Not sure if hers is a look of anger, sadness, concern or anticipation, but no matter. Have a fun time on this one regardless.

I sense a level of anxious concern in her, and I took the image to a darker mood. Used Photoshop -- watercolor layer modified by a Find edges layer, with some paper texture added.

I went the posterization via threshold route. Filled various areas with h/s, painting, etc.

To me she looked lost and lonely, crying too! An "Eleanor Rigby" of this world.

Some very creative takes on this one so far... Too bad she doesn't look a little happier.

On mine I'm experimenting with an action I wrote that uses a free plugin to create a tiled look. I'm looking for "action testers," so if you're interested, send me an e-mail (not PM) [click my name above this post] and I'll reply with the action and link to the plugin download site.

In the mean time, Happy Monday!

~Danny~

Well...

I turned this girl into a colour pencil drawing on a wall, with the words "Who's that girl...?"

I am sure she would smile if she saw the artwork done on this site!

This time I applied image>red channel,invert. Then duped that layer.
ran the Iridius action>soft
duped layer
ran Iridius> CP
Messed with blends

Well done everyone. A few select comments: Jaykita - What can I say except that I'm in awe of your talent. The patches on the clothing are perfect for the hobo / sad clown look you've created. Danny - Very clever composition. I like how you keep pushing all of us in new directions by way of your examples. Legacy - Very nice sketch effect. It might be better merged into the brick instead of just floating over the top. Or maybe a stucco wall would make a better backdrop to blend your image into.

For my effort, here's a happy accident. I was playing with glikster's idea of multiple passes of a filter with different channels (R,G,B) as selections for each pass. I wanted to see how much different this ends up than just a single pass on the full RGB image. I'll leave this as homework for the rest of you.

Anyway here's how:
BG
A: Copy BG. Run 3 passes of Chalk & Charcoal (default B&W colors) with R then G and then B channels as selections. (Not trivial to do in Elements 2. HiddenPower saved the day here.)
B: Copy BG. 1 pass of Chalk & Charcoal on the full RGB image.
C: Same as A but using Dry Brush for the filter
D: Same as B but using Dry Brush for the filter
Now the fun began. I used difference mode to compare separate filtration of each channel to one pass filtration. Soon I had several layers visible in difference mode, not just the ones I was comparing. This led me to try varied combinations and ultimately...
E: MergeVisible (BG,A,B,D) [note layers A,B,D all in Difference mode, 100% opacity)
F: MergeVisible (BG, A,B,C,D,E) with A-D in Difference mode and E in Multiply. This was a nice result on it's own but merge the lady's lips together in two places, making it look like she had fangs. I wasn't interested in making a vampire, so I looked to see what I could do with this as a base image:
G: Copy F. SmudgeStick. The end result is rather like a felt marker / mixed media sketch. Quite nice I thought.

Alternate interpretation: Copy F and run Texture>MosaicTile. I haven't like the output from this filter when I have tinkered with it before, but here it worked nicely.

Another starting point for endless possibilities I'm afraid. So many filter combinations, so little time...

-Mark

I Couldn't Help Myself!!!!

Interesting renditions.

I kept what I liked and dicarded the rest. Thought I'd attempt an abstract look without losing the hard expression.

Cropped image.
Removed the nose jewerly.
Made multiple layers using various tools for BG (sketchmaster, Nik, Xero).
Hue & Sat adj.
Contrast adj.
Increased brilliance a bit.
Lightened center and darkened borders slightly.
Enhanced colors.
Nik skylight, midnight and contrast.
Cropped once again.

Duped BG.
Inverted layer.
Faded to Darken.
Changed Layer blending to Color.
stamped visible.
Ran PS:Sketch:Chrome - 4, 7.
Faded to Pin Light.
Set Layer Blending to Overlay.
Stamped visible.
Ran PS:Pixelate:Crystallize - 10.
Faded to Lighten.
Duped that layer.
Ran PS:Stylize:Glowing Edges - 1, 20, 4.
Inverted layer.
Set Layer Blending to Darken.
Stamped Visible.
Selected the cape using Color Range and Quickmask.
Ran Impressionist:Marker:Textured Sepia Tonal.
Faded to Screen.
Duped that layer.
Loaded Red Channel as selection.
Ran Impressionist:Paint:Hot Swirl (changed brush size to 63).
Loaded Green Channel as selection.
Ran same filter.
Faded to Darken.
Loaded Blue Channel as selection.
Ran same filter.
Faded to Darken.
Ran PS:Sharpen:Unsharp Mask- 152, 2.3, 0.
Faded to lower opacity.
Selected all, shrank, inverted and feathered the selection and filled with white.
Oh yeah, and ran PS:Texture:Texturizer - Sandstone, 140, 2, Bottom Left.

It's different, right?

It's different, right?
No question about that... But different in a GOOD way!

=========

LQQKER... that's a very interesting look. I did about three double-takes. You've achieved great success in achieving "a really wet" look around the edges.

=========

On mine I did a fairly common sketch technique for a base:
* Duplicate Background
* Desaturate the duplicate
* Duplicate the desaturated layer, CTRL + I (to invert it), Color Dodge, then apply some Gaussian Blur (to taste) and merge down to combine the layers.

Then I went in a different direction...
* Duplicated the sketch layer and applied some Artistic > Film Grain.
* To this I applied the Virtual Painter Oil Painting filter (a couple times), because it has kind of a dissolving effect. Unfortunately this wiped out too much eye and mouth detail.
* To restore some of that detail I duplicated the sketch layer, copied it to the top of the layer stack and set the blend mode to Hard Light. Then I added a Hide All (black) layer mask and airbrushed white to restore the facial detail.
* Created a new layer and Alt + Layer > Merge Visible.
* Added another dose of Film Grain and a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer with the hope of evening out the tone.
* Added a Levels Adjustment layer and significantly increased the shadows. Ctrl + I (to invert it), then airbrushed with white in areas I wanted to darken.
* Top layer: A white inside stroke and a darker outside stroke for the frame.

- - - - -

#2 is a tiled version of the first.

~Danny~

. .

I think she's a "country goth." She therefore requires buzzing and the VP Gothic Oil. (My oldest daughter used to be a goth.)

Amy

Painter 8: Chalk Cloner plus Van Gogh

PS: White Vignette
One U shaped Curves adjustment
Curves Adjustment S shaped.

Cheers
Dave

After consulting with my ex-goth daughter, who is now 35...I came up with this. Grayscale, impresionist pencil sketch, xero line art, increase color, add blood red lips.

Amy

Amy, just when I was going to say how much I like the first one - then I saw the second (the red frame is very important). Great stuff!!

Wandered around the PS filters and found Filter>Pixelate>Facet, seems like I hadn't noticed this one before.

Applied Facet twice (new favourite filter) , copied to a new layer and applied Lighting (spotlight from below, texture blue channel). Put in a texture layer between the two and twiddled opacities.

Rô

Trying out some sketch effects. Final layer has a couple of textures from Trimoon's collection.
I've discovered David Nagel's brushes for Ps 7, and feel like a kid in his dad's candy store!! The "hair and fur" series works well for sketches. You can download them HERE. (http://www.digitalmediadesigner.com/2003/08_aug/features/download43030828.htm)

Every person who has contributed to the stylizing of this protrait has influenced my final composition. Too much good stuff ignore. :bigthmb: You all deserve a huge pat on the back.

It has taken me the better part of two days and several false starts and stops to finally reach a place with this portrait that I'm comfortable with. What finally did it for me was looking at the channels. The red channel made her almost glow. I worked from there and tried to impart a small part of that glow into a colored work.

I went bold for everything except her face. There, I worked in tiny detail, adding and subtracting color and shape. I added highlights to her lips and eyes, removed shadows...then I painted.

Lastly, I added texture, which softened the whole portrait and blended the tiny detail with the bold strokes in the rest of the composition.

Hurrah!!! I'm done.

Janet

P.S. I should add that I'm still not happy with what I tried to do to the eyes; but if I don't get some sleep, I won't be worth diddly tomorrow. :)

Janet, love the texture and the glow. I like her eyes -- it's like the next step after she spots what she was looking for...

Excellent work, Janet! Her eyes --well, she seems to have had some sort of revelation., some shocking news? Just a thought, dont mind me, but i'd rather she was looking directly at me. What dya say?

I'm still playing with blending modes. She looks cold to me (and I don't mean the temperature), so I gave her an barren and icy domain.

For what it is worth,

Janet

I'm still playing with blending modes. She looks cold to me (and I don't mean the temperature), so I gave her an barren and icy domain.

For what it is worth,

Janet
Snow queen? BRRRR! She's looking right at me! Great Job there, Janet. Tell me, did you use the KPT filter for this effect?

My ignorance is now up for public display. What is the KPT filter?

So I guess the answer would have to be no. Since I don't know what it is. :)


Janet

My ignorance is now up for public display. What is the KPT filter?

So I guess the answer would have to be no. Since I don't know what it is. :)


Janet
Here's (http://www.computerarts.co.uk/reviews/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=28844&subsectionid=844&subsubsectionid=758) some info on KPT for you. :)

Corel Painter, yes?

Holy smokes! You're on fire, girl! :rainbow: :bigthmb: :bow:

How did I miss this marvellous first effort by you Janet.....hooray...it's a smasher!
:bigthmb:

First time posting. Hello everyone! :wavey: (echoes of "Hello Paul" ring back).

First thing, doubled the resolution then:

1) Stretched the hue range in the hair

2) Tried a VP Oil that didn't work

3) Tried a KPT Pyramid Paint that worked better

4) Blended that VP Oil layer at about 30% to get the color into the blacks since my old art instructor would have shot me for using true black in a painting

5) Pulled into Corel Painter and stroked a clone with the Oil cloner. Pulled the hair and jacket in the right directions, left the other strokes at 45 degree angle.

6) Fixed her nose and bags under the eyes

7) Created a couple of quick framing options and halved the resolution back down.

Can't wait to get deeper into these forums. This is a gold mine considering everything I just did I had to figure out on my own while it seems old hat around here. What a great resource and a great community!!!

Still a little too photographic, although the full res images show the strokes a bit more. My studio sells to people who have us take the photos, so I tend to constrain my creativity to things I think the customer (in this case the unknown woman in the hat) would buy. Keeping this goal in mind, I would love some constructive criticism and ideas about what to improve on. Compliments are always appreciated, but they don't help me get better. I have thick skin and would prefer the the American Idol - Simon Cowell honesty.

Thanks,
-paul

Welcome to RP. You are right about this being a gold mine. The people and resources here are the best.

While some will give you criticism, most will enjoy your art, offer suggestions, learn from you, share their ideas, etc. This is a place were art is explored and expanded upon for the sheer joy of the subject. You will undoubtedly fit right in and find yourself feasting in photos and what can be accomplished with them just like the rest of us. And you will bring a new dimension with depth and perspective that will enrich our abilities as well.

BTW, I like the transformation of the redhead. You did wonders for her.

Janet

Welcome Paul! I like your effort overall. Since you asked, here's my 2c for things to consider:
I like the 2nd framing effort. The 1st still has too much of the busy background showing. The faint streaks of color in the hat and cape are very nice. The light colored wrap around the hat is too light / lacking detail. In fact its kind of a distraction as the brightest object in the scene. Finally, as you noted, it still has a strong photographic character. In this regard, the woman's face doesn't quite fit in with the more 'artified' hair and clothing.

Hope to see more from you in the future.

-Mark

Had fun playing with several filters on this one....….roughly

1.Sharpened image
2. New Adjustment Layer, Hue/Sat, set master to -25
3. New Adjustment Layer, Selective Color – tweaked colors
4. New Layer, Painted over background and parts of subject with black at varying levels of opacity
5. New Layer, Mode Overlay
Paint black with 5-50% opacity brush darkening details
6. Merge Layers, Duplicate
7. Rendered Lighting Effects, added a spotlight and two omni lights
8. Merged Layers
9. Duplicate Layer
10. Equalize
11. Brush Strokes – Sprayed Strokes, Erased face to bring back detail from layer below
12. Selective dodging and burning to bring out detail.
13. Texture>Grain

Had fun playing with several filters on this one....….roughly...
Detailing your steps clearly illustrates there's more to getting a unique result than applying a single filter, plugin or effect. It's by having fun/trying new combinations that "happy accidents" happen. When they do it's nice to know to how how you got there in order to recreate the effect on a future image.

Once again you inspire me, T. :)

- - - - - - - -

Hi Paul:

Welcome to the forum. I believe you'll find most of us tend to be more like Paula than Simon, looking to emphasize the positive than beating people over the head with the negative.

Regarding "too photgraphic" vs. "looks more like a painting," people are all over the map on that one, with supporters in both camps. A happy medium it seems is to "really arty up the background" and apply subtle touches to the subject. This style is popular with Jeremy Sutton and Helen Yancy (www.HelenYancystudio.com). Most customers people seem to prefer not a whole lot of manuplation of facial details.

Since you have Painter, try experimenting with the Blender > Grainy Blender brushes to simulate a little "brush stroke" texture and Effects > Surface Effects > Luminance to emphasize them even more.

Hope you'll continue to share your experiments with us.

~Danny~

Hi Danny,

Here's my attempt;

I simply duplicated the Layer a couple of times added some Blur and used a blend mode of Lighten. I then added a Hue/Saturation Adj Layer and partly desaturated the image. Finally I painted back some of the Saturation in the hair using the mask that comes with the Layer.

Regards

Con Looymans

Hi All,
I hope you'll forgive a complete novice adding his effort. I only have PSP at the moment,and I'm still finding my way around. I'm going to have a lot of fun translating the PS commands and duplicating them in PSP. Or trying to. I feel like a pupil in a whole classroom of teachers.
I used the following tools:-
mezzoforce ice plugin
VP Coloured pencil {to lighten the hair}
SoftSketchColour script

Regards,
Mitch.

Mitch, nice to see another PSPer on here! I have both, but, well...PSP has my heart.

AmyHutton

Hi Mitch, welcome to RP :wavey:

That came out real nice. I especially like the background and the hair.
Hope to see a lot more of your work.

Rô

Mitch, love the image and the colors. I think I would blend/smooth the hair possibly before or after the other effects as it still has some very photographic edges. I don't know the PSP brushes, but I assume it has blenders/smearers like photoshop or painter.

Keep submitting!

-paul

Hi All,
I hope you'll forgive a complete novice adding his effort. I only have PSP at the moment,and I'm still finding my way around. I'm going to have a lot of fun translating the PS commands and duplicating them in PSP. Or trying to. I feel like a pupil in a whole classroom of teachers.
I used the following tools:-
mezzoforce ice plugin
VP Coloured pencil {to lighten the hair}
SoftSketchColour script

Regards,
Mitch.
Wow. For a "complete novice," you've certainly got some advanced skills. Glad to see you're not afraid to combine some bold effects.

Believe me, we're all pupils -- even the regulars -- and all who participate have the opportunity to be teachers, just like you were on your first post.

I hope others follow in your footsteps.

Welcome aboard.

~Danny~

Thank you all for your kind words and welcome. I think the only advanced skill I have at the moment is diving into the manual to find how to do what I want to do, or to decipher the steps you all have used.
Once again thank you for your encouragement.
Regards,
Mitch.

First I overlayed a paper texture too the whole image.
I added curve and levels adjustment layers to only the hair and slightly to the face.
To entire image:
Paint Daubs
very miniscule Motion Blur
very miniscule Ocean Ripple
very low crystallize ( I think? )
Unsharp Mask

That's about it. Pretty much an experiment.

T

More playing around with cloning in Painter 8, then into PS 7 to add texture. Love her hair!

Patricia

Sometimes I like to use a photocopy sketch as a base for my Art-History stuff. This one worked fine.

Rô

WOW Ro, you are becoming quite the AHB expert. The redhead is one I truly like.

Good job Patricia. I like yours a lot too.

Janet

In my opinion, I have added a few impressionist's style to this image.
I painted this image in a Painter and Photoshop.

I thought I would try a montage of some different pictures.
I used blending mode to overlay each picture also used layer masks to make each element overlap. It came out a kind of moody piece.

Cathy :)

Steve Conway

Steve Conway

Hi Cathy,

I really like your interpretation. Congratulations.

Regards

on Looymans

Thanks Looymans. I thought I would try a more painterly approach. I worked in Painter with oil brush cloners and chalk. I went back to PS and did some texture and hue/sat.

Cathy :)

So many great painting to view in this thread...

Cazubi, you saved the best for last...really, really like what you did in Painter.


Finally was able to download Deep Paint2... ever so much better than version 1.
So far just using the brushes.. the work looks super with texture while in DP, but sure doesn't show up when saving within jpg... Most of her face work was done in Painter 8... wasn't able to control the brush strokes in Deep P. enought, not to have that Sutton style.

This was only my second try with a portrait..many nice features, makes a great outline to work from..layers are easy enought to work in... Give it a try.. even if it's just for backgrounds

FOR THE BEST VIEW OF STROKES..click pix

http://www.pbase.com/goldcoin/image/44694016/small.jpg (http://www.pbase.com/goldcoin/image/44694016/original)

Thanks Goldcoin. I love the mood that you achieved with your rich, warm colors. I also like the painterly effect that it has.

Cathy :)

Cathy - Your montage looks great, you chose the images really well.

Goldcoin - I love your painting. You got a nice balance between the rougher background strokes and the detail. Beautiful colours too.

I am trying a different approach...flat and more graphic. I was thinking poster.

Thanks Pam for your comments.

Cathy :)

Thank you both....Pam & Cathy.

Stunning work Goldcoin.

Janet

Finally got round to tackling this one myself :rolleyes: Prepared it for painting in PS with some Buzz Simplifier, Flaming Pear India Ink and lots of blend modes. Into Painter and used Den's Messy Oil Brush over a Jeremy Sutton handmade paper texture. Back into PS to enhance the texture and added Trimoon's canvas over the top (the paper texture didn't show up well enough for me).

Larger version available here: http://www.pbase.com/pamsav/image/44754648/orginal

Wow, Pam, I love the painterly effect that you achieved.

Cathy :bigthmb:

re: Den's Messy Oil Brush
That's one outstanding effect, Pam.

I know of Den's "Funky Chunky."

Where did you get "Messy Oils"?

Danny, the Funky Chunky is just one of a whole set of Den's brushes.

Actually I like the others more - maybe it's a question of style, maybe the lack of a tablet. :depressed

Rô

Thanks all :D

Danny - if you downloaded your Den's Funky Chunky from Marilyn's site you should have the Messy oil brush in the same collection. I think its actually called Oil Brush Messy :)

Ro - I totally agree. Den's brushes are my favourites (along with some of the Jeremy Sutton ones that come with his Painter Creativity book).

Thanks all :D

Danny - if you downloaded your Den's Funky Chunky from Marilyn's site you should have the Messy oil brush in the same collection. I think its actually called Oil Brush Messy :)

Ro - I totally agree. Den's brushes are my favourites (along with some of the Jeremy Sutton ones that come with his Painter Creativity book).
Ah, that explains it. I got Funky Chunky from the Jeremy Painter Creativity IX CD, which does not include Messy.

Too many brushes, not enough time! :)

Thanks for that clarification.

Mighty nice, Pam... that's a real Keeper!!

I am in a watercolor mode. Someday I will figure out how to do wet watercolors, but for now, digital will have to do. My dh is in Malaysia, Penang and staying at a wonderful guest house. The background is a door/wall at that guest house. BTW, he says that it should be in the 1000 things to see before you die book.

http://casmaran.com/images/redhead.jpg

Cricket

My dh is in Malaysia, Penang

umm, what is 'dh'? darling husband?

Craig

dh can stand for many things.....in this case and at this time it is darling husband....but he prefers ah (adoring husband)



Cricket

I am in a watercolor mode. Someday I will figure out how to do wet watercolors, but for now, digital will have to do. My dh is in Malaysia, Penang and staying at a wonderful guest house. The background is a door/wall at that guest house. BTW, he says that it should be in the 1000 things to see before you die book.

http://casmaran.com/images/redhead.jpg

Cricket
Hey, Cricket:

Glad to see you dropped in. Lovely results... very painted looking. Did you use your WC tutorial approach on this one?

Don't be a stranger (or any stranger than me!).

~Danny~

Yes, I used the WC approach, but this one was more difficult because of the darkness in her hat, cloak and the door behind. As you can see I dealt with that problem by changing those colors to lighter ones.

I think I am about as strange as you....

Cricket

cricket,

thank you. wasnt sure if it was darling or d*mned :)

nice job, btw!

Craig

Hi All,
I've been in and out of my local hospital for a while - so I can't remember all the steps in this. I had to come back on this picture - it's a classic.
All in PSP

Paint engine - various
rain plugin
vignetted to transparency
Bottom layer filled with colour picked from mid tones of cloak and textured.

Regards to All,
Mitch.

Hi All,
I've been in and out of my local hospital for a while - so I can't remember all the steps in this. I had to come back on this picture - it's a classic.

All in PSPGlad you're out of the hospital and able to get back into the saddle again.

I agree, this is definitely a classic pic and you've done a very painterly rendition of it.

Welcome back...

~Danny~

welcome home, mitch.

i like everything but the green eyeballs. chalk it up to too many times being drunk or ill ;)

Craig

Hi Craig,
You know I didn't notice her green eyes, - must be that age thing again! :dizzy: :dizzy:

Thanks for the welcomes.

Have tried a little de-greening.

Regards to all,
Mitch.

mitch,

ah! cool. i like that :)

Craig

Done with Studio Artist layers and touched up with the clone brush.

After applying all the filters, I had to do some erasing (multiple layers of course) to clean up the areas that I did not want to be filtered, hence, reverse painting. LOL

Impressionst (using Danny's djrOil24 preset, one of my favorites), Little Ink Pot's Chalkaholic filter, and some contrast/saturation enhancements. :)

Forgot to add, PS's Chrome filter and GIMP's Bumpmap filter.

I think shes thinking "Wheres my hair brush"

Peter

My shot..Pegs..
Lasa

Here's my sketch -- I thought this would be a perfect image to work on -- this is from a technique that Danny posted not too long ago, but I don't have the link offhand.

Marsha