Looking for some portrait editing help

[Caedwyr]

I've got a few portraits that I need to get to match the BG2 style and my best efforts seem to fall short to my eyes. Would there be anyone out there interested/willing in doing a few edits?

 

The oWolf2L.bmp is the closest I've been able to get, but I haven't even been able to replicate that level for the other two.

 

(To anyone that takes me up on this, be warned, I may have a number of similar images if you feel like taking them on.)

oWolf3L.bmp

oWolf4L.bmp

oWolf2L.bmp

[Amaurea]

I've got a few portraits that I need to get to match the BG2 style and my best efforts seem to fall short to my eyes. Would there be anyone out there interested/willing in doing a few edits?

 

The oWolf2L.bmp is the closest I've been able to get, but I haven't even been able to replicate that level for the other two.

 

(To anyone that takes me up on this, be warned, I may have a number of similar images if you feel like taking them on.)

 

Would you like the wolves put into a different background, or are you just looking for a straight Baldurization of the images as they are?

[Caedwyr]

Pretty much a straight Baldurization. If you feel like changing the backgrounds or something similar I don't mind so long as it still fits (I'm indifferent on if it happens or not, just leaving it open if you wanted to do something with it)

[Amaurea]

If you want something more stylized, I can repaint the fur the long way. Just let me know!

 

oWolf2L.bmp

oWolf3L.bmp

oWolf4L.bmp

[Caedwyr]

Very nice, these will do just fine.

[Miloch]

You'll have to tell me how you do that sometime, Amaurea.

[ericp07]

On a related note, searching the 'net for info on how to "Baldurize" an image has gotten me nowhere, so I'd very much appreciate to be pointed in the right direction for some techniques. I use Photoshop CS (v8.0) on a Mac running OS X Tiger (10.4.11).

 

Thanks,

Eric

[Miloch]

I only have some tools for BAMs and none for portraits. It's possible some of the BAM tools I use might work on portraits - haven't really done much heavy portrait work yet. And it doesn't seem Amaurea is ready to disclose any secrets...

[Amaurea]

I only have some tools for BAMs and none for portraits. It's possible some of the BAM tools I use might work on portraits - haven't really done much heavy portrait work yet. And it doesn't seem Amaurea is ready to disclose any secrets...

 

I didn't think y'all were serious!

 

I do different things for every portrait, but the basic steps, using PSP X2 are:

-Smart Photo Fix filter to enhance lights and darks, pump up saturation a bit

-High Pass Sharpen (settings vary based on starting image)

-New raster layer of over painting for face. I use about 8 shades for this

-Blend painting layer with smudge tool

-Flatten image, and blend further with smudge tool

-Add more detail to eyes and lips with burn and dodge brushes

-New raster layer to paint hair (I use hair shaped brush tips for this and about 4 different colors.)

-Blend hair layer with smudge tool

-Drop shadow from hair layer, then flatten image

-More blending

-Optional: clothing overpainting layer

-Smudge blend clothing layer

-Fine tune hair with burn and dodge brushes

-Unsharp Mask

Then, depending on the image, I might either apply the Clarify filter, or duplicate the layer, set the blend mode to Multiply, and adjust the opacity until I like what I see, or just apply the regular Sharpen filter, or ... just save the image.

 

A lot really depends on the quality of the starting image. The main thing I look for it to get my filters to really play up the highlights and shadows for me.

 

It's not much help, is it?

 

For Caedwyr's animals, I smudge-blended the existing fur, then went back in with the burn and dodge brushes to add painted-looking detail.

[Miloch]

I do some of that already for the graphics I work with (highlight/shadow enhancement, sharpen, saturate). Aside from some of the image-specific stuff (hair redrawing etc.), do you think any of this could be automated via script? With PSP/PS scripts, you can even ask the user for inputs so it will vary the output based on what you think is right for the photo. This would really help for bulk portrait mods where you might need to "Baldurize" loads of little photos rather than spending a lot of time on them manually.

[Amaurea]

I do some of that already for the graphics I work with (highlight/shadow enhancement, sharpen, saturate). Aside from some of the image-specific stuff (hair redrawing etc.), do you think any of this could be automated via script? With PSP/PS scripts, you can even ask the user for inputs so it will vary the output based on what you think is right for the photo. This would really help for bulk portrait mods where you might need to "Baldurize" loads of little photos rather than spending a lot of time on them manually.

 

It probably could, though the results wouldn't quite be the same. I'm thinking that noise reduction filters could be exploited to replace the blending a bit.

 

(edited to not be repeatedly redundant....)

 

(edited to add...)

 

I just played around a wee bit, and set this page up with my results

 

My Webpage

 

I didn't really try all that hard to work the filters to their best advantage, but it's a start, I hope. I do have PSP X2, I don't know if the preset I used for the depth of field on the soft focus filter is in earlier versions ... I've never used it. I added it as a better-than-nothing means of dealing with noisy backgrounds in images.

 

Be careful, because if you blink, you'll miss the teeny little link to the PSP script you can dowload at the bottom of that page.

 

I think I'll mess around some more tomorrow with fine tuning this idea, Miloch. I'm guessing I can come up with something better using layering/blend mode techniques.

[ericp07]

Aumarea's techniques remind me of a tutorial over at Elfwood about how to color b/w or grayscale images. It's much more involved than editing photos, even if I include the techniques I came up with by experimenting Clearly, Baldurizing artwork is a detailed process...though, as one goes through the work of doing it, it probably doesn't "feel" that involved. It's surprising how quickly we can go through a series of editing tasks with a file. Then, if we explain the process to someone, listing or explaining the procedures takes longer than doing it *L*

 

I've saved the techniques listed above to a text file for future reference. For me, I think I should practice coloring images using the Elfwood tutorial before attempting to translate Aumarea's PSP procedures to Adobe Photoshop.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[Miloch]

I didn't really try all that hard to work the filters to their best advantage, but it's a start, I hope. I do have PSP X2, I don't know if the preset I used for the depth of field on the soft focus filter is in earlier versions ... I've never used it.

Great stuff, Amaurea. I used it on PSP XI, and it gave me a "This script is from a newer version of PSP or the version could not be determined. You can continue to execute this script, but errors may occur or the script may produce unexpected results." But it did work and did do a Depth of Field. Maybe it didn't do it as planned though, because it just makes the portrait a bit too blurry around the corners, and the other steps seem to work just fine for the most part.

 

Just for kicks, I ran it on the "Kristen Wilson as Dynaheir" portrait we've been bandying about. Just ran it with the defaults, nothing else. Before and after:

I would be happy with the scripted version almost as-is (not that I'm saying your skill can be completely automated though ). Luckily, she doesn't have much hair visible to overpaint, and the corners of this particular portrait don't have much detail to worry about eroding. I tried it on the "Lee Arenberg as Kagain" portrait and it blurred his helmet horn and armour on the left quite a bit. But it still did fairly well for that one too. I'll be eager to see if you can enhance this at all though (not that I think it needs it, but as you say, maybe a bit more could be done with layering and blending).

[Amaurea]

The depth of field filter in X2 allows you to redraw the main selection during the part where you set the variables, so I'm guessing XI didn't allow for that.

 

Kristen looks great with just the filters applied, I can't wait to repaint her. She has very dramatic features, totally fitting Dynaheir.

[ericp07]

Looks to me like the crucial elements to adjust are brightness, contrast, color saturation, and sharpness. In Photoshop, when I want to change the sharpness, I always use Unsharp Mask. Some images need just a small amount (5% - 15%), while others--especially some photos--need a lot (up to 95%). Of course, too much always looks too "grainy" or jagged, so experimentation is usually needed. This is why I don't run automated batch tasks when doing this kind of editing.

 

I'm looking forward to playing with some images, both photos and artwork, to find out what Baldurizing is like first-hand. I'll start with just one image, and post before and after samples.

 

- E