[Steve Conway]

Two renditions of our man Jose.

Steve

[Alcar]

Jose has a great, rugged face. My interpretation uses a black layer and masking.
Alan

[cazubi]

I used BuZZ.X and then made some adjustments and added texture.

Cathy

[Steve Conway]

Someone sometime back asked about a Draganized version. Here is mine.

Looks a lot like what Alcar came up with, except for the color.

Steve

[byRo]

Originally Posted by palms1

...we will have to wait to see if Ro is reading

Seems I'm a bit late for the party.
You're right, this is a good base for doing a "Dragan" and Steve's made a good start here but actually Palm's smudge (at thumbnail size anyway) looks closer.
Although one might get the impression that Dragan just makes things dark, grungy and unsaturated, my reading is that he is actually doing an extreme photo enhancement. The idea being that instead of (just) making a pretty picture, you concentrate on bringing out the character of the subject.
As such the famous black backgrounds are reminiscent of the Old Master's portrait tricks.

If I have a few minutes I'll try one.......but I really ought to be working.

Rô

[palms1]

Hey i'm usualy refered to as the Dragon not a dragonizer

Palms

Ro you have me intrigued now so hope you are not working and having a go

[Steve Conway]

Here's another try at the Draganize technique. Tried a completely black BG.

Lets the subject stand out a bit more.

Steve

[palms1]

Steve much prefer the all black background

Palms

[Steve Conway]

Does help doesn't it?

Thanks.

Steve

Originally Posted by palms1

Steve much prefer the all black background

Palms

[byRo]

Steve / Palms, agreed.

Faces are usually at the higher end of the luminosity scale, so if you want them to stand out, you put in a dark background.
Take that to the limit and you've got black.

However, the face shouldn't be too dark - otherwise we're going to lose all the contrast we generated with the black background.

I was thinking of something like this......

Rô

[palms1]

Ro
Glad you had a go it was worth the wait,

I think i can feel a black background faze coming on


Palms

[Janet Petty]

Way cool, Steve and Ro. I like both treatments of the subject. Both make unique statements.

Janet

[Steve Conway]

Thanks Janet.

A bit off subject, but was trying out the technique on some downloaded images & the attached seemed to lend itself to Draganizing.

Overall quality is lacking. Was a small image.

Steve

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

Way cool, Steve and Ro. I like both treatments of the subject. Both make unique statements.

Janet

[Steve Conway]

Your version looks a bit more like the actual Dragan images that I have seen. His faces are usually the standouts and the first thing that you notice in his work. I think that since I left most of the facial lines and other detail in, it caused the face to be darker.

To me his images look like paintings without any simplfication or brush strokes. Really hard to tell how much was in the lighting etc of the original photo and how much was manipulated. Reminds me of the type of feel you see in an Albright painting.

Steve

Originally Posted by byRo

Steve / Palms, agreed.

Faces are usually at the higher end of the luminosity scale, so if you want them to stand out, you put in a dark background.
Take that to the limit and you've got black.

However, the face shouldn't be too dark - otherwise we're going to lose all the contrast we generated with the black background.

I was thinking of something like this......

Rô

[byRo]

Nice one, Steve. you're really getting the hang of this stuff!!

Originally Posted by Steve Conway

Overall quality is lacking. Was a small image.

Yeah, I've found that doing a Dragan on a low-quality image is difficult because pixelation and JPEG artifacts get in the way of the surface texture I'm trying to make stand out.

Rô