#459- Evolution

2009-04-02

Hi everyone-

I hope everyone had a pleasant April Fools Day. I was able to pull of a pretty good one involving me getting someone (very close to me) to call the Philadelphia Zoo and ask for Mr. Randy Rosteridge and Mrs Beabea Behr. And that being followed up by someone calling and asking her if a Mrs. Fant was there, first name Ellie, bigger woman, mostly gray.

We laughed until we cried...I haven't laughed that good and that long for some time. All I have to say before I get myself into further trouble is Hook, Line and Sinker....

So after all of that calmed down I decided to go looking through some images from earlier this year to see what I might be able to do with some new techniques I have been wanting to try. I found this image of Bryan Allen from our workshop back in the fall.

Before I go any further I want to give a shout out to Bryan Allen who is a great friend, fantastic photographer and super, super instructor. He along with the gang at The Mindful Eye have really changed me as a person and photographer. (all for the better) And I owe them a lot for it.

So on to the image, it was mostly a test shot while firing a single flash on camera head on. There's a bit too much light but in all reality there is still detail pretty much every where. So here is the original SOOC:

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I wanted to create a smooth kind of look, one that looks like what you might see in advertising recently. Kinda looks like it might be drawn or painted, but still looks like a photograph. You can kind of achieve this with a variety of plugins on the market but they just don't quite get to the look I am talking about. And honestly neither did I.

That being said I am a heck of a lot closer than I was before. So there isn't really a tutorial coming down the pike just yet but maybe in the future. Maybe something that starts with lighting and moves through capture and processing. We'll see.

So I went on to create the second image which brought back a lot of the color and contrast. To me a whole lot better than the first.

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After looking at that I decided it needed a little more warmth, some more life to it. So I warmed it up through adding a texture layer that was pretty warm and adjusting the opacity of that. Then I masked it and took it away in a few spots.

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So I'm thinking this looks a whole lot better. But of course I can't just leave it alone so I go looking through my files and find a texture with a color that I like. It's concrete but it has a more brownish green coloration to it, kinda like it has been treated or sealed. So I bring that over in a new layer and then play with the blending modes. So here is a toned version of the same image.

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This was my favorite of the images. I liked the color tone and the contrast. BUT, still wanted to do more. At this point I decided to try something very different and completely new to me. I wanted to try and create a much different look to the image as if I was creating an add for a magazine or campaign.

So I decided to use the scar that Bryan has by his eye to create some other injuries on his face. I also used the liquify tool to create some swelling and then added some bruising. Now it looks like we just got up from a great night on River Street.

Oh but there was also one other thing that I did and it was a MAJOR part of the process. I'm not going to tell you just yet what it was. Let's see if you can figure out what step or steps I didn't tell you about.

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Have a great day!!

7 comments:

Larry J. Patrick said...

Nice set of photographs showing how you did it. I think the final image is very interesting one. Not your usual work, but still it has that Brian Bastinelli edge. Good job as usual.

Woody said...

Great Job Brian. I'm glad you showed us how you processed the image.

Brian Bastinelli said...

Thanks guys!

No guesses on what I did to change the image from the others?

I let in a few clues that I would otherwise have removed as hints...

Brian

Anonymous said...

You mirrored one side onto the other, right? I immediately saw it in the background bokeh and on the left on his shoulder but then realized his whole face has been made completely symmetrical. It is really noticeable in his nose. If that is what you did,what made you try that?

Cindi

Steve Schuenke said...

Yes, you mirrored the right side to the left. I like how you added some simulated swelling to the right eye though. It looks like there was a small scar on that eye even in the original photo. Was that the inspiration?

Brian Bastinelli said...

Hi everyone-

You guys got it. I decided to try an make him look different. Like that's Bryan, but something isn't the same.

I have been trying to reverse engineer some adds and the way they were created and in the mean time have picked up a few tips on how some of the stuff was done.

So I decided to try it out. First off was the splitting the face and flipping it horizontally. I cleaned up a lot of the patterns that were created by doing this but left some in to see if people would notice.

Then I did a little more work to the face and in the process ended up challenging myself to see what I could do with the scar.

Once that was done I decided to create some new injuries to see if I could make that look real as well.

It was mostly just a big experiment for me. I was happy about the results for the first time out of the gate but there is a ton of stuff I would change in the future.

If I was going to do more I would change it up a little bit more to further do away with the symmetry still present in the image.

The scar was the inspiration to create further injuries and all of those were created from the original scar.

I would like to work on the bruising a bit more, not that I think I'll be doing a ton of people with beat up faces portraits but just to make it look better.

Thanks for your comments and feedback!

Have a great day!

Bryan Allen said...

LMAO BB. Really great stuff. I think you could take the first and last processed images and call the BEFORE and AFTER shots for most of my workshops :-) That's about what I usually feel like after a one anyway!