[DannyRaphael]

Not sure if hers is a look of anger, sadness, concern or anticipation, but no matter. Have a fun time on this one regardless.

[CJ Swartz]

I sense a level of anxious concern in her, and I took the image to a darker mood. Used Photoshop -- watercolor layer modified by a Find edges layer, with some paper texture added.

[kiska]

I went the posterization via threshold route. Filled various areas with h/s, painting, etc.

[jaykita]

To me she looked lost and lonely, crying too! An "Eleanor Rigby" of this world.

[DannyRaphael]

Some very creative takes on this one so far... Too bad she doesn't look a little happier.

On mine I'm experimenting with an action I wrote that uses a free plugin to create a tiled look. I'm looking for "action testers," so if you're interested, send me an e-mail (not PM) [click my name above this post] and I'll reply with the action and link to the plugin download site.

In the mean time, Happy Monday!

~Danny~

[Legacy~Art]

Well...

I turned this girl into a colour pencil drawing on a wall, with the words "Who's that girl...?"

I am sure she would smile if she saw the artwork done on this site!

[kiska]

This time I applied image>red channel,invert. Then duped that layer.
ran the Iridius action>soft
duped layer
ran Iridius> CP
Messed with blends

[SWEngineer]

Well done everyone. A few select comments: Jaykita - What can I say except that I'm in awe of your talent. The patches on the clothing are perfect for the hobo / sad clown look you've created. Danny - Very clever composition. I like how you keep pushing all of us in new directions by way of your examples. Legacy - Very nice sketch effect. It might be better merged into the brick instead of just floating over the top. Or maybe a stucco wall would make a better backdrop to blend your image into.

For my effort, here's a happy accident. I was playing with glikster's idea of multiple passes of a filter with different channels (R,G,B) as selections for each pass. I wanted to see how much different this ends up than just a single pass on the full RGB image. I'll leave this as homework for the rest of you.

Anyway here's how:
BG
A: Copy BG. Run 3 passes of Chalk & Charcoal (default B&W colors) with R then G and then B channels as selections. (Not trivial to do in Elements 2. HiddenPower saved the day here.)
B: Copy BG. 1 pass of Chalk & Charcoal on the full RGB image.
C: Same as A but using Dry Brush for the filter
D: Same as B but using Dry Brush for the filter
Now the fun began. I used difference mode to compare separate filtration of each channel to one pass filtration. Soon I had several layers visible in difference mode, not just the ones I was comparing. This led me to try varied combinations and ultimately...
E: MergeVisible (BG,A,B,D) [note layers A,B,D all in Difference mode, 100% opacity)
F: MergeVisible (BG, A,B,C,D,E) with A-D in Difference mode and E in Multiply. This was a nice result on it's own but merge the lady's lips together in two places, making it look like she had fangs. I wasn't interested in making a vampire, so I looked to see what I could do with this as a base image:
G: Copy F. SmudgeStick. The end result is rather like a felt marker / mixed media sketch. Quite nice I thought.

Alternate interpretation: Copy F and run Texture>MosaicTile. I haven't like the output from this filter when I have tinkered with it before, but here it worked nicely.

Another starting point for endless possibilities I'm afraid. So many filter combinations, so little time...

-Mark

[kiska]

I Couldn't Help Myself!!!!

[LQQKER]

Interesting renditions.

I kept what I liked and dicarded the rest. Thought I'd attempt an abstract look without losing the hard expression.

Cropped image.
Removed the nose jewerly.
Made multiple layers using various tools for BG (sketchmaster, Nik, Xero).
Hue & Sat adj.
Contrast adj.
Increased brilliance a bit.
Lightened center and darkened borders slightly.
Enhanced colors.
Nik skylight, midnight and contrast.
Cropped once again.

[glikster]

Duped BG.
Inverted layer.
Faded to Darken.
Changed Layer blending to Color.
stamped visible.
Ran Photoshop:Sketch:Chrome - 4, 7.
Faded to Pin Light.
Set Layer Blending to Overlay.
Stamped visible.
Ran Photoshop:Pixelate:Crystallize - 10.
Faded to Lighten.
Duped that layer.
Ran Photoshop:Stylize:Glowing Edges - 1, 20, 4.
Inverted layer.
Set Layer Blending to Darken.
Stamped Visible.
Selected the cape using Color Range and Quickmask.
Ran Impressionist:Marker:Textured Sepia Tonal.
Faded to Screen.
Duped that layer.
Loaded Red Channel as selection.
Ran Impressionist:Paint:Hot Swirl (changed brush size to 63).
Loaded Green Channel as selection.
Ran same filter.
Faded to Darken.
Loaded Blue Channel as selection.
Ran same filter.
Faded to Darken.
Ran Photoshop:Sharpen:Unsharp Mask- 152, 2.3, 0.
Faded to lower opacity.
Selected all, shrank, inverted and feathered the selection and filled with white.
Oh yeah, and ran Photoshop:Texture:Texturizer - Sandstone, 140, 2, Bottom Left.

It's different, right?

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by glikster

It's different, right?

No question about that... But different in a GOOD way!

=========

LQQKER... that's a very interesting look. I did about three double-takes. You've achieved great success in achieving "a really wet" look around the edges.

=========

On mine I did a fairly common sketch technique for a base:
* Duplicate Background
* Desaturate the duplicate
* Duplicate the desaturated layer, CTRL + I (to invert it), Color Dodge, then apply some Gaussian Blur (to taste) and merge down to combine the layers.

Then I went in a different direction...
* Duplicated the sketch layer and applied some Artistic > Film Grain.
* To this I applied the Virtual Painter Oil Painting filter (a couple times), because it has kind of a dissolving effect. Unfortunately this wiped out too much eye and mouth detail.
* To restore some of that detail I duplicated the sketch layer, copied it to the top of the layer stack and set the blend mode to Hard Light. Then I added a Hide All (black) layer mask and airbrushed white to restore the facial detail.
* Created a new layer and Alt + Layer > Merge Visible.
* Added another dose of Film Grain and a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer with the hope of evening out the tone.
* Added a Levels Adjustment layer and significantly increased the shadows. Ctrl + I (to invert it), then airbrushed with white in areas I wanted to darken.
* Top layer: A white inside stroke and a darker outside stroke for the frame.

- - - - -

#2 is a tiled version of the first.

~Danny~

[sidis]

. .

[ahutton]

I think she's a "country goth." She therefore requires buzzing and the VP Gothic Oil. (My oldest daughter used to be a goth.)

Amy

[Duv]

Painter 8: Chalk Cloner plus Van Gogh

Photoshop: White Vignette
One U shaped Curves adjustment
Curves Adjustment S shaped.

Cheers
Dave