Lady of Guadalupe

[Rohape]

My mom sent this to me asking for some work. She does a lot of work for her church and lately I've been doing a lot of retouch/editing work for her.
This was such a cool picture I thought you all might like to take a crack at it. And honestly I hoped to enlist a little more help than my meager skills. You all do such amazing work I would love to show her some variations. I have already done some work to it based off what she was looking for. I'm still working on some different variations too.
Let me apologize ahead too. I will soon be away from my computer for only a few days. I just don't want ya'll to think I'm freeloading in any way when I don't reply very quickly.
Thank you for everything I have learned from all of you already, and the help with this picture!

Here's a link for the original on my flickr. And then my work...so far.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohape/2635057289/

[mikajomc]

Hi Rohape
Could you give us an idea of what your mother is looking for?

[Rohape]

This is the email she sent me.

Attached is a photo taken of Our Lady of Guadalupe as represented in the candle shrine at our church. I want to use this to make some small prayer cards – but I might also want to use it for other things. The shape or sizing of it is fine. But I would like for you to see if you can remove most of the frame, maybe with a soft white oval frame that kind of fades the edges of the picture with a bit of a glow, enhance the pink silk in the picture a little, soften the harsh orange sun-rays around her, and lighten her skin a little. I would welcome several variations of this picture if you start having some inspiring ideas. I really like this picture. Photos of all of the events in the parish are taken in front of this shrine.

Thank you so much. I'll be editing this with some more variations I came up with.

[Rohape]

And one more before I leave for a few days.

[lkroll]

Used an Etched glass Script-fu for the majority of the effect.

[Gilbert]

had a couple of attempts, one with and one without colour.....as you say the more variety the more choice, I hope you find what you are looking for.
gilbert

[secretagents]

This etched glass script-fu is quite amazing. Pity I can't run it as I have only Gimp 2.2 and it appears to run only on 2.4 if I am not mistaken.

[lkroll]

I feel your pain if you're stuck on dial-up, but if not, 2.4 is better then 2.2. imo. I keep 2.2 installed (and even share PS plugins with it since I set up 2.4 to share the same ps plugins as 2.2) for compatibility with a handful of script-fus that I occasionally use. I also have 1.2.4 installed for a few plugins/Script-fus that have never been ported to the 2.x world. Yes, all three versions can run without issue (do a custom install and make sure the directory where 2.4 is installed is not the same as 2.2). If you have highspeed, give 2.4 a whirl. After 2.4.6, most of the bugs have been eliminated. I'm still waiting (heard a rumour that it will be release this summer) for the release of 2.6 since it will support 16-bit graphics. 2.4 by the way is 100% color aware which is cool.

[secretagents]

I can't run Gimp 2.4 because of the operating system I use which is Windows Millenium, hahaha. I have 1.2.4 and 2.2 portable but unlike you I can't seem to be able to run photoshop plugins in 2.2. Coming from the Linux platform, Krita seems also very interesting but I don't think compiled versions for Windows are available for download right now.

[lkroll]

Arrggh. I've had so many issues with WinME that it was a joy to migrate (even on my 766MHz Intel PIII) to XP way back then. You will be better off going to Ubuntu if it is capable to run it on your system. Also, they ported PSPI to Linux, so you will be able to run many PS plugins as well. Haven't ran the KDE version of Linux, but I'm sure the GIMP will work happy with it too. I've read about Krita and it seems cool (Sourceforge gleamer I am) but I will stick with the GIMP.

[secretagents]

I am very happy with my system as it is, only I can't run some recent apps because some of the code is not compatible anymore with the 9x systems which is a little bit of a frustration. I had hoped you would tell me that in fact this plugin also run on Gimp 2.2 but I guess I haven't been lucky on that one.

I don't feel the need to upgrade to any other system but I stress that's because my Win ME system does not run on the kind of hardware that was current when Microsoft was selling it and also probably because it has been quite seriously tweaked and looked after by myself.

Photoshop 7 which I have just bought on eBay for a small fraction of its original price, runs blazingly fast and stable on it.

I probably could run Krita on it if only I managed to install the KDE desktop over Cygwin. I think it can be done but it's not for the faint hearted. I may try again sometimes if photoshop does not keep me too busy.

[lkroll]

PS7 will run nearly (if not all) PS compatible plugins including all my favorites (Impressionist, AAA Fotofix filter, Flaming Pear's Mr. Contrast just to name a few). If PS7 works, then you will be very happy. Only a few of the most current actions won't work with PS7 so you still can try them for sure. Though I like GIMP, GIMP isn't 100% perfect. No editor imo is. Any tool that you can get to work is just that; a tool. I try to collect as many as possible and use them when I see an advantage that the other editor has no equal. Also, PS7 definitely supports 16-bit editing/enhancements. You won't (as I recall) get shadow/highlights, but there is so many ways to get that look that this won't be an issue.

[secretagents]

Yeah I am very happy with Photoshop 7. I was very frustrated with version 6 mostly because it would not handle more than 300 plugins or so...

I also have multiple apps. I think I have one or another version of all them apart from Microsoft's Photodraw, and this one I normally get it next week bundled with the Ofice 2000 Premium. I don't expect wonder from it, it's more by curiosity. This should also include the impresionist plugin which has it's origin in FrontPage's Image Composer I believe.

Last one I bought was Serif Photoplus 11 and it's more powerfull than I thought it would be but I don't think it does anything I cannot do with the other stuff I have.

[Kraellin]

lyle, that's really quite amazing! that's all from that one script? and what does the '-fu' mean at the end of script-fu?

[lkroll]

Don't ask me Craig. lol

Link to background of this subject here. You need to follow the thread in it's entirety to get the Script-fu (buried in the thread and also two different versions; one for 2.2x and one for to 2.4x).

[lkroll]

Simple. Just dup, fill the base layer with color of choice, and go to the Channels dialogue and run Channel to Selection on the Top layer and delete. This creates the transparency areas which is required by the Script-fu. Run the Script-fu on the Top layer and voila. This is one of my favorite Script-fus by the way and have used on more then one occasion already. Forgot to add that I did enhance the face a little with ACE (which is a GIMP plugin. lol).

[Rohape]

Nice!
Thank you for the nice work and all the great info Lyle.
Those are awesome Gilbert, I especially like the color one. If you don't mind I'm going to show her that colored one.

[Gilbert]

so glad you liked them Rohape, 1.3 mb version available if its required,can send by email if you pm me your address

[mikajomc]

Ooops. Just realized I forgot to post my efforts.
I just realized I missed a tiny line at the top. If your mom likes it Rohape I'll fix it for you. But otherwise, I'm not going to mess with it.

Here's the retouch.

Here's the painting.