Overdoing - but for the hell of it ...

[Kraellin]

ok, home again and thought i'd give this one a try also. i did up several renditions and may post some more of them later, but wanted to see how this matched up with your vision first, jiger

[Jiger]

I see you're thinking is going in the right direction, Kraellin, tho this effect is a bit "too much"... Still - it gave me another idea for a movie-poster... ( quickly grabbing Wacom and pen.. ).

I hope you're having fun with this since it has now turned to a personal interest subject for me. If you look at the "ad" ( work copy ) above your last post you see what is being displayed of the lady. Not much room for a "glow" there and this is - with some key alterations - what is going to the printers.

The image here displayed is about half of original size, which shows her down to the waist, and it is that image I was planning to put the glow-effect on...
Sorry, but I can't put the original image up due to copyright.

-- Jiger --

[Kraellin]

jiger,

ok, i'll work on the subtle part

but, on the other side of things, i found myself having way too much fun with this image. here are some of the results of that fun...

Craig

[Jiger]

Hey, Kraellin !

Ok - you are having fun there
And, please, by all means - do !

Number 4 in the row got me on track for another thing on my agenda, so it does have effect.

Have fun !

-- Jiger --

[Kraellin]

yup, definitely having fun

ok, going back to your original request/quest... how bout this one? now, steer me a bit here. tell me what's missing or wrong and what's right or ok.

craig

[Jiger]

Craig !

Glad you're enjoying yourself while doing this !

Sorry for not responding earlier, but I've been in client meeting the whole day (wednsday) making my colours fly, and you know what ?
Congratulate me - I got their fliers/brochures/product catalogue account ( = $$$ !! ) YEAAAHH - I LOVE THIS BUSINESS !!!

Ok, ok - I'll get myself silly drunk later.
Back to our business.

>
>steer me a bit here. tell me what's missing or wrong and what's right or ok.
>
Well, to be quite honest I've begun to think we're trying the "impossible" here, simply since we're dealing with this all white background making life hard for us.

Now, 1stLite had something going in the right direction in one of her attempts (attached), but had the effect concentrated on the hair - which was not what I was intending.
Problem is (white background and all) that I "saw" the glow emitting from behind her (yes - I know ... ), and it includes no blurring of her outlines. This got me thinking it had to be on a separate layer which probably includes making a clipping path around the girl - hair and all - copy that into two new layers and play around with layerstyles on the first layer copy until desired effect is achieved. The effect itself should be subtle, not emitting too far out and basically using the colour tone that can be sampled from the light skintones of her shoulder.
( Oh Lord - does this make any sense .. ? )

I got something similar going on in the flier/poster "Lumina" on my website:
http://www.jiger.org/Graphdes/Lumina.htm
Here I used it to make the text glow - kind of - tho it may be hard to distinguish on this small size image.
And - the bg is black ...

But Craig - you have my full understanding if you think it's time to back out. I myself will be very occupied for some time (for reasons above), so I don't know when I can have a go at it myself ...

Tho - very thankful indeed for the things you've already done !

-- Jiger --

[Kraellin]

jiger,

that's fine. dont worry about it if you're busy. i'll probably play around with it some more just because i enjoy the model and the challenge.

one thing i thought would be interesting to do on these forums is almost exactly what we're doing in this thread. someone posts an image or even just a text description and others attempt to achieve what the person doing the original posting is trying to convey in words. this would be similar to working with a client who knows what he wants in an image and is trying to communicate that in words to the retoucher. the challenge is to convert the intention into the image as closely as possible. this is a skill and it shld be practiced by artists just as any other skill is practiced. the ability to duplicate what the client needs and wants can be quite frustrating at times and quite difficult. it's actually more of a communications skill than an editing skill. and so, this is somewhat why i pursued this with you. i wanted to practice this skill.

and, one thought on the image here. perhaps if the white background were darkened a shade or two overall, that a glow could more easily be achieved around the model.

craig

[goose443]

You can try a very simple luminosity selection (apple option ~ on a mac). You can further tweak your selection by going into quick mask mode and working with levels. Make a new layer with the selection, lighten with levels or curves and blur slighlty. You can then vary the opacity until you get what you like.

[Jiger]

goose443:
That is a very interesting thing you've got going on there and something I will experiment with in a retouch assignment that doesn't require skintexture to be preserved. I'd say you'we got a very striking Perfect Skin technique worked out with this method.
Thank you very much for sharing. Goes directly to my File of Neat Tricks.

Craig:
I most perfectly understand and it's a great idea !
Tho - it requires some level of skill from the "client" to communicate their vision(-s), and I've done very poorly on that ...
This in spite of the worse thing I know is when a client goes :
" ...ahhh - we would like something nice here .... could you do that ... ? ...you know how to do these things ... do something nice... you know ... nice..."
Yeah - sure I know what I consider "nice", but what does the client consider nice .. ? !! You know - being given such slack you just haven't got a clue what to do.

I also generally set the deal with a client such that they will have to accept at lest one "check meeting" - preferrably two - before deadline. Also (Very Important!!) what is to be considered within contract and what to be added to the billing if requested at a later time.
Saves you a lot of late hours and regrets having ever taken on the job.

So, to be a better "client" for you I say:
"Ok, Craig, I/we can accept a compromise here and go with your idea of darkening the background a shade or so - if this improves on the image and helps getting our intentions through. Show me/us what you have in mind."

>
>the challenge is to convert the intention into the image as closely as possible. this is a skill and it shld be >practiced by artists just as any other skill is practiced.
>
Hear - hear !
I most certainly second that any time.

Now - have more fun !

-- Jiger --

[carlos_0575]

Jiger

I hope I have followed what you are trying to achieve.

I have achieved this effect by duplicating the layer and applying a radial blur set to zoom at 25 amount 'to give the intended effect a direction, instead of just gaussian blur, which makes the image look fuzzy'. The layer was then set to screen. This is then masked to affect mainly the hair but also selected face areas to give the idea of light shining from behind.

I then made the green channel of this layer a selection and filled it with a mid skin tone on a new layer. I masked it similarly to the previous layer and set it to multiply.

Finally i reordered the layers so that the initial screen layer was on top.

This is only my second post but i enjoy reading everyones comments and ideas and hope to participate more when work allows....

Carlos

[Jiger]

carlos_0575:

This is only my second post but i enjoy reading everyones comments and ideas and hope to participate more when work allows....

For being your second post here on RP it is impressing indeed, Carlos !
I absolutely like the effect you have achieved there, because:
1 - the radial blur, as you say, gives the effect a direction (good thinking!) and
2 - you have taken care to preserve the skin texture, which was in the original job description.

This thread have generated a lot of posts so far and a number of suggested solutions have been presented. Tho your suggestion is not quite on target it is definitely going to my File of Neat Tricks due to the two reasons given above.
Good work, Carlos, and I'm looking forward to see more posts from you here at RP.

-- Jiger --

[carlos_0575]

Thank you Jiger

I only came across this site a few weeks ago. I am a senior creative artworker/retoucher with 10 years experience and a lot of my work involves photo manipulation and colour correction. More recently for packaging, but generally whatever comes thru the door.

I wish I had found this site years ago. It's definitely a great source for ideas.

I'm teaching myself flash and have nearly got a retouching site sorted, so hopefully you guys can have a look and tell me what u think.

I look forward to seeing what new challenges u can come up with Jiger.

Carlos

[Jiger]

carlos_0575

In light of this:

I am a senior creative artworker/retoucher with 10 years experience ...

it should really be me saying Thank You to you.

I wish I had found this site years ago. It's definitely a great source for ideas.

So do I. It would have shortened the time for learning retouch techniques radically. Just have a browse through the Tutorials section and you'll see what I mean.

... and I'll be most happy to have a look at your site, Carlos.
Just provide the link, either here or to my mailbox and you've got it.
My mailadress is no secret so here goes:

webmaster@jiger.org

I see from your profile you're located in GB.
I'm very pleased to have made your acquaintance, Carlos.

-- Jiger --