Creative Interpretations: Two by Two Horses

[Neve]

Photo by "speluzzi" from http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml

There are no usage restrictions for this photo.

[Legacy~Art]

Thank you for the beautiful picture...

[JustChecking]

el destructo is back another D- sketch of mine... painter watercolour+coloured pencil & impressionist watercolour...

[keepemcomin]

I wanted to do something a little different with this one

I used this tutorial to make a filmstrip affect.

[philbach]

Well I selected the horses and placed them on a separate layer. I ran Isabell's pastel action (B) on the horses. That action can be dowloaded on this site in the Resources/Photoshop Actions section. On a new layer I made a frame like selection and filled it with horse color. Then used the frame layer blending options to apply bevel and various contours to the rectangle

[Neve]

WOW.... Diversity abounds!

[CJ Swartz]

JC, -- I like the simple look on this one also!
Keepemcoming -- good one!
Philbach -- good extraction - nice pastel work!

I decided to clone out the roman nose and the straight profile also and make them a bit more like Arabians (Scottsdale Arabian show is this month!). Then hid my clone mistakes with the Cutout filter and changed the sky.

[jaykita]

Render clouds layer, Find edges layer, gradient map layer, art history brush, different blends.

[Legacy~Art]

I just wanted to thank you...For the link, as i checked out the site and joined it, and now i can download full size stock photos.

Free Stock Photo's (Thanks to Neve!)

[byRo]

Nice renditions all around.
Liked especially Phil's framed heads - would make a nice embroidery.

Still learning the Art History Brush - a couple of weeks ago I wouldn't even touch it, now I can't leave it alone. Maybe this weekend I'll go all the way and write up a tutorial!

Rô

[glikster]

I followed Steve Trimoon's directions from this thread
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-based-art/3785-tutorial-trimoon-how-i-do-my-digital-art.html

I never even thought of approaching it that way, thank you!!

Oh, and I used Danny's Imp. settings for the base img. One BSOB detailed A and one Linear Brush D.

I haven't been posting much because I decided I want to work more on my drawing skills. I've been doing pencil drawings and experimenting with using photoshop (still with mouse, alas) as a drawing/painting medium.

Thought I owed some of you an explanation.

[JustChecking]

Originally Posted by glikster

I haven't been posting much because I decided I want to work more on my drawing skills. I've been doing pencil drawings and experimenting with using photoshop (still with mouse, alas) as a drawing/painting medium.

glad to hear you're not disappearing and fine effect you got there

CJ - that turned out just great; i love especially how that effect worked on the brighter one
Ro - just great
jaykita - love the soft, bright yet saturated colour
philbach - cool
keepemcomin - neat idea

[Janet Petty]

You've mastered it Ro. Great job.

Janet

[Janet Petty]

I have "horsey" friends and they thought I should remove all of the distracting background and concentrate on the two fine horses in the foreground. So that is what I did.

I applied everything except the texture before I began to paint, then merged visible, created a new layer above that with a mask applied and painted over the mask to reveal the horses underneath.

Believe it or not, the hardest part was trying not to have hard, crisp edges that made the horses look cutout (especially the part where the mane was). So ignore my feeble attempt in the mane area. I'll tweak the real picture in time, just not now.

After all was painted in, I then created a 50% gray layer with the texture and overlayed it, faded it to my liking and done.

Janet

[JustChecking]

wow, just great, Janet!

[CJ Swartz]

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

... the hardest part was trying not to have hard, crisp edges that made the horses look cutout (especially the part where the mane was). Janet

That is often one of the hardest parts to handle, and to my eyes -- you've handled it just right. Your emphasis on the horses is an excellent choice also. Good work! But this isn't surprising, since your work is typically good!

[byRo]

Janet, that's just perfect. from me too!

(now I'll have to do it again, without the bgackground just to see.. )
Rô

[Neve]

That's a beauty Janet and I'm bowled over by the rest too. They're all marvellous.

[ahutton]

Sort of an engraving technique involving buzz, PMAG hand drawing, cutting and pasting, grayscaling, lightening and darkening..you know the drill.

I refused to post the full image terribly reduced, so the full size image can be seen at http://www.mcwhirterfamilyofmercer.com/horses.jpg

I've just posted here a detail from the larger image.

Amy Hutton

[Janet Petty]

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, Amy. I love it.

janet

[catia]

Cloned out the other horses in PS7. Saved and opened in PSP9. Ran One step photo fix and USM. Ran edge preserving smooth and brush strokes. Saved and opened in PS7. Cloned out some brush strokes that I didn't like and added a texture layer. Flattend and ran a floating photo action I have.

Catia

[SWEngineer]

Wonderful variety so far. Mine turned out kind of pointillistic.

BG (hide the background horses)
A: copy BG. Select sky - Add noise - ColorPencil. Select Grass - Spatter. Select Horses - DryBrush.
B: Painter8 DullGrainChalk Clone of layer A on a transparent layer. (ColorBurn, 75% opacity)
C: Curves layer to lighten a bit
D: Burlap texture with a mask. Mask filled with RenderClouds & 2X differnence clouds.

-Mark

[Xaran]

My take on this one.

Removed background.

Xero Line Art and Photo Brush - aged photo.

Christine

[ahutton]

Christine, just lovely...what settings did you use for Lineart?

Amy

[Xaran]

Amy,

I used drawing mode at about -20 on the top slider.

Christine

[JustChecking]

Amy - incredible
Catia & Mark - wonderful diversity
Christine - wunderbarful

[byRo]

Amy - it was well worth the effort
Christine - oh how I wish I could download from Xero , very nice indeed.

Meanwhile, I set myself a little challenge - to do an embroidery / tapestry / cross-stitch rendering. Took some work but I learned a lot!

[Xaran]

Originally Posted by byRo

Christine - oh how I wish I could download from Xero , very nice indeed.

The set (3) with lineart in is less than 1MB to download. I could zip just that one if you like to make it even less.

Christine

[Janet Petty]

Ro, you what, made the horses into a cross stitch pattern? Oh dear, if my sister-in-law sees this, she'll have me making patterns for her from now until.......

Seriously, that is amazing. How'd you do that?

Janet

[byRo]

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

How'd you do that?

As I remember.....
I made two 4x4 patterns (attached), one for the background weave and one for the cross-stiches.
-Duplicate and resize to 25%, work on the small copy now...
-Separate horses from background (make mask), run Filter>Artistic>Cutout adjusted to give something like a stitching pattern. Problem is there's still too many colours.
-Save for web, type GIF decreasing the number of colours until it looks "right".
-Open GIF file and return Image>Mode to RGB, and resize 400% using Nearest Neighbour.
-Copy this back to the original with the mask
-Above this layer make an empty layer and fill with cross-stich pattern, blending overlay with a copy of the mask you made earlier;
-Below insert an empty layer and fill the the background weave.
-Tweak to taste.

(I know somebody's going to say that there's some plug-in for all this, but like I said it was a sort of a personal challenge)

Nice birthday present for you sister-in-law?
Have fun,
Rô