Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum so hope I am not duplicating previous requests. has anyone done any tutorials or challenges on body scuplting. It is my impression that a lot has been done on the glamour and portrait side, but little on the hands on of improving a picture for someone who is self-conscious. I am referring to the alteration of: hips; double chins; lazy eye thighs, buttocks, triceps etc.

Any comments or information would be helpful. it would be nice to see a Challenge where perhaps a few body parts may be altered.

Unfortunately, I am not a professional photographer and do not have any photographs to post, but am interested in this form of retouching.

Regards,

Sean2

I don't know if this will help, but in video we have a problem called "Binocular to Monocular Conversion Distortion." In short this is the property that something may look completely normal when you look at it with both eyes, but it looks weird when seen with only one lens (i.e. a camera). In women, this usually manifests itself in the jaw line, and in men it is usually the nose that causes the problem.

This is solved on film (motion) by movement and not choosing camera angles that cause the problem. But in photography it takes a little photo editing to correct the problem. NEVER MAKE A CHANGE THAT CHANGES THE WAY SOMEONE LOOKS UNLESS THEY ASK YOU TO!! I only do this to pictures of people I know well and, therefore, know what their chin or nose looks like. People who paint or draw correct this problem automatically.

I use the liquify plugin to do it, usually on either bulge or inverse bulge. Adjust the lines as needed and then use the restore brush (in liquify) to run down either side of the new line, this will even out the mesh and give the changed area a more natural blend into the unaltered area. In this example the problem is actually caused by her head being tilted down and the sweater pressing into her chin.

I hope this helps,

Michael

I've fooled around with such.

I've taken a little weight off of someone from a wedding pic, and fixed a double chin from someone else.

This is one I did for practice. It isn't up to "release" quality but gives you an idea of what can be done.

The shoulders were taken down a bit, the navel was reduced slightly, arms and hands had some of the veins reduced.

Did a little work on the thighs etc.

Mainly done with the liquify tool, and then normal retouching from there.

It really is fairly easy to do if you go slow, and have a little practice. And it is fun, less frustrating than some of the hard restorals :)

- Noel

The other way to do it is select an area, control-j, control-t to Transform - hold down the control key while changing the shape to go in any direction, then mask to clean up ....

I recently did a business portrait (suit, dress shirt and tie) where the favorite photo did not show the edge of the shirt above the suit at the side of the neck. I pulled in that section from another photo from the series that showed the shirt and resized and reshaped to match the chosen pose - took all of two minutes ...

Free transform lets you do large areas quickly without the warble you can get if you are not carefull with liquify. I usually use the free transform method and then tweak little bumps and spots with liquify if needed.

Hope this helps,
Roger

Hello Michael and Noel,

Yes, those are both extremely helpful responses. They both look like excellent work as well.

I had a chance to go back through the thirty pages of posts in the last couple of hours and noted a few threads on double chins, eyelashes and a few other helpful comments and threads from may of the members.

I think you have both hit the right tone, for me, though. Are you aware of any detailed breakdown of the steps that describe how to shrink or expand various anatomical features. I have heard of facial, thigh buttock shaving (perhaps that is the wrong term?:-)), tummy and other tucks, but have never seen how they are performed with photoshop.

I have tried the liquify tool, but found it generated bunching in the skin along the line of liquification (smudging and bunching) and this didn't address the background damaged by the squeeze or expansion. as well, I have found the liquify tool to create holes in the skin if held too long, and generate rings moving outward from the contact point - like a raindrop in a puddle. Perhaps, as you say Noel, going to quickly.

Any other examples of anatomical shrinkage, expansion or simply reduction of body parts and how it is achieved would be very welcome.

Has there ever been a Challenge dedicated to this type of ps ?

Many thanks again gentlemen,

Sean2

Sorry Roger,

Missed your post. That sounds like a good plan of attack, I haven't tried moving body elements with transform. w

Will give it a go.

Thank you,

Sean2

Another way to sculpt besides using the liquify filter is to select the area you want to sculpt and include a portion of the background adjacent to it. Copy that selection to the layer above. Using the move tool move the top layer inward. That will move the background to cover up the flappy spot. (assuming you are thinning). The rough edges can be selectively erased. It works pretty well.

Thanks Phil,

Good suggestion, I could see where that would work well when you made a cut-out, but does it work as well with a patterned background?

Sean

More on the subject of using the liquify command...

Goal, take this picture of an arm and make it look more formidable. [Picture 1]

Open up the liquify command and use the pucker tool (rather than the bloat tool which is intuitively what you would do) set to a nice large brush to pull the edges of the arm out PAST where you want them to end up. [Picture 2]

If we were to accept these changes the arm would look very distorted and there will be a lot of areas where the pixels are stretched destroying detail both in the subject and background. [Picture 3]

Next switch to the reconstruct tool and run over the image in the areas both inside and outside of the "edges". Don't be afraid to let the outside of the brush run over the new edges a little, this will help smooth them as well. [Picture 4]

Click OK and our friend's bench weight just went up 100lbs. [Picture 5]

Hope that helps,

Michael

Well it works most of the time. Not always but when it does its slick. I just wanted to point out another method of body sculpting. Now if I could sculpt myself some for real I would buy the program.

Hello Michael & Phil,

Great example Michael. I like the way you finished the arm component... smooth... Very similar to what Noel seems to have done with the young lady. There just doesn't seem to be much of this stuff (tutorial or explanation) posted on the web, as examples or it isn't explained.

I was hoping a few people here would have had some experience with and would be willing to share their approach and work.

Phil, I agree with you the transform should work very well for some work. thank you for the other idea.

I really enjoy the way seasoned photoshop people seem able to come up with alternative ways to do things that sometimes seem like they can only be done one or two ways.

Sean

There's a lot of good books on the market that address this issue. One good one is The Art of Photographing Women by Kevin Ames.

Something else that works well for me on certain areas is using Distort: Pinch. Generously select the area of concern using a high feather radius.

Dave

Hello Dave,

Thanks for the info. I have looked briefly through the Ames and Eismann books in the book store, but they both seemed to have only one or two (at most) body sculpting pieces, usually having to do with minor imperfections and blending. Retouchpro seems like a place that keeps on finding new things and ways of approaching retouching and restoration. I have certainly learned more from the posts, Q&A and tutorials here than in any of the books i have. Mind you i have only been at this a short time

I have several books on Photoshop, including the bible and a few others, so I invest in it, but again, this area seems to be one that is not really fashionable, but it is nice to know how if it drops in the pot :-)

Thank you again for the suggestion for a distort, pinch and feather approach. Can't tell you how much I appreciate the input to date.

Sean

Sean

Hi i am new to this site and ran across your post. i am looking for some whole body images that have been altered..such as the hips, muscles, butt..etc..pretty much like you did in this post...did you have any luck finding any samples? i am looking for some before and after shots...let me know how it has gone for you..thanks...julie :ditsy:

I'm new to this forum so hope I am not duplicating previous requests. has anyone done any tutorials or challenges on body scuplting. It is my impression that a lot has been done on the glamour and portrait side, but little on the hands on of improving a picture for someone who is self-conscious. I am referring to the alteration of: hips; double chins; lazy eye thighs, buttocks, triceps etc.

Any comments or information would be helpful. it would be nice to see a Challenge where perhaps a few body parts may be altered.

Unfortunately, I am not a professional photographer and do not have any photographs to post, but am interested in this form of retouching.

Regards,

Sean2[/QUOTE]

hello Julie,

Sorry for not getting back earlier - computer problems. As to samples, not many unfortunately.

There are a few body alteration before and afters. This link has a bit of body alteration (ankles, belly, breasts etc...)

http://www.dennislindo.com/retouch.html

but have not had much luck finding tutorials other than the helpful advice and tutorials here. Let me know if you find this link helpful

Sean :thumbsup:

What an amazing link. Site was a bit hard to navigate. I was looking for some bio information.

Hello Graphx,

Pleased you enjoyed the link. I've been looking for more sights for good examples, but they are really elusive unless one really wants to ride the edge. The work on the page is certainly fascinanting though.

The threads on the bottom of this page are a real plus as well. Good idea by the "management". I have tried a few pics with the freeze, thaw tools and liquify filter. It is quite empowering to be able to assist people with slight modifications when they request how they might look, while testing photoshops flexibility.

I don't know how body sculpture might actually apply for "restoration" piece, unless someone wanted a particularly nice before shot or scene to be manipulated so that the body in the picture could be altered to fit the "new" image one has worked for.

Really enjoying the talent and comments from this community - Great artisans -

However, would really like to see a detailed thread or tutorial on CYMK and how to really manipulate the channels to bring the best detail and color out of a badly cast (tinted) and poorly scanned photo. The guts are often pointed out, unfortunately the specific steps for manipulating the CYMK and RGB or LAB pieces seem like they should be intuitive and I am not intuiting very well. Have read many tutorials, but they don't really go into much detail about the use of different tools in CMYK restoration, although many tutorials touch briefly on things like Alpha masks. Looking for greater detail than that -

In other words, How does one manipulate the CYMK channels (blurring, pasting, copying, luminosity, sharpen invert, blur invert, remove the colorcast etc) - Is there any tutorial that does any of this as a single picture recovery, restoration and retouch tutorial ? I have looked at the tutorials here, and excellent as they are, either this is not addressed in detail or only a specific step is briefly mentioned. In other words and I am still not really sure how much real manipulation can be accomplished in the CMYK or RGB channels

Sean2,

Sorry for the length of response.

Hi Sean

For color correcting I would stick with RGB, With color cast sometimes you have to make educated guesses as to what is black, grey and white, but if you can, by equalizing the numbers for each color, you'd be well on your way.

For working to a resulting CMYK, try duplicating the image. Change the dupe to RGB and do your balancing. Once satisfied, copy and paste back into your CMYK image and change to Color to compensate for luminosity variance.

In terms of skin colors, I almost always try to balance by known CMYK percentages for kids, caucasians etc.

Cheers
Dave

Hello Dave,

Are those percentages located anywhere as rough numbers or do we need to figure those out by trial and error? I know we need to lean a little into the yellow rather than the red, but had never thought to keep a skin chart with a median color percentage. Good idea.

Would I do that by using the eye-dropper?

Sean2

Hi Sean

I'm a long way from a skin expert but you're right. Generally you should have more yellow than magenta, assuming caucasian. Obviously, North American Indian would be different (I think). If you don't have it, I absolutly recommend Katrin Eismann's book, Photoshop Restoration & Retouching. Virtually, everyone on this forum are aware of this great book. She has an excellent section on skin color correction, much of it by the numbers. A lot of people guesstamate. I don't have much use for it personally. Go by the numbers. If in doubt with your results, consult someone else. Often our eyes deceive us.

If you haven't already, there's some current discussion on color correction under " Flesh Tone Corrections..Help".

Cheers
Dave

Thanks Dave.

I found another interesting link on facial alteration and retouching that shows some of the fun one can have with stereotypical features and altering structure: where humour is the goal and not the hurting of feelings.

Hope this link is still in keeping with the initial sculpting piece:

http://www.ericmyer.com/red/stereotypes.htm

Tasty yummers Sean2! Made me giggle like a leetle girl.

Cheers
Dave