[DannyRaphael]

PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #11 - Granddaughter of Jim Caffrey

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category.

Unlike “official challenges” for this forum which can be found here, this one will be self-contained within this thread. It is intended as an opportunity to engage in this artform until the next official challenge is posted.

The rules are more-or-less the same:
* It’s a challenge, not a contest -- intended to provide opportunities to experiment, share methods and/or techniques.
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

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PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #11 - Granddaughter of Jim Caffrey

This is the image Jim used as a basis for the terrific Art History Brush tutorial he wrote. I thought it was a lovely image and with Jim's permission, I'm posting it as a mini-challenge subject.

Convert it to photo-art using your best techniques.

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Guidelines:
1. Use any method, application(s), style(s) you like:
. * Convert to sketch, grayscale, abstract, watercolor, oil painting, pen-and-ink, Conte crayon, impasto, van Gogh or any style of your choosing
. * Add elements from other images (collage)
. * Hand painting? Tracing? Freehand? You bet. Always appreciate entries of this nature.
. * Apply filters from your favorite application(s)
. * Tweak it with 3rd party plug-ins

Bottom line:
How you create this masterpiece makes no difference. Whatever floats your boat as long as you follow guideline #4 in the process.

2. When done, reply to this thread and attach your work (don’t forget the 100kb size limit).

Note: Multiple entries OK if you’re so inspired.

3. By all means include some verbiage on how you achieved your masterpiece so others will benefit from your skills and experience. Make it as descriptive as you like. Grammar and spelling will not be graded. Priority given to content, not how it is written.

4. Have fun.

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By now you're probably stomping at the bit to get started, aren't you? That's good! Go for it.

In the mean time keep having FUN!

~DannyR~

[Blacknight]

Painter and soft portrait actions (from Danny's link) and some blend modes and curves and levels.

[chiquitita]

here's mine

[pstewart]

She's so sweet and angelic, I tried for the simplest possible look, keeping it as gentle and delicate as possible--aiming for simplicity (fewest lines, fewest colors) and soft pastel coloring.

First I outlined with Sandi's method (two layers, B/W, invert top, blend mode color-dodge, gaussian blur, multiply, repeat as needed) using motion blur set at a higher than usual number to get some smudging/shadows as well as the outlines. Then I clicked the KPT "electrify" blur filter several times to soften it up, then lowered the contrast on that layer to get rid of all the white and colorized it to skin tone. Combined this layer with "luminosity" over the original picture used "smart blur."

The hair was gray instead of brown, and too blurred with no detail, so I put another original underneath, and erased away all but the hair, then erased over the hair with a very low opacity eraser, then smart-blurred the hair again a bit to match the rest of the picture.

Phyllis
www.innographx.com

[evm]

...first i applied the evm watercolor action, then i merged everything and hit ctrl+J.
applied flamingpear "swap red/blue" to the new layer, inverted it and put the layer
in burn mode at 80%. i then painted her face with a brush using an olive color and
lighten mode. Merged the layers and played with color balance and hue & saturation.
...i think that was what i did, sorry, made it in a hurry and didn't pay that much attention
to what i was doing...btw i could have thrown away the texture layer in the early stage and
put it on later cause now it looks quite odd when it only appears on her skin.

[DannyRaphael]

Some very creative renditions here...

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PHIL:

Excellent results from your combination of effects and methods. Colors came out kinda like stained glass-like.
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CHIQUITTA:

A somber, yet tender effect you achieved. Nicely done.
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PHYLLIS:

I especially like this one. The subtly blurred pastel-like colors are very effective.

Nice job on the hair restore, too. My wife wanted to know if you could do the same for me!
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EVM:

What a unique approach you took. Very, very interesting. Appreciate you spelling out the details the best way you could.

Hope to see more of your work in the future. WELCOME to RetouchPRO!
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In an attempt to get a "sketchy look" my entry was created using the 'Watercolor and Ink' effect from Media Chance's PhotoBrush program against a desatuated version of the image.

Duplicated the layer and ran Waterpaper filter against it for a little texture; used a layer mask to selectively apply the effect.

Keep 'em coming.

~DannyR~

[KenB]

Here's my submission, I just messed around a bit with Paint Shop Pro 7 and jasc's virtual painter filter until I got an effect I liked.

[DannyRaphael]

Wow, Ken... This is really unique.

How in the world did you get such cool mix if different sized tiles?

[KenB]

The differing tile sizes are built into the filter so I can't take all the credit.

[Blacknight]

I wonder if that "tile" effect could be done with Photoshop's pixellate filter and selected areas of an image. I'll probably have to try it NOW. Thanks. Just what I needed - another thing to add to my "to do" list!

[DannyRaphael]

Mystery solved...

I wuz barking up the wrong tree. I thought it had to be a Paint Shop Pro filter that Ken used.

Not true.

It's the Rectangles effect within the Jasc Virtual Painter (plugin) that he used. Its built-in intelligence detects blocks of similar colors and edges, and sizes rectangles accordingly.


Ken: You just made my day! Thanks. You may not be able to take credit for how the filter works, but you sure can take credit for using it and posting the results.

Shoot: I never knew VP could do this.

I was so inspired by this discovery that I generated another version. Using an image based on Paint Engine and Photoshop's Dry Brush, the VP Rectangles effect was applied to a copy of the final layer. The VP layer was then Embossed and the blend mode set to Overlay. The effect was "painted in" via a layer mask.

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Phil:

I'm sure you could do something like this with Photoshop Mosaic filter on multiple layers with layer masks, but it would sure be a headache to customize for each image.

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One thing's for sure: I had FUN tonight on this one.

Cheers...

~DannyR~

[KenB]

Very cool Danny, I was surprized in the filter too, I haven't made much use of it yet and I've had it awhile now.

[Woody]

Smart Blur: R=68, T=28
Texturizer: S=50, R=2, Light=btm lft

[qom]

Here is my efforts with this mini challenge... I used Photo Impact 7 and one of the available (from PI users) tasks, similar to Photoshop actions.

[qom]

with my last post, but it didn't upload my image for the challenge. I'm trying it again.