Not afraid of color - a portrait or two

[Janet Petty]

I'm adding some colorful material for new interpretations. Have fun with some graphic color boosts and play.

Taken at a local parade just yesterday (5 May 2012).

Janet

[FranS]

Wow, Janet. That must have been some parade!

Thanks for posting your very interesting photos.

Fran

[Crapaud]

Janet, thanks for posting the pics.

I'm not sure what to call this. It's supposed to be a watercolour using the AHB. I'm not even sure that I like it; some parts have worked out, others just look messy. Overall, it doesn't really work without the sketch lines.

Thoughts, pointers, suggestions, critiques are welcome.

[Janet Petty]

Originally Posted by FranS

Wow, Janet. That must have been some parade!

Fran

Other than the annual Mummer's Parade in Philly each New Year, I haven't seen this type of parade in a long time. It was quite enjoyable.

Fran and Crapaud, thanks for the play.

Crapaud, I found this to be harder work than I originally thought as well. My only suggestion is to go for some kind of simplifier before you work on the picture.

[lkroll]

Really colorful characters Janet; thought I would play with black lit chalk again.

[lkroll]

Another one too.

[Veralisa]

The faces were so extremely colorful that I sort of wanted to tone them down. The painted areas were very mask-like so I masked the eyes & teeth. She looked awfully wired, so dilated her pupils a bit. Finished with grungy texture.

[Crapaud]

The first is a straightforward curves correction, fotosketcher and lighting effects.

I decided to tone down the colour too. A great face full of character.

[FranS]

Here's my !#2. I've enjoyed all the versions posted thus far.

Fran

[FranS]

And here's #3. Janet, thanks again for posting your photos. I've never seen anything like this so I found them quite interesting.

Fran

[sylvia1065]

Wonderful pictures, thanks for sharing them
Mixture of different effects...
Sylvia

[sylvia1065]

Originally Posted by Crapaud

I'm not sure what to call this. It's supposed to be a watercolour using the AHB. I'm not even sure that I like it; some parts have worked out, others just look messy. Overall, it doesn't really work without the sketch lines.

Thoughts, pointers, suggestions, critiques are welcome.

Crapaud,

When working with AHB, I find that duplicating the final layer and applying some sharpening to it (with USM or Smart Sharpen) usually helps quite a bit.

Sylvia

[Chance_1]

Janet: Love the pics, thanks for sharing these 3 very colorful images.

Fran S. Love your renditions.
Crapaud, lkroll, veralisa and sylvia, love all your colorful renditions.

This picture is too colorful, so I thought I would take it over the top in color and see what happens.

Chance

[Chance_1]

The Third Colorful One.
Chance

[Crapaud]

@ Janet and Sylvia, I think I've worked out a large part of my probs with the AHB.

1. I was using a brush that didn't suit the image.

2. The low image resolution: no matter how small I make the brush, it goes haywire and obliterates detail on images. It seems to be fine on higher res, higher detailed images.

Would it be worthwhile starting a new thread to discuss the ins and out of the AHB?