PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #14 - Gazing Model

[DannyRaphael]

PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #14 - Gazing Model

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 and, most importantly, have FUN.
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

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PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #14 - Gazing Model

I thought this image had definite possibilities for a mini-challenge. 'Nuff said.

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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) or 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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OK. Time to put on your creativity caps...

Look forward to seeing more of your magic.

Keep having FUN in the mean time.

~DannyR~

[Blacknight]

Emboss filter on background layer copy (top layer). Blend mode to PS7'S Linear Light.

Curves. levels, and hue/sat on original (bottom) layer until I liked it.

Not overly complicated but I thought it interesting.

[pstewart]

Well, it's hardly an original masterpiece, but at least I finally got up the nerve to do something with my new Painter 7.0.

I painted over the photo with Painter 7.0 clone brushes, along with some regular brushes to add more pink to the flowers (most of which got cropped away to get this pic down to legal size ). I didn't like the dark gray between her and the flowers, so I brushed in some leaves with Painter's leaf pattern then painted over them with oils.

I mostly used Painter's "smeary" brushes--bristle for hair, and soft camel for face. The collar on the sweater was made with the appropriately named "furry" brush, which, in clone mode, uses the colors of the picture under the stroke. After I made the collar, the hair was covered with pink furries, so I had to paint in new hair, again in clone mode to use the color from the original hair.

After I painted it I opened it in Photoshop and gave it some fine tuning and added a bit of KPT "electrify" to soften shadows and give it a glow.

If I were to do this again, I would let some of the sweater fur overlap the hair, and I'd crop it and enlarge it FIRST, so the paint texture wouldn't get lost in the end process.

Phyllis

[KenB]

pstewart, I really like what you did. I wish I had half your talent.

Ken

[tom c]

Phyllis
If you're just starting with painter... wow! looks like you've been at it for a long time.Excellent rendition.
tom c

[jeaniesa]

Beautiful Phyllis!

Since I don't have Painter and am pretty much clueless, can you please explain what a "clone brush" is? Does it take the color under the brush and use it as you paint?

Jeanie

[pstewart]

Originally posted by jeaniesa
Beautiful Phyllis!

Since I don't have Painter and am pretty much clueless, can you please explain what a "clone brush" is? Does it take the color under the brush and use it as you paint?

Jeanie

You can set it to use different sources for the paint colors, but usually you use the original picture as the source of color. As you brush over the picture the clone brushes work by 1) smearing the colors together, 2) adding impasto (texture), or 3) both. There are tons of brush styles to choose from, and, if you smear it up too badly, you simply switch to a special featureless brush that clones back that part of the picture in its original state, then do that section over.

Painter's "cloning" is a wonderful feature. It alone makes Painter worth the cost of admission in my opinion. We "non-painters" can cheat up a storm, while the real artists like Fugitive etal have that much more to work with! I highly recommend the purchase--if you have a LOT of free time to study and practice! It has so many features and variations that you can easily get lost in the maze.

Phyllis

[gland]

Excellent work Phyllis. Very nice job.

Gary

[jeaniesa]

Hmmm - I just might be able to do something with the Painter clone brush! That sounds really intriguing.

Unfortunately, I don't have any free time for the next month or so - much less lots of it! Perhaps someday I'll have both the funds to buy it and the time to play around with it. Seems like that clone brush might really help in cleaning up "grainy" faces photos.

Thanks, Jeanie

[angue]

This consisted of two layers:
One for the model which I made to look like watercolor.
Second everything else which i hope looks like oil painting.
Both layers using history brush tool after converting to line art.
If I had to do the background over I would have eliminated poster edge filter.
The thick paint was achieved using lighting effects directional type, 17 texture.

[chiquitita]

Jeez this picture is dated! Check the white bangle bracelet and hair bow!

[OhThatGirl2001]

Today I adjusted my method a little to give the image a little bit of a colored pencil effect. I started by duplicating layer and then selected all. Inverted and changed mode to grayscale. Then I changed blending mode to color dodge and used filter blur, gaussian blurr until I like the effect. Changed color mode back to RGB and saved it as mini-challenge charcol. Then I opened the original and selected all and copy and pasted it to my new charcol image. This time, I dragged the original below the charcol layer - and voila! I added a slight border with AutoFX to soften some of the darker areas.

Lisa

[chiquitita]

Here is mine - I couldn't take the 80's thing so I updated her a little. Body parts are just pieces from different pics I found and the art part is just poster edges and some blending modes and some blur.

[Wanda Schwind]

When I saw this beautiful lady I thought of a beautiful swan. I painted her in Painter Classic using mostly the just add water brush, a little air brush on cheeks. I had this background I scanned many blue moons ago, and thought this challenge was an opportunity to use it. I softened it alot. Selected her roughly and deleted her original bkgrnd and copy pasted her into the swan bkgrnd, cleaned up the edges w/eraser. That's it. Again thanks, Danny

Wanda

[pstewart]

Lisa, I really like your colored pencil rendition! I have copied your instructions and will try it tomorrow...thanks for sharing it!

Chiquita, your "style update" is wonderful...LOL! I love it!

Wanda, that is really beautiful. I haven't tried the "add water" brush but will definitely do so after seeing your great results!

Phyllis

[fugitive]

wOW, some really nice entries here this time. My kinda subject too.
Phyllis: you can keep your whole image if you just compress it in jpg. I do it on all of mine.
Phyllis, good work in Painter, it's a blast huh?
Wanda, nice colors and presintation.
Lisa, I like the light airiness, and the WC look of the colors.
Wish I had time to join in.

[pstewart]

Fugitive: "Phyllis: you can keep your whole image if you just compress it in jpg."

Ya, but I really hate what too much compression does to a jpeg. I'd rather have less picture of better quality than more picture of less quality. With the increase in disk storage and speed these days you'd think over-compressed jpegs (on the web in particular) would be a thing of the past, but not so. Folks still seem to want to pack all those pixels into 8K so it opens in an instant! I'd rather wait a while to see a pic on the web than to see a blotchy blurry mess. Just a condition of today's "world in a rush" I guess. Maybe I'm just too old.

Phyllis

[tom c]

Lisa ;nice warm colored pencil look.

Chiquitita; Wow! great update.

Wanda ; right out of Elle or any fashion mag.





I didn't have a clue as to what to do so ...



opened photo in Photoimpact v6

1.Click edit...mask mode

2.Select paint particle brush grey 145...0 transp
...soft edge 90
various sizes,

3.Went over selected areas of the image.

4.Edit...mask mode

5.Selection...convert to object...copy ...paste as new image

6.Duplicate rt. click...select all objects

7.rt. click...merge as single object.

8.rt.click...convert to object.

9.Click edit fill...gradient 2 color circular fill
(tried many I think these might be the ones)
R G B R G B
213...157...167.....255...120...241

10. Eye dropper... selected colors from image and
filled small areas... small brush sizes.

tom clegg

[fugitive]

Originally posted by pstewart
Fugitive: "Phyllis: you can keep your whole image if you just compress it in jpg."

Ya, but I really hate what too much compression does to a jpeg. I'd rather have less picture of better quality than more picture of less quality. With the increase in disk storage and speed these days you'd think over-compressed jpegs (on the web in particular) would be a thing of the past, but not so. Folks still seem to want to pack all those pixels into 8K so it opens in an instant! I'd rather wait a while to see a pic on the web than to see a blotchy blurry mess. Just a condition of today's "world in a rush" I guess. Maybe I'm just too old.

Phyllis

I'm interested in Quality more than most. I just smash the ones for posting here or another 1 or 2 forums, but they are not used for the archive or even saved for very long. Do mine look bad, or over smushed?

[pstewart]

Originally posted by fugitive


I'm interested in Quality more than most. I just smash the ones for posting here or another 1 or 2 forums, but they are not used for the archive or even saved for very long. Do mine look bad, or over smushed?

No, not that I've noticed. But then your paintings tend to be soft, pastel, more "smeary" (because they are painted, of course) and not very contrasty --all very appropriate for your subject matter. Pics with more contrast are the ones most affected by compression, with those annoying blotchy patches at the edges of bright and dark areas, and the worst blotches tend to occur in saturated and darker areas. Your pics avoid both, so you don't lose that much by compression.

Phyllis

[Wanda Schwind]

Phyllis: Thank you so much for your encouraging words. I am VERY impressed with your rendition. The clone tool sounds wonderful. I'm very glad you "got up the nerve" to try Painter 7. You have Painter - I'm jealous I can't wait to see more. It's really hard to believe it's your first with Painter. WOW!!!

Angue: You accomplished exactly what you set out to do, water color/oil. I really like it, it's always to our credit if we can accomplish what we're aiming for.

Lisa: Just wonderful, I'm trying to perfect your technique I love it so much. Have to admit I'm not doing too well

Chiquita: Fantastic manipulation! No one would ever know - except the model.

Fugitive: Thank you for taking the time. It certainly is your "kind of subject"

Tom C: Thank you for your kind comment. For someone who didn't have a "clue as what to do" you certainly came up with something very creative and wonderful. But then you always do, I always enjoy your submissions so much.

Wanda

[DannyRaphael]

Another group of terrific entries so far. Another week of outdoing yourself!

Since it's way, way past my bedtime (yawn...) and I've some other things to do yet, I'll post a couple of my swipes at this one now, and provide some method verbiage, plus comments on the individual entries tomorrow.

eya later...

~Danny~

[DannyRaphael]

Here's #2. I kinda liked the way this one came out.

[pstewart]

Danny, I like both of them, but I am partial to the first because of the color. It's really beautiful!

Phyllis

[DannyRaphael]

My .02...

PHIL: The added depth due to the textures is a definite improvement and a real mood maker. Glad to see you're maintaining your high standard of creativity.

PHYLLIS: Wow. This is your first swipe at using Painter 7? Thunderous applause. And just to think this just the beginning. Congrats on busting through that initial reluctance due to Painter's (some might say, way too) many options.

ANTONIO: Very creative: Oils meet Watercolor. I really like this combination of styles. Nicely done.

LISA: This is an interesting twist on the tried and true method. Like what you did here; more depth to the colors.

CHAQUITA: You're scaring me! This is gonna be my 6-year-old daughter in about 6-7 years. Guess I should start getting used to it now. Great job of manipulation.

TOM: You threw me a curve. When I opened the image, I was expecting her to blow up or an alien to bust out of her stomach! Glad neither happened. Very moody image. Appreciate the detail, especially for the PhotoImpact enthusiasts.

JEANIE: BTW - The clone functionality in Painter is similar in concept to the PS Art History Brush, cept Painter's got more options that you can imagine. If you're interested in the very cool functionality w/o wanting to drop a couple hundred for Painter 7, consider getting a Painter v5... Functionality present; selling for $25-$60 on eBay at the moment.

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Comments on my entries...

The first is based on the sketchy technique Lisa posted sometime back, but I twisted it a bit. See the screenshot of the layers palette in the attachment.

The major departure was applying the colored pencil filter (for some texture) followed by a final pass with that lovely Paint Engine plugin (faded by 50%).

The second image started out with a cropped version of the first. As you'll see in the attachment, messing with blend modes yielded some interesting textures in her face. Restored a little color via History Brush.

Twas all in fun.

~Danny~

[Bob Cronin]

Here is my vision of the gazing model. I was taken by the bright light and soft colors of the model (as well as her "model" build).

I used George's Gouach Painting Filter, with the resulting layer set to Luminosity. Another copy set to Multiply came close, requiring adjustment by Levels, Hue/Saturation, and Selective color to set the color and light/dark tones. I could have played with it all day, but I like the results as it is.

[DannyRaphael]

Hey Bob:

I liked your interpretation on this one. The overall effect (colors, textures, etc.) works well.

Welcome to the Photo-Art forum. Hope you have time to tackle some more of these mini's, as well as share some of your favorite techniques.

~DannyR~

[Trimoon]

I love the job bob did, but I have to say I like them all
So here is my watercolor vision of the gazing model. Hope you like

[Wanda Schwind]

Trimoon, this is REALLY beautiful I just love it, one of my favorite techniques is the fading out of a composition. Unfortunately I don't know how to do it I have tried in my amateur way, but have never come up with anything acceptable yet. This is a wonderful job, VERY pleasing to the eye!!

Wanda

[pstewart]

Wanda, you asked about fading. I use an oval selection (can use rectangular too for different look) larger than the picture I want to keep, then feather it a lot...gotta do 16 (the max) MANY times. Then invert the selection and delete. If you want to keep a hint of the background, put the original in a layer above this one and fade the opacity.

I'm sure there are other ways, and I hope someone will tell us.

Phyllis