Hi Everyone,

After more than 25 years as businessman wishing I were an artist, I am trying to make my dreams come true. Having loved people, photography, and technology for a long time, I am humbly submitting my first effort for your critique. This job took two weeks to prepare, only 40 minutes to shoot in the studio, and four weeks to post produce.

#1 is very much influenced by the work of Michael Campbell, a photographer whose work I greatly admire. The basic elements of the composite are the girl, the background scene, the drawn butterfly wings, the reflection, and a shadow between her and the rock. All done in PSCS (Photoshop CS).

#2 is my first attempt at an oil painting using Painter and PSCS.

#3 is also a product of Painter (various types of charcoal and ink) and channel-managed B/W conversion in PSCS.

In 2 and 3 I very much wanted a "done by hand look" rather than the unform processing done by many filters. Like Danny, I have absolutely no painting skills, but found that the "clone" option in Painter is fairly easy to work with.

I'm looking forward to suggestions for improvement.

Best,

Larry

I'll have to leave suggestions to others. I think you have tremendous talent. It might be a little premature to put you in the category of Campbell but your little angle with wings is every bit as good in comparing it to one of the masters. Everything is seamless and natural.

Cheers
Dave

Thank you Duv! (nt)
Larry

Larry,
I absolutely love your work....image 1 & 3 especially. Sorry no tech tips I can give ....just posted my first image yesterday. I think your dreams will come true! Congrats, Tracy

Fantastic job Larry!

The scaling down forced by posting them to the board doesn't do them justice. I'm sure seeing them in full resolution is just stunning.

You're off to a good start!

Larry,

Great start in painter!

1 and 3 are very well done, 2 I think needs help. The area that I think you could think about on all three is lighting - the direction and quality of the light in relation to the direction of the face and the mood of the the photo.

In number 1 and 3 everything is done very well - the only thing you are missing is any drama in the lighting - nothing is sculpted by the light. On 3, if those wings are drawn in they are remakable!

In number 2 the directional light with a hard edge is not a bad thing, but it is has decisive quality that works best with an angle to the face that is flattered by it. The lights high angle causes the eyes to go a little dark - the nose shadow falls accross the mouth. The angle of the light confuses the features instead of reveiling the features of her face.

My other problem with number 2 is the girl is a little light, cyan and unsaturated for a natural skin tone in contrast to a artificially high saturation of the pink background. It pulls the eye back to the pink and adds a harshness that was probably not your intention. (I am viewing this on my laptop monitor so I could be a little off). I attached a screen shot of the pink princess wtih the layers/descriptions so you could get an idea of what I did.

You are at a level of expertise that you can definently market your work and learn like we all learn - real life work for clients! ;)

I hope some of this is helpful,
Roger

Dear Tracy, PainPerdu (Lost Bread?), and Roger,

Thank you so much for your kind comments. Roger, special thanks for taking the time to work on the second image. You've made tremendous improvement. Also, you are so right, lighting is an aspect that needs much more attention and practice in my work.
Best to all,
Larry