Creative Portraits: Redhead in a Hat with a Pensive Look

[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 PS:Sketch:Chrome - 4, 7.
Faded to Pin Light.
Set Layer Blending to Overlay.
Stamped visible.
Ran PS:Pixelate:Crystallize - 10.
Faded to Lighten.
Duped that layer.
Ran PS: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 PS: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 PS: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

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

Cheers
Dave

[ahutton]

After consulting with my ex-goth daughter, who is now 35...I came up with this. Grayscale, impresionist pencil sketch, xero line art, increase color, add blood red lips.

Amy

[byRo]

Amy, just when I was going to say how much I like the first one - then I saw the second (the red frame is very important). Great stuff!!

Wandered around the PS filters and found Filter>Pixelate>Facet, seems like I hadn't noticed this one before.

Applied Facet twice (new favourite filter) , copied to a new layer and applied Lighting (spotlight from below, texture blue channel). Put in a texture layer between the two and twiddled opacities.

Rô

[jaykita]

Trying out some sketch effects. Final layer has a couple of textures from Trimoon's collection.
I've discovered David Nagel's brushes for Ps 7, and feel like a kid in his dad's candy store!! The "hair and fur" series works well for sketches. You can download them HERE.

[Janet Petty]

Every person who has contributed to the stylizing of this protrait has influenced my final composition. Too much good stuff ignore. You all deserve a huge pat on the back.

It has taken me the better part of two days and several false starts and stops to finally reach a place with this portrait that I'm comfortable with. What finally did it for me was looking at the channels. The red channel made her almost glow. I worked from there and tried to impart a small part of that glow into a colored work.

I went bold for everything except her face. There, I worked in tiny detail, adding and subtracting color and shape. I added highlights to her lips and eyes, removed shadows...then I painted.

Lastly, I added texture, which softened the whole portrait and blended the tiny detail with the bold strokes in the rest of the composition.

Hurrah!!! I'm done.

Janet

P.S. I should add that I'm still not happy with what I tried to do to the eyes; but if I don't get some sleep, I won't be worth diddly tomorrow.

[CJ Swartz]

Janet, love the texture and the glow. I like her eyes -- it's like the next step after she spots what she was looking for...

[jaykita]

Excellent work, Janet! Her eyes --well, she seems to have had some sort of revelation., some shocking news? Just a thought, dont mind me, but i'd rather she was looking directly at me. What dya say?

[Janet Petty]

I'm still playing with blending modes. She looks cold to me (and I don't mean the temperature), so I gave her an barren and icy domain.

For what it is worth,

Janet

[jaykita]

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

I'm still playing with blending modes. She looks cold to me (and I don't mean the temperature), so I gave her an barren and icy domain.

For what it is worth,

Janet

Snow queen? BRRRR! She's looking right at me! Great Job there, Janet. Tell me, did you use the KPT filter for this effect?

[Janet Petty]

My ignorance is now up for public display. What is the KPT filter?

So I guess the answer would have to be no. Since I don't know what it is.


Janet

[jaykita]

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

My ignorance is now up for public display. What is the KPT filter?

So I guess the answer would have to be no. Since I don't know what it is.


Janet

Here's some info on KPT for you.

[DannyRaphael]

Corel Painter, yes?

Holy smokes! You're on fire, girl!

[Neve]

How did I miss this marvellous first effort by you Janet.....hooray...it's a smasher!

[plewis6]

First time posting. Hello everyone! (echoes of "Hello Paul" ring back).

First thing, doubled the resolution then:

1) Stretched the hue range in the hair

2) Tried a VP Oil that didn't work

3) Tried a KPT Pyramid Paint that worked better

4) Blended that VP Oil layer at about 30% to get the color into the blacks since my old art instructor would have shot me for using true black in a painting

5) Pulled into Corel Painter and stroked a clone with the Oil cloner. Pulled the hair and jacket in the right directions, left the other strokes at 45 degree angle.

6) Fixed her nose and bags under the eyes

7) Created a couple of quick framing options and halved the resolution back down.

Can't wait to get deeper into these forums. This is a gold mine considering everything I just did I had to figure out on my own while it seems old hat around here. What a great resource and a great community!!!

Still a little too photographic, although the full res images show the strokes a bit more. My studio sells to people who have us take the photos, so I tend to constrain my creativity to things I think the customer (in this case the unknown woman in the hat) would buy. Keeping this goal in mind, I would love some constructive criticism and ideas about what to improve on. Compliments are always appreciated, but they don't help me get better. I have thick skin and would prefer the the American Idol - Simon Cowell honesty.

Thanks,
-paul

[Janet Petty]

Welcome to RP. You are right about this being a gold mine. The people and resources here are the best.

While some will give you criticism, most will enjoy your art, offer suggestions, learn from you, share their ideas, etc. This is a place were art is explored and expanded upon for the sheer joy of the subject. You will undoubtedly fit right in and find yourself feasting in photos and what can be accomplished with them just like the rest of us. And you will bring a new dimension with depth and perspective that will enrich our abilities as well.

BTW, I like the transformation of the redhead. You did wonders for her.

Janet

[SWEngineer]

Welcome Paul! I like your effort overall. Since you asked, here's my 2c for things to consider:
I like the 2nd framing effort. The 1st still has too much of the busy background showing. The faint streaks of color in the hat and cape are very nice. The light colored wrap around the hat is too light / lacking detail. In fact its kind of a distraction as the brightest object in the scene. Finally, as you noted, it still has a strong photographic character. In this regard, the woman's face doesn't quite fit in with the more 'artified' hair and clothing.

Hope to see more from you in the future.

-Mark