PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #48 – Tigers Playing

[DannyRaphael]

FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE -or- NEW TO PHOTO-ART?
See below for "Information and Guidelines."

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PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge# 48 – Tigers Playing

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category until the next official challenge is posted here.

The image can be downloaded by clicking the link near the bottom of this lengthy introduction!

This picture was taken nearly 30 years ago at the Phoenix Zoo by RetouchPRO regular, CJ Swartz. Ya think these big cats are having fun or what? I wonder if they would come running if they heard the sound of my kitchen electric can opener, like my cat does? On second thought I don’t think I want to know!

Thank you, CJ. for submitting this terrific picture for a minichallenge!

”Here kitty, kitty, kitty!"

Good luck and have fun.

~DannyR~

LEGAL VERBIAGE
CJ retains the U.S. and international copyright © not only for the original image, but also for any photo-art versions of it. Unauthorized distribution or use of this image without permission is prohibited.

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INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES

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 art form 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.

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) or replace the background
. * 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
. * Feeling animated? Animated entries are definitely welcome. There have been some really funny ones submitted in the past. Fish jumping, leaves falling, wheels turning. You get the idea.
. * Any or all of the above

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.


A special message to those who are new to Photo-art
… Who may be feeling a little uncomfortable about posting an entry.

If you’ve read this far, it means you’re at least curious. That’s a good sign.

But what if you’re feeling a little squeamish about posting your first image?

From time to time I hear from those who want to participate, but have considerable anxieties about posting their creations in these mini-challenge. “I’m just a beginner. My pictures don’t belong,” “I see the works of others and I know I’ll never get that good,” “How am I supposed to compete with those wonderful creations?” are typical expressions of concern.

To which I say: Put your fears to rest. This isn’t a competition. You will not be judged in the traditional “art critique” sense. Your honor isn’t on the line. This isn’t about who’s best.

Don’t hold back from participating and posting your creation because your initial attempts don’t measure up (in your own mind) to images generated by folks with more experience than you.

This is a no-fault, all-fun way to jump in the pool. Everyone started the same place: The beginning. Everyone who is more skilled and experienced than you got to that point by practicing, experimenting, asking questions, learning from others, and participating.

Can one learn without interacting with others? Sure. Can one learn as fast? Absolutely not.

When you participate, others get to know you. That makes it easier to ask them questions. Asking questions leads to learning from those with more experience than you. It just keeps getting better and better!

By all means give it a go. You’ll be glad you did.

The pep talk cheerfully brought to you by:

Danny Raphael
Photo-based Art Forum Moderator

[phili1]

I took Alan (Take a bow) Japanese Garden and let the tiger play with the fish. Basic drag and drop, clone tool,blur tool and opacity slider. For the refection I filpped vertical and rotated.

[d_kendal]

cool! that was a great idea to put those together, it works really well. the only thing I'd suggest is to try putting in a bit more shadow at the front of the tigers body for realism.

- David

[phili1]

Thanks David I didn't think of the shadow. good idea.

[DannyRaphael]

I just busted up when I opened the pic.

Great work, Phil. Just outstanding.

[pstewart]

Phili, that is superb! Such an ingenious idea, and beautifully done! Where do I send the prize?

Phyllis

[phili1]

His paw gave me the clue but you guys have shown me the way and boy am I having fun. I never realized how many different renditions you can have from one picture.

Thanks.

[pstewart]

Here's my tiger try. I wanted to pull the tigers away from the background a bit to set them off, so I changed the colors to evoke late day sun about to set. After getting halfway there with blending modes and hue/saturation, I used a big fuzzy brush set to color burn and painted over the "sunlit" areas with yellow.

Phyllis

[Snoleoprd]

Hi all,

Here is my attempt at the tiger pic. I first saturated the colors, I then copied the background, did a gaussian blur to the copy layer, then set to multiply for the layer. Adjusted curves. Then I applied the Jaseck watercolor action from the Dpreview action set.

Comments and criticism are most welcome.

Alan

[CJ Swartz]

Thought it was time to a peek into the tigers' den --

You guys are great!

Phili -- you knew what that big cat wanted to do -- great composite idea and good job putting it together. You gave him a beautiful background too!

Phyllis -- I can SEE the sunlight on their fur, and the subtle shading. You really improved the background. Lovely!

Alan -- Ooooooooo!! Love what the saturation and watercolor action does to those tiger colors -- even the sparse grass looks good. Beautiful!

[phili1]

Phyliss you know the old saying in them there hills there are gold.
you brought up ther colors with the background. god they are so cute dont you want to play with them.

Alan you did a great job with the wate coloring they are soft and cuddely. What brush did you use. or action.

[Snoleoprd]

Hi,

the action came from a freebie assortment of actions that the dpreview site came up with and our fearless leader here is compiling and I am providing the distribution site. In the package is several watercolor actions, the one I used is called Jaseck Watercolor. The action collection can be downloaded from:
http://www.geocities.com/kafuensis

Glad you liked it.


Alan

[Snoleoprd]

Thanks CJ and Phili for the comments.

Alan

[angue]

My watercolor version using cutout and inverted glowing edges.
The ball was an afterthought.

[DannyRaphael]

Phyllis:

I see what you mean about adjusting the light. That came out very well.

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Phil:

I still bust up each time I look at that cat hovering over that fish!

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Alan (Snoleoprd)

Great job on your first mini-challenge. You've got the spirit.

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Tony:

When I saw your rendition and writeup, I thought: "No way. It can't look THAT good and be THAT easy." Guess what. It was.

I was inspired by your technique so much that I stole it and added a couple twists to it, namely a duplicate of the BG layer on top set to blend = color, Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer below that. Tweaked B/C to tune up the colors a bit. Added a final Hue/Sat adjustment layer on top of stack to turn up the saturation a bit.

Great idea on the adding the ball, too. You can never have enough balls in a tiger picture.

~Danny~

[pstewart]

Alan, "gaussian glow" is one of my favorite KPT filters--same as the gaussian blur blended to multiply which you did. The effect is Purr-fect on this picture...the 3D soft glow of it makes the tigers look fat and furry and cute as kittens! Nice result.

Angue, you used the same two filters I did...what's that about great minds and same channel? I love the idea of adding the ball (complete with shadow...nice attn to detail). Makes them look even more playful!

Danny, nice sketch effect on a subject that resisted sketch attempts by yours truly. I really love the edging you added...was that a framing action?

Phyllis

[DannyRaphael]

Phyllis:

The edge effect was from the plugin I just finished reviewing for RetouchPRO. (It will take Doug a few days to do the formatting, image linking, etc. before it's posted.)

Since it's too large to post in a thread, I'll e-mail you an advanced copy of the review.

If anyone else is interested in an advanced copy, send me real e-mail (not PM). You can do that via the MEMBERS choice in the Forum menu.

~DannyR~

[Cheryl H]

Don, I agree with your choice of favorites. This one was tough for me--kept getting too dark.

I wound up with this.
Rough sketch 1

1. 2 duplicate copies of background. Turn the top one off (it’s used at the end and it’s convenient to have it already at the top).

We work on the middle layer for a while.

2. Image—Adjustments—Desaturate
3. Duplicate desaturated layer.
4. On the duplicate layer set the blending mode to Color Dodge. Run Filter—Blur—Gaussian Blur between 4-8.
5. Merge Down. Duplicate desaturated layer.
6. On upper desaturated layer, set the blending mode to multiply. Run Filter—Blur—Gaussian Blur with the same settings and used in step 4.
7. Merge Down. This is your base sketch layer.
8. Make 3 copies of the base sketch layer.
9. On the top duplicate, run Filter—Brush Strokes—Sumi. Reduce opacity to 50%.
10. On the middle duplicate, Run Filter—Brush Strokes—Dark Strokes. Set the blending mode to Pin Light.
11. On the lower duplicate, run Filter—Artistic—Fresco. Set the blending mode to Luminosity.
12. Turn on the color layer at the top. Play wiath blending mode.
13. Add a new pattern fill layer at the top. Set the blending mode to Soft Light and the opacity to 70%. This will add texture.

[vijayan]

Beautiful Cats , But happened to be in Sketches>Ink out lines and many times with levels...

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vijayan

[mead]

Thanks to all for the help that you all so eagerly share. It has made learning Elements 2 alot more rewarding.
I'm interested in the technique you refer to in the tigers playing challenge. A .gif screenshot of the technigue you use. I tried the link, but it won't open to the tutorial or screenshot.
Could you tell me what to look for so I can use the seach feature?
Thanks, kat

[mead]

Thanks for the quick responce. I appreciate the steps to the sketchy and the posterized tigers. Can't wait to try them.

Really am enjoying the forum and all the help. I will try to post something soon. I'm leaning towards an old picture that I restored for a friend. I got very lucky with it. I realize I won't post it on this forum, just enjoying all the artistic talent here.

appreciate the help.

kat

[jaykita]

C.J., thank you for the beautiful photo. I am reviving this old thread of 2002 because i was looking for some animal pic to try my technique on. This photo was perfect.
Enjoyed going through the various creations here.
Started out in painter 8 for the "painterly" effect! Then in ps, used various color blends, with some buzz and virtual p. as well. Hope you like it, C.J.

[Swampy]

Loved these tiger cubs!

I extracted the background and cubs in Photoshop. Applied a very low opacity Art History brush on a blank layer to the cubs and set the blending mode to multiply. I wanted to add a soft "fluff" to the cub's fur.

Saved these 3 layers and took them into Painter. I used a distortion brush on the background and just smeared it all up then applied a blur and a paper texture. Used a charcoal brush to add back some subtile shadows under the cubs and blurred the shadow layer.

I've only been using Painter for a week or so, but I can see great potential for it even in more "commercial" usages for print output especially for dealing with busy or problematic backgrounds.

[CJ Swartz]

Judy -- you certainly found ALL of your colors in the paintbox --- vibrant, dynamic, and COLORful!!

Thanks for bringing these beautiful cats back.

Swampy, your image isn't as big as usual, but I can see some of the fluff to the fur and a stronger texture for the background. (Agreed, the original background is not helpful to this image.) Glad you chose them for one of your practice sessions in Painter -- hope to see more! (I haven't even considered trying Painter yet!)

[Swampy]

C.J. Thank you :-)

I find that often the background needs more work than the foreground subject. In this case the grass was just "blah" and really doesn't add anything to the overall composition. In fact it detracts in this image.

I'm having a hard time with Painter. Since my background is in commercial art and not "fine art". I really have no idea of what to expect from the various brushes so I mostly getting blobs of paint with little definition or detail.

Judy... Your version is almost "Neimanesque". :-)

[CJ Swartz]

Decided to play with the tigers again -- used Color Range to select the background, then played with the hues and texture (blur, crystallize/Fragment/Ripple/Glass). Used a combination of the Sharpen/Diffuse and Dry Brush on the tigers on several layers, adding different bits on each layer.

[Swampy]

It almost looks like they are playing in water, CJ!

[jaykita]

Originally Posted by Swampy

Judy... Your version is almost "Neimanesque". :-)

Swampy, thank you!!! You made my day! i LOVE Neiman's work!!
Thank you C.J. for your encouragement. I truly appreciate it.
Here's a simple watercolor effect.

[Kraellin]

great starting pic, and some really nice renditions.

however, everyone sees different things and i'm no exception

Craig

[Swampy]

Love it Craig! Hard to believe it's even the same tiger. Just great!