Creative Portraits: The Fisherman

[Swampy]

I wanted a drawing look, but didn't want to lose the details in this man's face. So much character there!

Photoshop CS

1. Duplicated the image and took the duplicate from RGB to Grayscale to pure black and white (Bitmapped) with 50% as the cut off point for grays.
2. Took this b/w version back through grayscale to RGB and then selected all the white areas and deleted the white. This left a a very definitive "sketch" for the details in his face.
3. Moved the sketch over to the original RGB document (holding down the shift key so it would center exactly to the origina)l This is the top layer at 100%
4. I then duplicated the Background (original) layer and ran a curves AL, but instead of using the normal curve tool, I opted for the pencil and broke up the midtones and got this wild array of color throughout his face. I set the AL to 28% opacity. I "clipped" the AL to the color copy below it.
5. I then went into the Background copy layer again and used the Liquify tool with a big brush to push the color areas around so they were more random. Also did a pretty strong Gaussian Blur to soften the effect.
6. I added a new layer under the Background copy layer and ran black & white clouds filter and some noise and G Blur to break up the color even more. 100% opacity
7. Set the Background copy layer to 53% opacity to let some of the clouds layer underneath show through.

BTW... I always work on duplicates of the original background layer so I can go back and start from scratch or have the original to add another layer somewhere.

[tjacobs]

The graphite_2 preset for gimpressionist came from the wingimp site (http://www.wingimp.org/tutorial/) and the vangogh (LIC) plugin is standard with the latest releases. I think the graphite_2 preset is much better than the standard line drawing presents for gimpressionist.

[lkroll]

Not art this time, but I just wanted to share with you all a technique that I've been playing around with for a long time. Retinex has been around for a long time; GIMP has a cool plugin called Retinex which implements this algorithm. I duplicated for a total of three layers. I run Retinex on the top layer. I set the layer property to Grain Extract. I merge the top two layers and Invert the resulting layer. I set the new layer property to Overlay (duplicate as needed adjusting Opacity for the top layer to taste) and flatten.

Reserve the right to render him later.

[lkroll]

Did a Niemanesque rendering using Impresionist Color Tinfoil and Colored Pencil presets.

[Chance_1]

Many great renditions on this image.

Here's mine in Painter 9, using Wet Oils.

[Steve Conway]

Love those craggy lines. Thought I would bring them out a bit.

Steve

[dkcoats]

Lots of great stuff here. JustChecking's stands out (tried to duplicate it; mine didn't look anything like that ) & LQQKER's, too, among others. This image pretty much screamed "Paint me!"

Let's see if I have this straight.
Layers, top down:

AHB/darken/100%
DJR01 pencil sketch mono detail d stroke:custom color/darken/12%
DJR01 pencil sketch mono detail d stroke:image/hard light/51
DJR muckup 2M/normal/60
BG copy after shadow/highlight/normal/100

whew

dc

[Kraellin]

lkroll,
i want to hear more about this retinex thing. nice effect and want to see more of it also.

chance,
great oil look!

steve,
ah, dragan surfaces yet again. very cool

craig

[lkroll]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

lkroll,
i want to hear more about this retinex thing. nice effect and want to see more of it also.

chance,
great oil look!

steve,
ah, dragan surfaces yet again. very cool

craig

Here Craig. I did some research a while back and just did a search again. I believe Retinex was a development by NASA to enhance lost details that normally could not be seen. Here's a link to NASA's explaination. GIMP has a built in plugin by the same name. On it's own, it's nearly useless since the "enhancements" are quite outside the norm. If you combine the results with layer property adjustments though, you get a tool that I have yet seen an equal. You can use it for clarification (fog removal for example), shadow enhancement (as I shown above), and overall image light equalization (flattening; very important concept in digital art since most paintings are usually like this). I believe there are Retinex plugins for photoshop, but the last time I looked, they were not free. Just another plug for GIMP. Again, though I use GIMP a lot because of my personal comfort zone, I can not do everything without a lot of help from PS. I plan to purchase CS2 when I recover a little from Christmas (if you know what I mean).

[Britsdad]

I must have looked at this thread 20 times, there's some great stuff on it.
I'm playing with Painters "sargent brush" I'm afraid the "look" is still a illuding me but I do like the way it puts down "paint".
Anyway here's my quick try.
John

[Steve Conway]

Here's another shot (you will pardon the expression) at this gentleman.

Steve

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by Britsdad

I must have looked at this thread 20 times, there's some great stuff on it.
I'm playing with Painters "sargent brush" I'm afraid the "look" is still a illuding me but I do like the way it puts down "paint".
Anyway here's my quick try.
John

Nicely done. Really like the strokes. How did you get the canvas effect on the edges?

[Britsdad]

Thankyou Danny, as for the canvas effect, it's a background layer, I've just been looking for it again to give you the link, but I can't find it. If you want it I will e-mail it to you.
John

[sylvia1065]

Smudging / contrast adj., etc...
Sylvia

[alexmeta]

Nice works every one!

Attempt to watercolor.