[palms1]

Originally Posted by amica999

Love it Palms, the eyes were shaded orange, but I do like the blue ones as well. By the way, he never looked that smooth in real life, he was a living "fur-ball". Absolutely beautoful, let me check if I have that brush as your edges look so perfect. Thanks for the play. Aynone wants more CAT pics, i must have hundreds of them, they are such thankful modells...no wrinkle removal, no makeup..:-)

Amica i have added another image with hopefully the right colour eyes ( i had done them on a seperate file and kept the psd)
Not sure about anyone else but maybe try a human next, Harder i think ? so will look for a image for that.

Palms

[palms1]

Originally Posted by mikajomc

OK, I finally did it. I smudged for real. I actually sat down and studied a few tutorials.
Here it is. <Gulp> I actually had fun doing this.

I used Sarsa's brush on the fur and Linda's brush on the face & ear. I used Sylvia's background brush for the background.
Sylvia- that brush is awesome!! thank you!

Jordan i think that you are getting the "bug" well done

Palms

[dkcoats]

I've never had much luck with the whole smudging thing so it is with some trepidation that I dare to post this.

After the smudge I took into Painter to muck up the background a little. I hope that isn't considered bad form in Smudgeland.

Okay, here goes (clicks "Submit")

[Peter S]

Originally Posted by dkcoats

I've never had much luck with the whole smudging thing so it is with some trepidation that I dare to post this.

After the smudge I took into Painter to muck up the background a little. I hope that isn't considered bad form in Smudgeland.

Okay, here goes (clicks "Submit")

"He who dares wins", glad you submitted
Its not bad, you got the bug as well.

Peter

[mikajomc]

And it is an addicting bug, just as everything else with this hobby!

Well done dc. The ear looks a little sharp, but I like the eyes. I have seen several smudge paintings where the background was done in painter!
I've actually been wondering how different it would be to smudge the whole thing in painter. I know some do, but I haven't tried it yet. Anybody have any tips on that?

[sylvia1065]

Originally Posted by mikajomc

I used Sylvia's background brush for the background.
Sylvia- that brush is awesome!! thank you!

You're very welcome!!
Sylvia

[Joeven]

Thanks Palms for the advice. I'm going to learn how to smudge even if it kills me I mean it. Just kidding.No really! This smudging is driving me nuts!

Joe

[palms1]

I have added two more links to the origingal post one for Sylvia's smudge brushes (thank you Sylvia) and another for some more links from mikajomc (thanks)

Dc great work, as said there are quite a few people who use painter for the backgrounds as well as the smudging, but i dont have painter so cant really comment on that but maybe someone will jump in

Joe you will get there remember the best tool for smudging is patience and you might find that other subjects are easier Sylvia has said she finds people easier ( thank goodness for that maybe she will be able to give some more advice when we give them a try , Well if we smile nicely and say pretty please) Like jordan i find animals (Peter read that as cats ) and flowers easier

Palms

[sylvia1065]

Originally Posted by palms1

I have added two more links to the origingal post one for Sylvia's smudge brushes (thank you Sylvia)

Sylvia has said she finds people easier ( thank goodness for that maybe she will be able to give some more advice when we give them a try , Well if we smile nicely and say pretty please)
Palms

You're welcome! I just updated my site and placed some new smudge presets.

I used my "- SD - Oil Streaky" to do Janet's excellent pictures of the old lady and the old guy and version 2
These are the original links to Janet's pictures:
Old Woman
Old Man Revisited

As for the colors, I usually darken the outside, and lighten the face a bit with these steps:
Select the lasso tool, feather around 40, hit Ctrl J (Cmd J on Mac) to place the selection on its own layer, Ctrl M (Cmd M on Mac) to open the Curves, click once on the middle of the graph and pull it up a bit. Hit OK, adjust the opacity if necessary and merge (Ctrl E / Cmd E on Mac).

Any other questions, just shoot, but I'm not the big expert on the subject.

Sylvia

[amica999]

Thank you Sylvia, I have already admired your face smudgings, haven't been brave enough to give it a try, yet.

[gholmes1936]

I gave up on smudging. I just cannot get it. But it did give me the basics for this rendition using Corel Painter Essentials 4.

[palms1]

Originally Posted by gholmes1936

I gave up on smudging. I just cannot get it. But it did give me the basics for this rendition using Corel Painter Essentials 4.

Oh dear that is a shame, but try something else later ( i felt like giving up on it earlier as well )
but you still ended up with a great image

Palms

[Joeven]

Here's a picture to play with from www.freedigitalphotos.net. I think I'm actually getting worse.

Joe

[palms1]

Originally Posted by Joeven

Here's a picture to play with from www.freedigitalphotos.net. I think I'm actually getting worse.

Joe

you might think that but i think that is a great image tigers are hard to do and you have done the whiskers better than i could ! !

Palms

[Joeven]

Palms I took your smudging advice from earlier and I also reread that beagle smudging tutorial. I tried it on this lion from www.freedigitalphotos.net. I used only the rough bristle brush at 60% and different sizes. I sharpened using USM with a low amount 25% and high radius 50 to help with the contrast and Smart Sharpen at 100 for the amount and a radius of 0.4. I think this one turned out better. Here's the pic to play with.

Joe