bright flash. ;) Makes it hard for a mommy and grandma to keep up their scrapbooks! ;)

CJ, the frame makes it sooo much better! It's amazing how the picture pops with it. I like your sketch too. You did a good job keeping the detail in his eyes.

Amanda, the smudging on the card really shows off the movement. If you only could have seen him rolling down the hill! ;)

Lisa, you really have that sketch thing down! :bow: I don't know which version I like better.

Here's another version from me. I love the sketch look, but wanted to add color. Couldn't get it right; too light or to dark. Found a solution with this. Consider it a "Work In Progress." :lol:

You don't think falling on a pumpkin and rolling down a hill might have anything to do with camera fear? :) Just teasing...

My son learned *real* quick to ham it up for the camera. It's been horribly difficult since he was about six months old (he's five now) to take a picture where he doesn't have one of those huge, cheesy grins plastered on his face or sticking his tongue out, or putting his fingers in his nose...

I like your work in progress. Great application of technique!

Jennifer - work in progress -- my favorite look! nicely done.

Every time he sees a camera he breaks out the big tears. The only thing I can associate with it is the bright flash -- Jennifer

The best light for photo portraits can be soft light from a north-facing window bouncing off the subject seated near the window -- NO flash.
It can be harder with a little one who moooooves fast! and especially when they're already associating the camera with the too bright light.

Perhaps a different camera (one that looks quite a bit different so he won't really know what it is - ask friends/family to let you borrow one for a trial) would let you photograph him a few times so he'll stop crying when he sees a camera.

He's so cute -- we want more! But we don't want to make him cry :bawling: . :(

Jennifer - great pic - thanks for sharing - nice soft sketch - I like it
CJ - framing the poor guy at his age - good job - I like the sketch especially the rounding and shadows.
Amanda - great bright look!
Jill - makes him look like he is coming out of the straw - nice
Lisa - good sketches - I am partial to sketches and here are mine!

Ran it thru PI then ran my poor attempt at Lisa Neals' sketch routine

Photoshop sketch

bubba

The sketching on this thread is mind blowing. I am still working on the sketch style and am still having trouble. So I really have enjoyed everyones. The frames and boarder are good also.

So I went the route of straightning that boy up and trying to pick that pumpkin up for his mom.
What a sweet picture to work with.

I opened a blank page and cut and pasted and rotated all the pieces back together. Then ran some filters to soften the look.

Jean

I loved the story you told how your son kept falling over so I thought I would try a rendition of just that.

Did cut and paste on the top half and lower half of the body. Then used wind. Ran effie and added canvas texture.

Jean

Jean, that's AWESOME!! :bow: :grin:

That's about how he looked that day. :tongue:

Bubba, glad you joined in. I like your PI sketch a lot.! You REALLY kept the sparkle in his eyes!

-- CJ wrote:
Perhaps a different camera (one that looks quite a bit different so he won't really know what it is - ask friends/family to let you borrow one for a trial) would let you photograph him a few times so he'll stop crying when he sees a camera.

I have tried flash, no flash, and every other camera imaginable -- no luck. All anyone has to do is hold up a black/dark object up to their face and he starts to freak. The only thing so far that seems to be somewhat okay is our camcorder. He does stress out over that as much. But it's gray, not black. Go figure. :normal: Guess I'll have to paint our camera a different color! :wink:

So many nice sketches! And Jean, those two manipulations are really fun! LOL!

Since all the good sketches have been done, I went with a painting using AH brush to start, added an outline faded to 10% overlay to define the edges more, then a pattern layer...forget which pattern, one of the watercolor paper ones I think.

Phyllis

Jennifer - I just did all of my lightening routines, etc. then, in Photoshop, I took a snapshot, ran unsharp mask with the following(500%, 1.0 - 1.5, 0), did another snapshot. then I checked box on the unsharp snapshot, selected the regular snapshot with the artist history brush set at about 40-75%, and repainted the eyes and mouth.

Good subject - at least no one has put him inside the pumpkin yet!

bubba

This was such a wonderful image to play with! Thank you!

Here's my colored sketch.

Tyeise

Thanks Tyeise. I'm glad you had fun. It's been fun for me watching everyone play with Cameron's picture.

Bubba, is this what you were afraid of??? ;) :lol:

I love it Chuck! The oval mat really works on this. I may have to re-mat the actual photo with an oval version. Thanks! :)

Thanks for the fun and beautiful photograph to work with, Jennifer....what a little charmer he is....but you already know that, don't you. :)

I did my version in Paint Shop Pro 8

1* duplicated layer

2* Gaussian blurred by 8 on this new layer

3* Lowered the Opacity to 74 and changed the blend to 'darken'

4* merged layers

5* Applied Dream Suite 1's deckle filter

6* New Raster layer and flood filled with gradient

7* Applied Paint Engine filter

8* Merged layers again and added a border of 30

9* Magic wand to select border and then applied Texturizer filter

10* Added a cut out to it


I have loved all the awesome renditions that have come in...for the effects they give and for the great info that goes with them...thanks for sharing.

Cheers.
Opal

I couldn't go to bed without doing another one of this little cutie.

This time I did a pencil sketch effect and again, I did it in Paint Shop Pro 8



1* promoted background to raster layer

2* added a new layer and flood filled with a greyscale rain effect pattern.

3* Changed the blend to 'overlay'

4* merged layers

5* sharpened this layer and yet again.


6* Added a mask and then a pencil that I had made a while ago.

7* then added a new layer and moved to bottom of palette..flood filled this by picking out a colour from the photo and adding a texture to it.

8* Merged layers again and added a border of 30

9* Magic wand to select border and then applied mosaic antique filter

10* Added a cut out to it


Off to bed now otherwise I will be meeting myself getting up.

Cheers.
Opal