Creative Interpretations: Desiree

[Neve]

I often call into Stock Exchange so hope you don't mind me posting a couple of photos today?

Photo by Marc Petersen of his daughter.
Stock Exchange
http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml
"There are no usage restrictions for this photo"

[jaykita]

A beautiful lady with a glowing complexion.
Started off with high-key, about to post, changed my mind, duplicated and g'blurred, hardlight-blended with original. From there, aniso, smudge, and a bit of dodge tool.

[glikster]

ok... I think this is what I did.

Duped BG.
Loaded the Red Channel as a selection and made it a new alpha channel.
Used Levels to ramp up the contrast and named it "sillhouette".
G.Blurred it by about 2.
Loaded the Blue Channel and made it a new selection.
Used Levels to make it a drastically high contrast channel and named it "eyes".
G.Blurred it by about 2.
Loaded sillhouette and inverted selection.
Ran Artistic: Colored Pencils - 4, 8, 25.
Inverted selection again and ran Imp.: Pencil Sketch: Detailed Soft.
Inverted Selection and ran the same.
Faded to lower Opacity.
Loaded eyes and ran Imp.: Pencil Sketch: Detailed Colored.
Faded to lower Opacity.
Deselected. Ran the same filter.
Faded to lower opacity.
Loaded eyes again and inverted the selection.
Ran Imp: Pencil Sketch: Soft Light.
Faded to lower opacity.

I think that's about it.

[JustChecking]

jaykita - very interesting result... the aniso gives it "another dimension"
glikster - lovely chalk-like effect



i've been again messing w/ the art history brush + impressionist combination... hopefully one day i'll look up in the thesaurus what the word "moderation" means

[Duv]

Thanks for posting Neve and great renditions so far!!

Started with Impressionist: djrOil plus default settings
Sent to Painter 8 and smoothed the skin a bit with Chalk Cloner.
Back to PS and ran Dave's Simplifier action and pumped up saturation a tad.
Ran Velvia action
Frame by Extensis.

Cheers
Dave

[JustChecking]

Dave, just great

[Duv]

Thanks! I always prefer praise over a body Check!

Dave

[byRo]

jaykita, what beautiful hair - if only I had some, you could paint mine any day.

I'm getting hooked on this.

Rô

[CJ Swartz]

Just posterized and ran Image -> Threshold to give it the illustrated look, then ran Artistic-> Cutout to smooth the look. This interfered with the gloss and beauty of her hair, so I tried to mask it back in somewhat.

[Axleuk]

Smoothed skin
Changed lip colour
Painted Hair in Painter
Added soft direct lighting to the face
Bleached the overall colour
Added leafy border
Added Name

Voila !

[DannyRaphael]

Dave... You really captured her soul on this one. Excellent use of tools between Painter and PS.

- - - - - - - -

Two layers from the Impressionist plugin and one rendered by Photoshop (Dry Brush). Roadmap in the Layers Palette snapshot.

On isolating her from the BG...
* Duplicated the Red channel (the one with the most contrast)
* Image > Adjustment > Levels - to increase contrast
* Image > Adjustment > Threshold
* Hand painted black on the background areas a white on her to finish the mask
* Ctrl + click this alpha channel (to load the selection)
* Click on the RGB composite channel
* Switch to Layers Palette
* Clicked on a duplicate layer I'd made of layer E
* Ctrl + J to copy the selection onto its own layer

Then I converted the layer from which the subject has been isolated by applying the filters shown in the snapshot.

- - - - - - -

Neve: A#1 photo... great choice. This is going to be a very popular thread.

~Danny~

[Neve]

Desiree is bringing out the best in all of you....!

[Neve]

PaintShopPro 8.1

Bottom Layer of Image
Applied - Filter - PR Brightness
Applied - Filter - Namesuppressed:Autochromatic/FX-Pseudo Sepia
Dupe Bottom Layer
L2 - Filter - Flaming Pear/Ghost - Mode Normal - Dupe this layer
L3 - Mode Soft Light 100% - Dupe this layer
L4 - Saturation (L)
Merge all layers.
Filter - Diffuse Glow - 1/9/18
Filter - Impressionist - Ink: Color Line Pen
BG=Image/Size=25%/Coverage=85/Pressure=50
Filter - AIM/USM
Merge all layers and dupe this layer.
L2 - Hard Light 50%
Merge all layers.

p.s. Edit....compressing this image after using AIM/USM results in poor quality unfortunately.

[jaykita]

Originally Posted by byRo

jaykita, what beautiful hair - if only I had some, you could paint mine any day.

I'm getting hooked on this.

Rô

Thanks, Rô. You know, you are a great-looking guy even without much hair, but if you'd like, i could paint some on your photograph for you!

[glikster]

Everybody's renditions really are incredible. Axeleuk's and C.J.'s are my particular favorites.

I used Jaykita's waercolor settings in Imp. a lot.
I also used a modified Paint: Angled Scribbles.
Cloned and Healed some problem areas.

[jaykita]

Hello Glikster! Mighty pleased to see you use my impr settings.
I did one too with these same settings, with a small diff. Hoping you might be interested for future reference.
I have included the layer's palette. There are only 3 wc layers, 2 are mine at reduced opacity and one with ps7's wc filter 14,0,1. I've observed that image adjustment-selective color- white reduce black and color neutral increase black upto 10 gives good results. Plus adding a sandstone texture reinforces the watercolor effect.
The custom filter is used to sharpen the image.
Here i havent touched any of it by hand, but you could use the clone tool for touch ups.
Have fun!
--------------
Thought i'd add a slice of the orig for the texture which didnt quite show in the first one.

[Neve]

Inspirational results as always! Had another go in Painter 8.1.

Basically (with many errors along the way....)

Cloned image and used Digital Water Color
Also did a sketch layer (later deleted) of outlines as a guide.

Hair - Wash Brush
Hair - Pointed wet Eraser to had highlights back.
Face - Pointed Simple Water
Blenders - Just add Water(over entire image)
Cloners - Simple Cloner to add back some small details especially
the Eyes.

Opened up in PSP8.1

Darkened and lightened where required.
Smudged here and there, also pulled strands of hair outwards.

It sounds simple enough but it wasn't quite so. Much of it is trial and error using the brushes. I liked the idea of using the eraser to bring back highlights to her hair, this works very well. It's much easier of course to work on someone with smooth skin, the real test is on faces with character lines.

[sidis]

^^Very nice edits above^^

Blur and noise removal to repair her minor skin blemishes/unevenness
Blended a golden layer to emulate using a gold reflector at the shoot
Gradient map layer for more color
Increased black for contrast
Selective sharpening, blurring, dodging, and burning
Recropped and resized to fit forum size guidelines

.

[glikster]

Thank you for the added info!
I've been playing with your technique, and it's great, as well as being great fun!

[glikster]

This is using Danny's Oil settings in Imp.
Used an edge mask to smooth her skin.
Loaded red channel.
Ran Imp: Danny's Oil.
Inverted selection and did the ssame.
Deselected and did the same. Faded to Darken.
Ran Other: Custom.
Slapped a canvas texture on her and faded it to lower opacity.


Whoah!!! Just viewed my compressed version! Let me post a smaller, higher quality pic...

[glikster]

I tried using the Art History Brush.

[Neve]

Had another go starting in Painter.

Cloned
Using Fine Camel Brush on hair
later blending with Rd. Blender Brush
Face - Simple Round Wash Brush
Blended with Rd. Blender Brush
Simple cloner to bring back detail of eyes
mouth, straps, necklace and hair.

Opened in PSP8.1

Spent a great deal of time smudging
cloning, darken/lighten tools.

[T Paul]

Some lovely entries as always!

1. Duplicate Image
2. Desaturate new layer
3. Levels adjustment: Slide the white point slider far enough to almost blow out the whites and then slide the grey point slider to the right to bring back some detail.
4. Add a little Gaussian Blur (but bring back the sharpness to the eyes, mouth, and nose).
5. Duplicate Gaussian Blur Layer
6. Apply a Vignette
7. Duplicate layer
8. Apply Artistic Filter – Plastic Wrap. Set mode to Soft Light. This will further brighten your image

[T Paul]

Jaykita,
Love the radiant glow you added.

CJ,
I really like the posterized results!

Axleuk,
Stunning results with Painter. It now has a lovely soft glow. I also really like the leaf border. It frames her face nicely. Excellent work!

Neve,
I really like the pen line strokes. They give the photo an artistic sketch feel.

[Legacy~Art]

Axeluk that is very beautifully done...

T Paul wow i am impressed and took the notes to try myself.

[T Paul]

Thanks!

You could easily apply some selective coloring or artistic brush strokes for some fun variations.

[Xaran]

Hard to compete with all these wonderful entries but here's my attempt at a tutorial in current issue of Digital Photo Effects. I hope the resizing to upload hasn't lost too much.

Christine

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by Xaran

Hard to compete with all these wonderful entries but here's my attempt at a tutorial in current issue of Digital Photo Effects. I hope the resizing to upload hasn't lost too much.

Christine

Nice. Can you summarize the steps. This is a "keeper" process.

- - - - - - - -

I haven't messed with Painter in awhile....

Preparation in Photoshop:
* Duplicated Background
* Applied Impressionist #djroils 24 3-times
* Duplicated Background again and dragged to top of layer stack.
* Applied Impressionist #djroils 24 1-time to this layer and applied a layer mask. Airbrushed black on the layer mask to reveal some of the layer below.
* Duplicated Background again and dragged to top of layer stack and added a Hide All layer mask. Airbrushed layer mask to restore eye and mouth detail.
* Added a new layer and merged all visible (Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E)
* Applied Photoshop Brush Strokes > Spatter for a little variation
* Saved, duplicated the image and flattened the duplicate
* Opened the duplicate in Painter
* Applied the Grainy brushes from the Blender group to give it more of a brushed look
* Closed Painter.
* Opened in Photoshop and applied some Unsharp mask
* Added another layer, filled with 50% gray and applied Texturizer filter
* Lowered texture layer opacity to about 30%
* Cropped and saved.

Whew... Just in time to go watch Super Bowl XXXIX.

- - - - - -

Update: Per Christine's suggestion below on a second version (built basically the same way as described above) I applied Painter's Surface Effects function which did indeed bring out the stroke texture.

Thank's again, Christine.

- - - - - -

~Danny~

[Neve]

Christine, that is terrific , I love it and PLEASE tell us how.

Danny - Well may you say WHEW, this is marvellous and worth all the effort, I'm sure, to achieve such a rare result.

[Janet Petty]

Very nice effect Danny. It really looks oil painted.

Janet