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| Tre Marjeta - 2/5 |
This is the second (third, in editing order) out of five Regulars this sweet, nice lady comissioned to me, besides the three Artistics she tasked Zipi with (and oh, you gotta check those, too!).
It wasn't bound to be particularly difficult so, as with the previous ones, I worked on a timeframe plan instead of a goal-driven one: whatever feasible within schedule, doing as many of the main tasks (liquify, background, perceptual matching, etc) as possible before tackling increasingly smaller details with whatever time left. I'm kinda missing having a goal-driven assignment again, so as to go totally OCD-crazy, but Tre's order is too big for that and, while she gave us plenty of time and I'm in fact well ahead of schedule by now, I'd rather save it for the last two pics (which may have some pose/perspective issues)... or rest a bit, since I'm not feeling all that well these days.
I already had a clear idea that I wanted to put her on a bucolic background... a prairie, probably, or maybe a beach; I thought the latter would be easier for realistic shadow projection (sand being a far more plain surface than grass), but I just couldn't resist the challenge... or using my scenes, for that matter ^^
Anyway, and to avoid perspective issues from past pictures, I went the trouble of recreating the posing, at the exact same spot she would've been; so I had some fun seeing myself in very cute, very feminine poses until I found the one we used with her.
As usual, and after pasting her onto the background (which I did early on, due to the aforementioned “timeframe plan”) she looked... well, pasted. The usual perceptual mismatch: different lighting, color tonalities, contrast... a couple adjustment layers went a long way into fixing that.
Liquifying was especially laborious in this picture; I don't remember if her pants were mesh, but I guess even if they had been, the pose sure wasn't making things easy... the knees were spiky as hell. So, lots of work there... and the funniest thing is, most of what I fixed would end up covered by the grass anyway! Oh well... it happens (a lot... *sigh*).
Once liquified and small glitches smoothed out, and with the basic perceptual matching done, I tackled her projected shadow with a repressed sigh at the task (it can be a bit lengthy, especially when it needs Lens blur)... only to find out that, just with a few soft, hand-drawn doodles onto the grass with a dark brush and overlay blending mode (they should give a Nobel prize to whoever invented it!), it looked great and with far less effort!
Next, I took a whole page directly from “Zipi's Book On How To Do A Nice Picture”, and added some grass at her feet (or, well, legs) to help blending Tre onto the scene; I'm still way behind Zipi in Photoshop brushes usage, but I managed to find one remotely resembling grass (actually it was hair strands put upside down, but sssshhh!) and even to apply it decently; I'm quite satisfied with how that turned out... Zipi level it ain't, but heck, it works ^_^
At that point I remembered that Tre had asked for a blue rose somewhere in the pic... apparently she's very fond of them; this is where I had to cut some corners and, instead of capturing one "live" in-world, which would have allowed for far better cutout & perspective, I had to make do with a quick Deviant Art search... oh well, it ain't that bad, is it?
Tough I admit I very nearly abuse it, it was hard to resist the temptation to add some further sunlight effects, with sunbeams and all... enter Tiffen DFX... yaaay!
Finally, the usual savior: Nik Color Efex for final, overall photographic/atmospheric filters which, as usual and besides adding further niceness, almost always help in eliminating residual perceptual mismatches between subject and background -the eye kinda “sees” the same effect in both, and thus deduces they were always there, together from the moment of capture.
I already had a clear idea that I wanted to put her on a bucolic background... a prairie, probably, or maybe a beach; I thought the latter would be easier for realistic shadow projection (sand being a far more plain surface than grass), but I just couldn't resist the challenge... or using my scenes, for that matter ^^
Anyway, and to avoid perspective issues from past pictures, I went the trouble of recreating the posing, at the exact same spot she would've been; so I had some fun seeing myself in very cute, very feminine poses until I found the one we used with her.
As usual, and after pasting her onto the background (which I did early on, due to the aforementioned “timeframe plan”) she looked... well, pasted. The usual perceptual mismatch: different lighting, color tonalities, contrast... a couple adjustment layers went a long way into fixing that.
Liquifying was especially laborious in this picture; I don't remember if her pants were mesh, but I guess even if they had been, the pose sure wasn't making things easy... the knees were spiky as hell. So, lots of work there... and the funniest thing is, most of what I fixed would end up covered by the grass anyway! Oh well... it happens (a lot... *sigh*).
Once liquified and small glitches smoothed out, and with the basic perceptual matching done, I tackled her projected shadow with a repressed sigh at the task (it can be a bit lengthy, especially when it needs Lens blur)... only to find out that, just with a few soft, hand-drawn doodles onto the grass with a dark brush and overlay blending mode (they should give a Nobel prize to whoever invented it!), it looked great and with far less effort!
Next, I took a whole page directly from “Zipi's Book On How To Do A Nice Picture”, and added some grass at her feet (or, well, legs) to help blending Tre onto the scene; I'm still way behind Zipi in Photoshop brushes usage, but I managed to find one remotely resembling grass (actually it was hair strands put upside down, but sssshhh!) and even to apply it decently; I'm quite satisfied with how that turned out... Zipi level it ain't, but heck, it works ^_^
At that point I remembered that Tre had asked for a blue rose somewhere in the pic... apparently she's very fond of them; this is where I had to cut some corners and, instead of capturing one "live" in-world, which would have allowed for far better cutout & perspective, I had to make do with a quick Deviant Art search... oh well, it ain't that bad, is it?
Tough I admit I very nearly abuse it, it was hard to resist the temptation to add some further sunlight effects, with sunbeams and all... enter Tiffen DFX... yaaay!
Finally, the usual savior: Nik Color Efex for final, overall photographic/atmospheric filters which, as usual and besides adding further niceness, almost always help in eliminating residual perceptual mismatches between subject and background -the eye kinda “sees” the same effect in both, and thus deduces they were always there, together from the moment of capture.
This article contains most of the information we intended for it, but isn't quite polished to our quality standards yet, so you may find it somewhat changed later; feel free to contact us for any particular point you wish to confirm.
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