Jan-Feb 2011 Contest Discussion

[T Paul]

Add your comments, questions or general discussion about the Contest entries here. This is also a great place to share your techniques or ask others about theirs.

Most members are eager to hear comments/suggestions about their entries, so please take the time to help each other out.

[Kraellin]

perfect picture for this one, T

[T Paul]

Thanks Craig!

[Joeven]

Is anyone else having trouble retouching this photo? I can't seem to find any detail or a pattern in the floor. Anyone else working on this yet?

Joe

[Lorraine]

Hi Joeven,

I'm working on this, but it's going very slowly.

There is a pattern on the floor. It's a carpet with floral squares and borders. There is one fairly distinctive square with a flower in the center. It's located just below her foot in the left photo.

I hope that once the photo is cropped to its final size, there won't be much of the floor showing anyway.

Lorraine

[Joeven]

Originally Posted by Lorraine

Hi Joeven,

I'm working on this, but it's going very slowly.

There is a pattern on the floor. It's a carpet with floral squares and borders. There is one fairly distinctive square with a flower in the center. It's located just below her foot in the left photo.

I hope that once the photo is cropped to its final size, there won't be much of the floor showing anyway.

Lorraine

Thanks Lorraine I'll take a look.

Joe

[TriniK]

Very very nice. Her skin looks beautiful. Great job!

[CathyH]

I'm so happy the contest has not closed yet, I still have to time to finish it and post it.
:-)

[T Paul]

Been a bit slow on entries. I was hoping the two months would encourage more to enter the contest.

[Joeven]

I tried but I gave up. I'm not to good at retouching and I suck at colorization. The entries so far are way better then I can do so good luck to all who enter.

Joe

[4personnen]

wait for me guys, It's a tough one!

[CathyH]

I'm a procrastinator. Plus I got stuck on the carpet. :-p

[4personnen]

I couldn't find no other way than redraw the carpet entirely. Not the kind of things that I do usually, but got stuck as well...

[palms]

Like Joe, this is not my forte either, but I am in awe of those that do, great work

Palms

[Veralisa]

Wow. I'm cloning, cloning & cloning. Hopefully will be finished in time. What looked like a pretty picture of a young lady has now become a project the size of Mt.Rushmore .http://www.travelsd.com/Attractions/Mount-Rushmore.aspx

I love things like this to retouch...not that I do it well but that it pushes me to try harder. We'll see.

[raquel]

Hi Top-five - lookin' good
Came late to the party -glad I still have time.
This is my first contest, are there usually a lot of last minute entries?
Such a great photo, I hope to see more.
Come on CathyH, Come on Joven, I cheated (jk& made a carpet from scratch!

[raquel]

Hi 4 ,
Thanks for responding. All your hard work & research really paid off. You really got a great result w/ your carpet - it looks so much like the little section that was actually visible! Obviously I'm a fan of your color scheme too ! Your gold drapes look great, by chance I almost did gold too but could not get the right shade & ended up w/ gold in other places. I think most of us were thinking alot alike.

[4personnen]

HI, I suppose you were answering to me? maybe not...I deleted my post by fear of "polluting" the thread, and later gave up the idea of posting in the "question" thread. Thank you for your kind words!

[Veralisa]

...as I said in the voting thread, choosing top images from a host of "great" ones is no easy matter. May I share with you a process which has helped me on many an occasion?

1) make a folder holding a copy of each entry
2) open photoshop, bring up all entries to the work surface. sorry, I'm not familar with other editing programs,
3) click, Window>arrange>tile horizontally
4) click, > match zoom and location
5) image by image you can view the same item in each artist's version, making comparisons along the way.

This time I chose the catagories, carpet, shoes, skin quality, shape of legs, dress, hair, beads, background, chair, book, shadows and drape. All laid out like this made the selections simpler. You can really zoom in on a particular feature then with "zoom & location" it's easy to compare the lot of them.

Anyhow, that's what I like to do. Sorry, it may be redundant for some, but it helps me nonetheless.
Cheers!

[raquel]

Thanks Veronica,
Steps 3&4 are particularly helpful to me, along w/ the catagories - great ideas - I'm applying them now. It is so difficult to judge others sweat & blood, do you have a solution for chicken-itus ?

[Veralisa]

You're welcome, raquel. The people here are quite skilled and choosing among them is difficult. Consider yourself in good company!

[T Paul]

Good job to all the entries for tackling this challenging contest. You should all be proud of your beautiful results.

The winner is....aartist


Prize: PostworkShop Pro Edition, donated by Xycod

PostworkShop Transform your photo or render into an oil painting or watercolor, pastel drawing or pencil sketch, abstract artwork or old-time photograph. Achieve quick results with the 350+ built-in styles. You can blend and chain them in a familiar layered compositing user interface.

Top 5:
Aartist - 12 (tie breaker)
Kizmiaz - 12
Lorraine and Raquel - 11
4personnen – 10

[Veralisa]

Congrats, aartist, a well executed and well deserved honor!

[aartist]

Thanks Veralisa!
I don't generally win at these things, but totally enjoy it!
Pleasantly surprised.

[Lorraine]

Congratulations, aartist Great work!

Lorraine

[4personnen]

well done you! Great work (as usual hehehe)

Just me or one vote was missing?

[aartist]

Thanks Lorraine and 4personnen.
It was fun, otherwise it would feel like work!

[LunaLuna]

Very nice work, aartist!

I'm a new member and downloaded the original picture yesterday to practice my retouching and I saw it is very damaged. Your result is really good!

Congratulatios!

[aartist]

LunaLuna, thank you!
Very nice to get all the congrats!!!

[Kraellin]

nicely done, aartist