[sharynideas]

I am trying to get a stencil effect from a photo- in this case the one from Mini challenge # 99. The first has too much detail and the second has lost the hat and clothing detail that I really like. Any help would be appreciated.

[palms1]

This maybe a stab in the dark but have you tried (presuming you are using Photoshop)
Filter>sketch>notepaper ?
you do need to mess with the sliders ( foreground black, background white)
you could do two seperate settings over two layers and use a mask to get one overall picture

i used the settings 31, 0, 2
to get this

then ( you do get grey ) darkened

with a bit more time and patience could probably get a better effect than this !

Palms

[chillin]

Post: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...o-stencil.html

Originally Posted by Ant

Try duplicating a channel and using curves, levels, etc. to give you a mask like silhouette. What you will eventually get is a stencil like image that you may want to invert.

My result following Ant's advice

[Ant]

Take the first one, where you have more detail than you want (or start over) and go to your brush tool. Set the mode to Overlay. Set your fill background and foreground colors to black and white. Paint over areas that you wish were white with white and black over black to remove detail as you wish. You may also make selective curve, levels, etc. adjustments to the channel rather than global. For instance, to retain detail in the hat and clothing. You may also wish to use the Apply Image function. I'll let you experiment or read up on that.

[sharynideas]

I hate to say what a novice I am, but I tried choosing the brush in overlay mode and it did absolutely nothing. Tried making a duplicate layer and changing it to overlay and then using the brush, still nothing. I only have Paint Shop Pro 8 and Elements 2. It didn't do anything in either program.
I can't split out channels in elements, but I can in PSP8. Tried your first method (split channels) on the "face with character" from the portraits forum. Then I adjusted contrast and brightness. I got this result. It still needs work but it's closer to what I am looking for.