Re-Creating Cleavage?

[rnbluvva]

Ok, this might sound like a strange question...

Is there a way to re-create cleavage, or put it in the right place?

What I've got here is an image where the cleavage was 'lost' because the image was shot lying down. I tried to go in with the bloat tool in the 'Liquify' command but, wow, that really didn't work at all. I basically mutilated the image, so I undid what I had done.

Are there any tutorials on this sort of thing, or can someone maybe point me in the right direction? I assume it's something in liquify and perhaps some painted on hi-lighting tricks?

**removed image and image link**

A smaller version is posted below.

[megl]

That's a tough one! Glenn Feron is quite good at the cleavage deal, so maybe you can get some inspiration here:

http://www.glennferon.com/portfolio1/portfolio27.html
http://www.glennferon.com/portfolio1/portfolio31.html
http://www.glennferon.com/portfolio1/portfolio30.html
http://www.glennferon.com/portfolio1/portfolio41.html

But then again - he always has just a little too start with.

Anyways - I'm puzzled as well about the subject, so let us know, if you figure it out!

[creeduk]

I think you will need to find a similar look or same model differnt pose and sample to cleavage and add it subtley. Although really there should be none in that position unless they were false!

[Ken Fournelle]

My attempt:

[Kraellin]

basically, cleavage is something caused by bras. the breasts get pushed up a bit and closer together. not all do this, but a lot of them do. it also tends to be true that the larger the breasts, the more cleavage that results from this. when a woman lies down, the breasts tend to flatten and move to the sides, completely opposite of what a bra does. even in the case of a large breasted woman, this is going to be the case.

in the case of the model in the picture, you can easily see that the breasts have indeed flattened and moved to the sides quite a bit. thus, no cleavage to speak of. you can trick the eye a bit with shadowing to give the illusion of depth. this is quite common in a 2d image where you want more 3d effect, but in this picture, you're going to be very limited. the model seems to have her back arched, making the bottom end of the ribs stand up unnaturally and this reduces that natural line from the neck to the bellybutton which normally has a greater depth.

so, to give the woman in this picture more cleavage would take quite a bit of work, prolly including some warp, skew, shadowing, hand painting and so on, and even then i doubt it would look very natural. you'd also have to get rid of the whole moved to the sides effect. not an easy task here.

Craig

[Kraellin]

ok, i wasnt going to do this, but i gave it a shot. this is just a cursory attempt to show the general effect. and there are others that could prolly easily do this better, but here ya go.

lots of clone and push here. i used clone to raise her right breast up closer to the middle of her chest and push to raise her left and to raise the curve on the clothing line over same. lots of cloning for shadows and texture, borrowing from various tones and hues here and there. i also reduced the raised rib effect a bit with cloning that area a bit darker. i also added some shadow in the clothing over her right breast and reduced the curve on the clothing outline on what would be her left breast on the outside edge.

overall, i'm not real pleased with the effect, but it at least it shows you a bit of what might be possible.

ken's shows this also.

tricky thing to do. lots of clone, push, and re-shadowing.

Craig

[PatrickB]

Hi Natalie,

at first, yeah I got your email and will do the photos as soon as I can, have been away for some days now....

About the cleavage thingy, I quickly did one for you, it's sure not real perfect. As the others said, it's quite tricky to find an image to sample from (actually I was a little lazy and took a picture and used it as an overlay) and to make it look quite natural

Patrick

[creeduk]

The problem is as Kraellin points out the breast is visibly lower so the cleavage looks wrong with out making some effort to move it up. I think Ken is on the right path by highlighting the left area but changing the shape of the right one to make it look more possible.

[rnbluvva]

So basically the moral of this story is, wear a bra and brush it out after, or shoot the whole thing differently! LOL

Yeah this is very tricky as you have all pointed out.

What you were able to do with it is great considering.

Craig: I think the job you did was remarkable. The breasts really were flattened by lying down but you brought some of them back 'up'. Thanks for sharing what tools you used. I hadn't thought of clone. I was just trying to use liquify.... shows how little I know!

Patrick: cool. I was wondering how you did the whole image overlay thing? Any way you could post a screen shot of your layers palette??

Ken: excellent.

I think you all did great creating something from nothing!

[Legacy~Art]

Well an old wives tale here, but for ladies with small breasts my grandmother use to say get your blusher brush with bronzer and put in a cleavage, so get your brush add some bronzer brown to it and paint it in girl!!!

[Kraellin]

RnB,

thanks. i'm sure others on this forum could do better. flora comes to mind for this one. my excuse is that i'm also still learning, but i think i at least gave an impression of what would be necessary here. for me, who doesnt have photoshop yet and who is still learning all the tools and techniques, this just seemed an easier task with basic tools like clone and push. i didnt even use any layers on this one...or silicone

and yes, a re-shoot with one of those bras that is basically a half cup that pushes in from the sides might have helped too. still, it's an interesting challenge and good practice.

legacy,

yup, sounds like my late maternal grandmother. she used to model a bit back in the 1910's, 1920's i think it was. i've one picture of her where she posed for a photographer. things have certainly changed since then

Craig

edit: RnB, one other thought on this... you could use tools like warp and liquify, but it somewhat depends on the situation and the tool. warp in psp isnt very good, but i have used the photoshop warp a few times when i was using the demo version and it can do some pretty remarkable things. there is also a program coming out soon for windows that is supposed to have a good warp. Vertuse? i forget the name. i ran across a thread on it in one of the other forums here. it just came out for Mac. Windows comes next. if i run across the thread again i'll post the link.

[PatrickB]

Hi Natalie,

I'm sorry but haven't saved the psd-file for this image

I can explain in short words how I did it though:

1. Find a suitable image of a naked woman or similar with a fitting cleavage. (No fun if you're a man btw, took me several nervous hours

2. Paste it into the image as a new layer and fitted more or less so it fits to the image. I did make the mistake of cutting out the breasts only so it was pretty difficult to estimate size and position...

3. Desaturate the breasts-layer, then select blend mode overlay and that's about it. Now just mask out everything you don't need. Maybe a little tweaking on the contrast so it shows up well is needed, but that's the basic procedure.

The tricky part is to find a nice cleavage to use, since as the others pointed out, the cleavage of a standing woman used on a lying woman is a little unusual

Patrick

[rnbluvva]

Patrick,

Thanks so much for explaining what you did. I sent you email BTW.

Let me tell you... the bra thing is necessary, biggies or smallies, blush, bronzer or nothing! LOL

Learning to pose also helps some! Ah well, live and learn!