My latest problem

[Ausimax]

Having some difficulty finding the woman I know is hiding in this image, very much a WIP at present, any ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.








Max

[kiska]

Here's a quickie outline.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/89769830

[Hannie]

Hi Max,

These photos are the hardest, aren't they!  You can still see a lot of detail but when it comes to the point of restoration you find there isn't that much to work with!  :'(  I thought Kiska's idea was pretty good or something with the original photo as a top layer in luminosity blending mode over your WIP so you can find some more detail to put back in?

Good luck on this one!

:loveit:

Hannie

[Ausimax]

Hi Kiska, like the hairstyle, gets rid of that great expanse of forehead. :up2:

Hannie, these drive me mad, when you scrape off all the muck you don't find the person you expected. :'(  Even though you check every single feature and they are all correct with the original it still doesn't look right, tried just about everything with this one, every blending mode possible.

Have sent it home, if Jan doesn't like it she can toss it back in the gallery, if I'd had a hi-res version of Kiska's sketch I'd have sent it, looked better! :-[


Max

[Mhayes]

Max, what a really difficult picture you had to work on! You really didn't have much of anything left to restore. I am stuck with the same sort of problem with the baby and child that I am working on. I know that the little girl has a bob type hair style, but there are no details in the hair. What texture I have is more damage than actual hair. You did a better job than I have been able to do. After seeing the problems you have had, I went online looking for some good hair tutorials. I found two that I think are pretty good: http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161271&page=1  and  http://www.elfwood.com/farp/theart/gweyenihair/gweyenihair.html

I know that you have already uploaded your photo, but thought maybe these two links might be helpful.

Margie

[Ausimax]

Hi Margie, I am slowly getting better at hair, that wasn't my main problem, getting the face to look OK was the worst, it was only a 3x4 so there wasn't much to work with.

Thanks for the tutorial links, I had used the Worth1000 one but had not run into the other, this is another I learned a lot from.


http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3174

Like most it deals with creating the whole hair not integrating it with what already exists, but useful all the same.


Max

[Mhayes]

Hi Max, what a great tutorial! Here is another link I didn't list because I thought it was just more of the same. What it does have that is different, is explaining how shadows help make the hair look part of the face, instead of floating on top.
Link:  http://www.gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/how_to_draw_human_hair.php

Margie

[Hannie]

Thanks Margie and Max for the great tutorials.  I still find it impossible to draw hair so this will be wonderful practice material.

:loveit:

Hannie

[Ausimax]

Thanks Margie, another good tut, the other one on the up-swept hairdo looks OK too.

Hannie I'm not good on hair but I think I'm improving, I use the broad-brush approach and just go for it, I used to try too hard at first and it just wouldn't flow, now I just make a selection of the hair outline and working on a separate layer or many, just keep playing around till I get something acceptable, when you are finished giving it a blur helps to smooth it out a bit.


Max

[Hannie]

Max, that is good idea about the layers.  Don't know why I always forget to use more layers in my attempts!

:loveit:

Hannie

[Mhayes]

Max, I love the tutorial you posted! I haven't totally mastered the hair yet, but it is looking a lot better than before. What I thought was an interesting point is that the author stresses starting out with a dark base color for hair, even if the subject has blond hair. On the other tutorial, there was the use of purple, which I will hold off for now on that.  ;D

Hannie, one nice thing about more layers is that you don't have to go back to square one if you don't like what you have done. An interesting step in Max's tutorial was on Step 2 where the 2nd layer was set to color opacity mode--missed that at first. On the hair I also made a couple of layer groups so that I could compare different colors.

Margie

[Ausimax]

Hannie, layers are the greatest thing since sliced bread,they allow you so much flexibility, I am just waiting till Adobe bring out CS4 by which time I hope they will have invented "Intelligent" layers, you know, the ones that tell you that you are working on the WRONG layer!

I was working on one lately with  about 35 layers on the go and every time I went to move them up or down the order I discovered I had been working on the wrong one and that meant changing the order stuffed up everything, then I had to erase it from the wrong layer and do it again on the correct one, talk about getting old and stupid.

Margie some of these tutorials are really good, I'm sure if we took off a bit of time and really practised doing them we would get great results, but I guess most are like me the only time we get to practise is when we actually need to use the ability.


Max

[truckersau]

Ahh Max, join the club mate.
I do this all the time.

I was working on one lately with  about 35 layers on the go and every time I went to move them up or down the order I discovered I had been working on the wrong one and that meant changing the order stuffed up everything, then I had to erase it from the wrong layer and do it again on the correct one, talk about getting old and stupid.

Great fun is'nt it.

[Hannie]

Ray, Photoshop CS actually still has the handy little icon next to the eye visibility icon.  That icon indicates if the layer is active or not.  For some mysterious reason Adobe took that very handy tool out when they presented CS2!  It makes no sense at all.

Max and Margie, Thanks for reminding me about layers and groups.  I really have to put more effort in using those because it gives so much more choice to change things that you don't like at a later stage.  (without having to redo the whole photo!).

:loveit:

Hannie