digital aging by an amateur

[Shrieky]

hey all. im new here and really enjoyed looking at all of your work. i've been looking for a long time for a community that could be of help, and i think i may have found it.. i hope so. i taught myself what little i know of photoshop, and this is my latest.. thingy.. project.. hah. it's a friend of my mom's, the middle picture is actually him. the left is i guess a 'glamorization', the right is.. the opposite of that. can anyone offer feedback or advice? i'd love to learn more and get better.

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/7...iefinal2hz.jpg

[Kraellin]

hi shrieky,

and welcome to RP!

i believe the image on the left is the original and the others are stages of aging, 5 years, 10 years, or whatever, but you may be right, the middle may be the original. there is at least one web based program i've seen that will do this automatically.

so, what is it you want specifically, to learn how to clean things up or make them worse? post a picture you're currently working on and give some details of what you'd like to do or what you'd like help/correction on and where you'd like to go with it.

Craig

[Shrieky]

hmm, maybe i wasn't clear enough in my original post.

this guy here, the middle picture, it's a picture of a friend of my mom's. the pic on the left and the pic on the right are both retouches that i did, to make him look younger and older respectively.

he asked me to do it when he saw my pics of angelina..

http://img43.imageshack.us/my.php?im...dminute6yh.jpg

again, the middle pic is untouched.

but, you said you've seen programs that can do this? AHHH that's very discouraging! these took a long time. i guess i should invest time in some other area of photoshop. :S

[Kraellin]

ah, ok. i'm with ya now. hang on a bit and let me see if i cant find the link for that aging program.

regardless, there's no reason to give this up. most folks will never see or use tht aging program and, once you got past about 10 years it wasnt very convincing.

Craig

[Kraellin]

ok, here we go: http://212.100.224.91/

just follow the instructions. i've used this once for both the 10 year aging and the 20 year quite fun!

Craig

[Caitlin]

Excellent job Shrieky, Both younger and older looks extremely realistic. Would you like to share some of your steps?

[creeduk]

Very nice work and not easy. Angelina better makes sure she uses losts of oil of ulay because she does not look too good in her final stage Brad better beware.

[hypogryphe]

Very nice work indeed, Shrieky. How did you go about doing the aging stuff (i.e.: the big wrinkles)?

[Shrieky]

thanks for the kind comments everyone

i'd be happy to share some of how i did it. it's actually very simple.. you just use the burn tool to accent what wrinkles are already there, and the dodge tool (hold alt with burn tool selected, it's quicker) to give the wrinkles more depth. i use about 5-8% opacity, with a 1-3 pixel brush at about 30% hardness. depends on how big the actual line is that you wanna draw.

that's really the only part that'd take any artistic talent, which i dont have really, it's amazing how drastic you can change someone with just burn and dodge, and some little details. i followed a tutorial by a talented lady but i wouldnt know where it is now unfortunately.

thanks for the feedback, i appreciate it.