Help with Nails

[jonathan_k]

Hi all.

I'm thinking about adding slightly longer, painted nails to this girl's hand for a fashion image. Its a little raw looking, but kindly ignore that.

Is it even possible without a stupid amount of time being spent on it? Anyone got any good ideas? Not completely essential to the image, would just be a nice augmentation.

Currently I'm thinking of shooting a few fake nails at different angles under the same light and comping them in. Which is a little ludicrous.

Any direction/advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks. JK.

[Godmother]

Make a path with the shape and length you want - select it

Smudge (all layers ticked) the nails with a big (as big as the nail) brush to make it longer (basically one stroke should do it - add a bit of noise and blur a bit (just to match the original texture in the image /px noise)

Without losing the selection copy merge and paste (so you now have the full nail in another layer)

With a hard big brush painting with white at 20% opacity paint in the tips

Smudge (current layer now) smudge the edges if necessary

It sounds long bu it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes

Good luck

X

[jonathan_k]

That sounds about right - a very good direction for extra length and realism.

The problem for me though is that I would want them to look lacquered (as in nail polish). Oh, and also, say, olive or red in colour. Thats my major issue. Again, any thoughts? You solved my first issue in about 3 lines..

Thanks again

JK