bronze statue

[tell]

This is an image of a friend of mine , ,i know you probably want to know which one . I have his permission to seek the following advice ... I'd like to know if anyone has an idea as to how l might turn him into a statue ? Is it possible? I thought of selecting each furrow and burrow of his person onto their own layer and copying and pasting the bronze on top. But maybe there's another more logical approach. For instance using filters in conjunction with masks... Anyway look forward to any advice on this new project... Thank you all.. Tell.

[PatrickB]

This will sure be a funny thread *goingforpopcorn*

I recently read something such an approach, turning Anthony Hopkins into a statue, but can't remember where to find it.

But I do remember the approach was to use an existing picture of a statue and just put his face in, this will probably not help you. But there is a filter in PS, I think it's called plastic coat which might be a good start. Haven't tried though, but maybe someone else here might want to give it a go?

Patrick

[Dreamypix]

I believe this is the link you were talking about, Patrick.

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161111

~Amber~

[Panpan]

Here's my try at this.

I lowered the luminosity and color range of the man before applying plastic wrap and color matching to the statues.

Pierre

[tell]

Thank you all for your help. Patrick , i found the statue tutorial to be very interesting. I can use some of the information but having a statue to work from would be the go. Thanks Amber for the link. And thank you Pierre for giving it a go. I think the hat came out very well and l think you have a way that works.. Not sure how you did it exactly but thank you.. I shall keep experimenting and if my attempt succeeds l will enjoy sharing it with you all. Again thank you.. Tell.

[Panpan]

I decided to give this image a second try. I got rid of the bags and scaled the man to match the statues.

Pierre

[Kraellin]

good job, panpan. and i like the pidgeon

Craig

[tell]

Thats top stuff Pierre. I wonder do you have an idea of the steps you used to achieve this effect? . Did you sample colour from the bronze statues and with a new layer paint the man then use the plastic wrap filter to create the metalic work .? The pigeon is the perfect finish to this funny image.. Thank you Pierre, hope you can share some of the steps with me.. Tell

[Panpan]

Originally Posted by tell

Thats top stuff Pierre. I wonder do you have an idea of the steps you used to achieve this effect? . Did you sample colour from the bronze statues and with a new layer paint the man then use the plastic wrap filter to create the metalic work .? The pigeon is the perfect finish to this funny image.. Thank you Pierre, hope you can share some of the steps with me.. Tell

Hello Tell. Here's how I did it.

I modified the first image to come up with the second, but I will explain as if I had done everything in a single step. By the way, I use Photoshop CS2 under Windows XP.

Color variation on bronze is limited to weathering patina and to a few color patinas sometimes added by the sculptor with chemicals. So the first major step is to reduce the number of colors and the contrast of the man. We will then turn him into a statue by applying Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap and Image>Adjustments>Match Color with the foreground statues as the color source for the latter. There, all done!

Just kidding! Here are the steps I went through in a little more detail.

• Copy the image (ctrl-j). Apply Image>Adjustments>Shadow/Highlight. Call it Working Background (You might consider fixing the blown highlights at this step for professional results.)
• Select the statues onto a Statues layer. Very loosely lasso a subset of areas to use as color source for Match Color (MC) later. Ctrl-j them to their own Statue Color layer. The results of MC are difficult to predict so help yourself by including only one color for each brightness level if possible.
• Create a Skin layer. Reduce the contrast, particularly of the beard and mouth.
• Create a Clothes layer. Include the shirt, shorts, sandal, glasses and watch. Make the glasses opaque by reducing their contrast a lot. Lighten the brightness of the clothes to approximately skin levels. Clone away the white letters.
• MC Clothes to Skin. I’ll explain this first use of Match Color in detail. Highlight the Clothes layer; activate Image>Adjustments>Match Color; in the Image Statistics section at the bottom of the screen, twirl open the Source menu and select our file from the list of open files; twirl open the Layer menu and select Skin. You can fine-tune the effect with the Destination Image controls.
• I wanted to replace the bags, so I had to create the shorts, the left leg and part of the t-shirt.
• I searched Google Images for “Bronze man sitting” and found Alan Turing’s statue. In Photoshop, I lassoed an approximate shorts area, copied it with ctr-c, switched to our image and brought the selection as a new Shorts layer with ctrl-v. I used the Move tool to place it and Edit>Transform>Warp to shape it. I then adjusted brightness and MC to Skin.
• I went through a similar process for Shirt except I copied a part of the right statue’s back to make the shirt.
• For the left leg, I copied, moved and shaped the right leg up to the Knee, then copied the lower Leg and used Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal.
• Because I was going to scale the man up, I needed to fix the missing right Shoulder by copying the other shoulder and the missing foot part by using the Smudge tool.
• It’s time at last to reassemble the man. Ctrl-click the man’s layers and ctrl-g to create a Man group. Right-click the group and select Duplicate Group. Right-click the duplicate and select Merge Group. Call it Man Merged.
• Apply Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap. Fiddle with the controls to get the effect you want. Unfortunately, the random delamination bubbles are a feature that cannot be turned off.
• MC Man Merged to Statue Color. Fiddle with brightness, color balance and contrast of both source and destination to get the effect you want.
• Before we can scale the man, we need to create a safe background. Otherwise, we will leave visible parts of the original man and background. So we make a Safe Background copy of Working Background. Clone away the offending bits.
• Highlight Man Merged. With the Move tool, shift-drag one of the top corners to scale the man to size. Holding down the shift key keeps the proportions equal.
• We’re almost done. I went on Google to find a Pigeon image. I Used MC one last time to “localize” the colors to Safe Background.

All done for real this time! There’s probably still too much contrast in our new statue, particularly between the right arm and shorts. I doubt those color patinas I mentioned in the beginning would last outdoors. Still, it’s good enough for a quick look.

Pierre

PS: Thanks, Craig.

[tell]

Thank you for an insight into the pierre imagination. I think you put alot of thought into this.. I would not have thought of trying google images for a bronze sitting statue.. I like your work even more now.. Even coming up with the tutorial on the statue must have taken some time, and l am left properly impressed. My favorite part of your work is the new statues right leg. Its so bronze statue like. Thank you Pierre for taking the time out on this one. And thank you for your clear tutorial on how it was achieved. Tell.