PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #40 – English Gentleman

[ecurbh]

Maybe he looks so grim because he's been captured...

Yeah, I know this flag did not exist in the revolutionary period. Whatever.

Bruce

[Marlene DeGrood]

I'm not a portrait type, don't like to shoot them so it's not something I'm used to working on. I am so impressed with everyone's work on this "gent". I could name you all, but that would be everyone who submitted to this challenge. I decided to give this a try to see.....well.....it is a challenge and I couldn't resist. I was trying to give an old, but not damaged look to this.

Marlene
www.thedigitalspectrum.com

[DannyRaphael]

Grim look might be from what he had for lunch that day... No Tums back then.

RE: Flag BG, timing and all that
No problem. You're merely operating in the spirit of guideline #4 (Have Fun).

Very cool edges.

[VisualEyes]

Another fun lunch hour playing with accented edges and blending layers.

[pstewart]

Truman, very crisp looking, and almost seems to have a 3D quality. Wonder if that comes from the contrast with the blurred background or something you did with a filter...hmmm...

By the way, it's great to see you back here making pictures again...I missed you.

Phyllis

[Trine Sirnes]

Going a bit the other way, an answer to the challenge and a restoration challenge as well

I used a photo I have from a boat trip on an old restored sailboat here where I live. I thought it suited the gentleman. I turned it to greyscale, then tritone, used a warm greyl. Then back to RGB and gave it the sepia color. Added some brush effects(clouds, paper damage, finterprints, decay) and that's about it, I think.

[Marlene DeGrood]

Trine....Outstanding! Great idea, very well executed!

Marlene
www.thedigitalspectrum.com

[angue]

Here's a companion to the ladies .
Same steps taken plus Glowing edges. Then history brush tool with brush dynamics on to bring back the color. Embosed effect by way of REnder>Lighting Effects.

Tony

[pstewart]

Abstract version, using same outline-equalize-aniso-cutout method as in minis 62, 63, and several others.

Phyllis

[themanda]

I wanted to see if I could duplicate my earlier oil look.

Sadly, I don't think it turned out as well on this one. Perhaps it's just the nature of the photo that I started out with.

[pstewart]

Amanda, it's certainly true that the same treatment will yield different results on different pictures. But I like the effect you did achieve here...so moody and dark and intense...especially love how the yellows/golds stand out.

Phyllis

[retpmikl]

Amanda,
I like it too. Very nice image.

[ahutton]

I aged the gent a couple decades by applying PSP8's Topography filter set at 100% detail. This also gave the photo some depth.

Then I added an all over texture and decided this was time for his end-of-career formal portrait and used Flaming Pear's melancholytron. Softened the whole thing.

AmyHutton

[jaykita]

One sketch layer with aniso, multiply blend, a filter-render-clouds layer, overlay blend, one "color from original" layer - which means i used an eyedropper to airbrush colors from original image onto a blank layer, overlay blend. This renders a more painted effect. Finally, merged all with the original bckgr layer and framed.

[SWEngineer]

Some great work in this thread. While I especially liked Trine's composite, themanda's oil interpretation inspired me to give my own oil mimic a try.

Using Elements2 with HPTs:
Created a new background for the subject. Then mostly followed the steps in my oil tutorial. Some key embellishments to try and get a darker, antique like result: A Hue/Sat adj. layer to darken & up saturation in reds and yellows. (Masked the subjects face.) Curve adj layer to darken. A layer filled with "dark yellow orange" from the default color swatches with Hard light, low opacity. A gradient fill layer in Multiply mode. Merge visible all this and ran SmartBlur. Masked to only affect the face and white part of the shirt. Finally a rough selection around the eyes, copy & paste from the BG layer. Hand painted a specular highlight in the eyes & lowered opacity to get a good blend.

I'm not completely satisfied with this, but it's probably my best oil-like portrait so far.

-Mark

[Neve]

Outstanding result Jaykita - I wish I understood your explanation better so that I could try it out in PSP and there's no "aniso" in PSP unfortunately. Terrific effort SWE, I like the texture.


PSP8.01

Dupe bottom layer
L2 - Glowing Edges (2-20)
Decol and Negative
Dupe L2
L2 - Gaussian Blur 4.00
L3 - Multiply
Merge Top Two layers
L2 - Paint Alchemy - Little Dutch Boy Sketch (My own Setting)
Layer Blend Mode - Luminance (L)
Merge both layers.
The image can be decolourized again for a BW sketch
I faded the outer edges.

[Axleuk]

I wasnt looking forward to this one, not entirely sure which method to adapt so went with the ever so popular Impressionist.

Cant really go into too much details with this example, however it involved about 7 level of the impressionist filter with some minor adjustments to each application. Some layer blending and selective opacity erasing.

Finished off as always with a art paper texture for a little added realism.

[Ozzie]

Hi All,

Been bored with the general photography stuff lately and had to take a break. Was doing some research on how to color a bw image and ended back here. I can spend hours reading and learning threads but tonite I had to sit down and play with this great image.

Not much of a manipulator, but we try from time to time, usually with portraits.

I borrowed an image of the mill a long time ago from who I can't remember (in a forum challenge), so I can't give credit due ...... sorry.

Used impressionist, some blurring, smudging and more blurring to try to get an oil effect.

Ozzie

[jaykita]

Originally Posted by Neve

Outstanding result Jaykita - I wish I understood your explanation better so that I could try it out in PSP and there's no "aniso" in PSP unfortunately. Terrific effort SWE, I like the texture.


PSP8.01

Dupe bottom layer
L2 - Glowing Edges (2-20)
Decol and Negative
Dupe L2
L2 - Gaussian Blur 4.00
L3 - Multiply
Merge Top Two layers
L2 - Paint Alchemy - Little Dutch Boy Sketch (My own Setting)
Layer Blend Mode - Luminance (L)
Merge both layers.
The image can be decolourized again for a BW sketch
I faded the outer edges.

I just love this creation of yours!
Sorry that i sounded so vague describing the technique i used, so i'm sending you this website that explains it perfectly. Click here Have fun, i do hope it works for your psp software. This tutorial is for photoshop7 that i used for my image.

[Neve]

Thanks Jaykita - for your kind comments and the link which explains all....you're a gem

[lkroll]

Just having some fun.

[TwoLaidBack]

Ok here is my try at this mini-challenge. I started off by doing a colored pencil sketch on the image once I had that I made a selection of the English gentleman and promoted him to a layer and did some toning on the bottom layer. I applied a new layer over the English gentleman and reduced the opacity off this layer next I merged the white layer down and applied a soft focus effect and merged visible. Once I had this looking like I wanted I duplicated this and applied a pencil effect to the whole image. I then went back and set my eraser tool to a very low opacity and did a little touch up work allowing the bottom image to show through a little better.

TwoLaidBack

[Steve Conway]

Excellent image!

I may have to try more than one on this one. Here's one.

Steve

[Steve Conway]

Try #2...sans background.

Steve

[Steve Conway]

And a sketch.

Steve

[Nanls]

Danny, I really like that effect. Have you ever, played, and played. and played around with an imagen and kinda got carried away. Guilty. I buzzed this one and then desaturated and changed the color in the background for an old fashioned look... well then I though, "maybe it's was night".... and then I thought, "well if it was night there may be fog" and then I thought well, maybe there was also some wind being they were outside, so I gave the fog a motion blur... came up with three images.
~Nancy~
Thanks in advance for your patience, lol

[dkcoats]

This is the only extant portrait of Brigadier Sir Wainscot Humphrey Rudley-Hickers, whose less-than-distinguished military career came to an end when his forces were defeated (and the General himself captured) at the battle of Scarsdale in 1781 during the American Revolution.

The Rudley-Hickers family endures the shame to this day.

dc

[Steve Conway]

Slightly different version of this nice image.

Steve

[jereme]

Here is my try. http://www.jereme.com/clients/challenges/40.jpg

I haven't done one the painting style images for anything before. I used the spatter and dry brush filters and overlaid the two to accomplish the effect I wanted.

The painting wasn't tall enough so I duplicated some of the sky to fill the remaining space. I'm sure the original artist is rolling in his grave.

I think the soldiers are from different time periods, but the themes seem to go together pretty well.

[Kraellin]

nice effect, jereme. might be interesting to see if the two combined images are from the same era.

craig