A special moment in time shot by J.Thuemler.

Tried all sorts in the hope it would look like an oil painting...sigh!
Started with photoline32 paint effect, added some brushwork in painter, changed hue-sat in ps7.

Tried all sorts in the hope it would look like an oil painting...sigh!
Started with photoline32 paint effect, added some brushwork in painter, changed hue-sat in ps7.

Hey, that's pretty neat. Hadn't heard of Photoline32 before, so I goggled it and came up with a few hits, among them:

http://www.pl32.com

Thanks for including that tidbit. Another fun tool to investigate!

~Danny~

What a beautiful pair! May want to try a few different types of techniques on this image....

For this one, in Photoshop, I duped several layers to work with, and used the wand tool to pick out most of the background highlights - then used the Quick Mask to add to my selection. Decided to recreate a background for the burned out areas and added noise, then did a variety of the Pixilate filters - Pointillize especially, to create a look of flower petals in the distance (to me, at least ;) ). Ran the Smart Blur edges on another layer and topped it with a couple of Graphic Pen layers (ran at different strengths - not quite like Glenn Mitchell's tip, but using his idea ) with a Screen layer mode -- with opacity reduced on the Edges layer. Added layers on top to add back Color (Color layer mode with layer masking to taste).

Lovely submissions Jaykita and CJ!

I had a number of goes at this one as I was experimenting with Impressionist. I finally settled for this....using PSP8.01. Image size worked on was 880 x 843 pixels, 72 dpi. I reduced final image to 65% prior to applying a sandstone texture.

Auto contrast to original image (lighter-norma-natural)
Duped bottom layer.
2nd Layer - Soft Focus (setting=Minimum Focus)
Eraser - low opacity - to reveal eyes mouth etc.
Impressionist Filter/Watercolour/Damp Translucent Wash
Bg=Image Coverage=35%
Brush Size=25% Pressure=76%
Again applied Soft Focus/Min Focus
Erased for eyes etc again.
Merged visible.
Applied some sharpening to highlight eyes mouth more.
Sandstone texture applied.

Thank you for the lovely photo to work with....!

Nice entries by all.

An attractive duo.

Adjusted levels.
Slight curve adjustment.
light simplification.
Used several layers to build up bg.
Used Nik Ink to further flatten and build bg.
Virtual painter on bg.
xero clairity to enhance.
Impressionist pencil sketch/detailed color for bg.
Did the same for subject but less opacity.
Embossed.
Nik skylight, contrast.
Another hue/sat adj.
Slight blur to reduce image size.

Superb Lqqker :bigthmb: :bigthmb: Colours are vibrant and I like the detail on the whole. Great result.

Lqqker, I quite like the technique you used. I like the colors you chose. I like the painterly effect without having them too stylized. There is one thing that I noticed, however. And that is the light brown halo over the mother's head. Notice I haven't yet posted my own feeble efforts; so take what I say however you may. In any case, you did a great job.

Janet

changed photo to black and white
painted and blended in painter 8, about 9 hours.
used edge preserving smooth in psp7
used emboss filter
added a glass filter
added black border
added glass filter.

changed photo to black and white
painted and blended in painter 8, about 9 hours.
used edge preserving smooth in psp7
used emboss filter
added a glass filter
added black border
added glass filter.

Wow.... you converted to BW, then colorized in Painter. That's impressive.

Nicely done.

~Danny~

painted and blended in painter 8, about 9 hours.


Bravo, Reason. Lovely rendition! Well worth the effort!

3 copies of background layer.

Bottom copy - Xero line Art - Drawing to lighten and enhance colours followed by impressionist chalk - background = image brush = 25 ran this twice.

next layer white fill - layer mask and using Trimoon's water colour technique painted back figures and part of background.

Next background copy layer - Chalkaholic, gaussian blur 2.5, Sketcher - dodged colour on girls neck later. Layer mode = screen

Next background copy Xero line art - Sketch, line = 10, Tone = -63, Mono. Layer mode = multiply. Painted white with rough brush to remove edges where ovelapped undelying layers

Christine

Here's mine. And these are the steps:
First, original image-adjustment levels to brighten and lighten, 0, 1.45, 255.
Made 6 background copies. From last layer upwards:
6th - Impressionist plug-in pencil sketch soft detailed, opac 100, Normal.
5th - Impr custom #djr oil 24, hard light, opac 58.
4th - Impr custom chalk soft detail pastel rain (palette rainbow), normal opac 53.
3rd - Backgr copy - smart blur, find edges, invert, diffuse anisotropic, multiply, opac 63.
2nd - same as 6th, hard light, opac 57.
1st - Backgr copy - g'blur, soft light.
Merge all. Increase saturation upto 10.

changed photo to black and white
painted and blended in painter 8, about 9 hours.
used edge preserving smooth in psp7
used emboss filter
added a glass filter
added black border
added glass filter.
Great effort! I always look forward to seeing your exciting use of color!

Thanks, Mary

Great effort! I always look forward to seeing your exciting use of color!

Welcome, Mary. Nice to see your cheerleading for Reason's creative effort. Hope to see something arty from you, too!

~Danny~

Duped several layers in PShop,
Filled empty layer with gold, layer blend on Soft Light to add glow of sunlight
Layer 4: Ran Angled Strokes with layer blend set to Overlay
Layer 3: ran Sketch -> stamp filter with Layer blend set to Color Burn
Layer 2: ran Artistic - > Colored Pencil , layer blend set to Luminosity
Background layer

Let's see, hard to remember all the steps...

1) Replaced background, did a painted background, didn't like the way the background became lighter than the people. (I still posted this image for other opinions below.)

2) Second attempt tried a darker background with a motion blur.

3) Spent time getting some of the colors into the hair and clothing so it would have a more consistent color palette for a painting.

4) Used a warming filter on the people faces and used Virtual Painter as a color only layer across the whole painting at about 50% opacity. Manually elimited garish green color artifacts in the face from the jpg using a color adjustment layer with layer mask.

5) Into Painter IX (arrived yesterday). Definately faster, didn't seem much different than 8 though. Would have liked Corel to have put maybe one or two "Wow" items for the sake of the upgrade, but I guess the product is starting to come to a point of completion? Still, it seems by this forum that there are lots of steps to get a painted look, perhaps more automation of this in Painter down the road, but I digress...

6) Oil cloners and blenders in Painter to soften and blend.

7) Back to PS for a quick vignette, a high-pass filter overlay and a border

Still struggling with making the jump to the next level of skill/experience. Would appreciate and suggestions or critiques no matter how harsh. The direction I want to head is more in the direction of a Helen Yancy, Fay Sirkis, Jeremy Sutton - realism but definately painted. The only way to get there is good feedback from others. This is my second post and I did get one critique on my first from SWEngineer (Thanks Mark) and thanks to everyone here too -what a great community!!!

The direction I want to head is more in the direction of a Helen Yancy, Fay Sirkis, Jeremy Sutton - realism but definately painted. The only way to get there is good feedback from others. This is my second post and I did get one critique on my first from SWEngineer (Thanks Mark) and thanks to everyone here too -what a great community!!!Paul:

Your style is very Jeremy-like (and that's a compliment). Colors and blending look fine to me. Using VP for a color layer is very effective since VP really juices up colors.

For "paintings" they look a bit flat texture-wise. Have you tried Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture > 3D brush strokes (or image luminance) to bring out the brushes texture a bit more? Sometimes a little Unsharp Mask helps, too.

re: Painter IX
I've heard it is faster and a bit more Photoshop-like in terms of layers, commands, ability to rotate canvas, etc.

How's reliabity so far? I've heard mixed reviews.

Danny, I have not tried the Surface Control to get more brush texture but will try that soon.

I agree with VP as a color juicer. Very different from simply increasing the saturation for two primary reasons. First, it varies the colors (in little rough squares if using oil paint). Second, it avoids the equivalent of "out-of-gamut" colors for a painter. For example in my first submission I mentioned how many painters would not paint with black but rather would blend colors to acheive dark tones instead. VP subs out colors like black and grey for more appealing colors.

Painter IX.
Well I was stable on my computer with Painter 8, but watched it crash regularly on my wife's computer. Painter IX has been stable for the one project I have done on it ( 30 minutes of activity). I think the speed up may have been exaggerated, doesn't feel like 10 times faster, but it is noticeably faster, and to be honest, the slow downs in Painter 8 made it painful to use and certainly took away from the freedom to experiment. My upgrade was only $179 and probably worth the money. If it had been $99 it would have been a no brainer, but no major complaints. :)

Here's mine and some feedback for Paul:

Paul, I'm not much of a critic (but practice helps I expect :wink: ) I think your first version has too strong of a blue cast in the skin tones, but I like the background. In the 2nd, I don't like the background as well. It competes too much with the subject(s). In both case, it seems the coloration of the subjects tends to blend them into the background as opposed to having them stand out against it. I think a good mix would be the ladies from the 2nd image with the background from the first.

For mine, I surrendered to the blown out highlights.
BG: Color corrected
A: copy BG. Amphisoft Simplifier. Xero Porcelain. Impressionist-JaykitaWC2 modified
B: copy A. VirtualPhographer-Dreamy. Layermask to save what little color existed in the upper background
C-E: Cloning & copy/paste to make the composition (foliage, faint background colors) more to my liking.

-Mark

Mark,

Thanks for the comments. Yeah the first one I quit working on half way because it didn't seem to be working. Never got around to proper color correction.

I am still pondering your second comment because I can plainly see that the colors of the people on the second image would look much better on the first, and that they are "blending" in on the second image. I also know that I try to reduce the palette of colors in any image so that things don't look like they were cut out and pasted in. In most cases, a traditional painter would only mix so many colors/hues for a particular image.

I wonder if anyone else in the forum has general thoughts or suggestions about color reduction, or possibly has traditional painting experience/guidelines they might share with us?

All comments are appreciated! :wavey:

-paul

I wonder if anyone else in the forum has general thoughts or suggestions about color reduction, or possibly has traditional painting experience/guidelines they might share with us?

-paul
I don't have traditional painting experience, but based on some study I did discover one of things that disntinguishes paintings from photos is that paintings normally have considerably fewer colors than a color photo of the same scene. (Color photos attempt to capture all colors in a scene.)

Traditional artists apply color theory, too, when it comes to color selection, e.g. complimentary colors to achieve contrast and seldom using true whites and blacks.

Color simplification is definitely a goal for one trying to achieve more of a truly painted look. I don't have any good ideas, however, on how to achieve that without a lot of manual effort (as in select/replace colors).

~Danny~

Here's an attempt at a watercolor effect using filters like median, palette knife, and the good old watercolor filter in ps.

Jaykita...really like your results here...the colors are glorious.

I'm not sure if I should post this here, in retouching, or somewhere else :confused:. I guess framing is an art too so here it is.

I converted the photo to sepia by using hue/saturation with the colorize box checked, then adjusted levels a little.

For the mat I simply made an oval, punched out the center, colored, added noise and used layer styles to add a drop shadow. I made the frame using the same basic steps except instead of noise I used the wood filter in Eye Candy 4000. I used styles to add a bevel and a couple more drop shadows.

Hi all,
I started with a sketch effect and selected just the parts I wanted. Then filled the background with white and deselected.
Softened the edges round what was left.
Duped the background layer and added sepia tone.
deleted background on the sepia layer over eyes and teeth.
Merged then added a canvas texture.

Regards,
Mitch.

Sorry = the canvas effect looks nasty at this size!
Slightly better without.
Regards,
Mitch.

Sorry = the canvas effect looks nasty at this size!
Slightly better without.
Regards,
Mitch.Agreed. Sans texture looks better under these conditions.

For future reference you can edit you own posts (Click Edit, then Manage Attachments again to delete, then add a replacement image.)

No problem in this case, since having both provided a means of comparison.

Nice results in either case.

~Danny~

I used photoshop's graphic pen effect to create copies of this in four different orientations (horizontal, vertical, left diagonal, right diagonal), then used these with various blend modes over the original, saving the result each time in a new layer. I then made a copy of all of the original that wasn't overlapped by these. I used the colored pencil effect on this and on a copy of the original. I blended these two for the best effect. Then I used the four blended graphic pen layers, with layer masks, to add some directional strokes where needed. I also did some further monkeying around.

I used photoshop's graphic pen effect to create copies of this in four different orientations (horizontal, vertical, left diagonal, right diagonal), then used these with various blend modes over the original, saving the result each time in a new layer. I then made a copy of all of the original that wasn't overlapped by these. I used the colored pencil effect on this and on a copy of the original. I blended these two for the best effect. Then I used the four blended graphic pen layers, with layer masks, to add some directional strokes where needed. I also did some further monkeying around.avogadro:

The application of Graphic Pen to multiple layers, each time in a different direction, then combining the best of each layer is a great way to vary stroke direction. Combining Colored Pencil in the mix is very unique, too.

Hope to see more of your inventive recipes in the near future.

Well done and welcome aboard.

~Danny~

I like how the mother turned out in this one. But, the daughter ended up looking a little bit creepy with the black, dead looking eyes. My apologies to her.

T

I used Paint Engine's filters to finish off after separating the mother/child from the distracting background and substituting another I created.

Mitch -- I really like your sketch technique a lot! :)
The canvas looks fine when expanded to full view, but it does look blotchy if we just click on the thumbnail.


I like how the mother turned out in this one. But, the daughter ended up looking a little bit creepy with the black, dead looking eyes. My apologies to her.

T

You can try to bring back some of the original look of her eyes with a layer mask -- her squint into the light hides most of her eye, and that does make it harder to avoid the overly dark look. I like the look of the mother also! :)

Thank you very much, Gold coin, for your comment.
This was cloned in Painter 8 using a soft blender brush and soft watercolor brush, all different opacities and sizes. (I modified the brushes). The image was first desaturated and adjustments applied in ps7.

You can try to bring back some of the original look of her eyes with a layer mask -- her squint into the light hides most of her eye, and that does make it harder to avoid the overly dark look. I like the look of the mother also! :)

Thanks for the tip CJ. I hadn't thought of tampering with it after the fact. Will keep that in mind for the future.

T

Such a beautiful mother and daughter, and everyone has done such outstanding paintings! Here's my attempt in Painter IX.

Textured painting of woman & child.

Steve

I used Painter oil cloners and PS to give a light painted effect.

Cathy :)

always easier to work with a great picture and this one is pretty incredible. such smiles!

so, i thought i'd do their Christmas card up for them :) i used some images from another challenge.

Craig

A lot of help from NeatImage and Paint Engine's @wetter2 preset. Also used Danny's djrOil24 Impressionist preset for the lady's hair. :)

I thought this lovely pair just needed a minimal amount of improvement.
1. replaced background
2. Dodged the hair to try to bring out some highlights.
3. dodged the the left side of the ladies face
4. finished with noise ninja to soften the skin tones.

Easy with a great picture to start with

Well I finally got round to this one.

Smoothed out with some noise reduction.
Adjusted colours with Hue & Sat.
Simplifier plugin.
Diffuse filter.
Add a texture.

Peter

peter,

what is the simplifier plugin?

Craig its a free plugin from Amphisoft. The link below will take you to where it can be downloaded. Its part of a collection of plugins, some freeware, some not.
Should be OK with PSP but check out the specs.

Peter

http://www.download.com/AmphiSoft-Photo-Tinter/3000-2189_4-10620163.html

Here are mom and daughter just one more time.

Steve

A lovely photograph. Mom and daughter in watercolour. CS2 native watercolour filter x2 after doing some work on the background and colour adjusting.