The Post Processing Challenge #4

[Donald]

Okay folks - We're ready to go again!

The closing date for entries into this thread is 4th July (no US citizen should forget that date!)

And this is your challenge (and this is not a portrait of me, although there are subtle similarities!):

The purpose of the challenge is to provide all members with the same image and, with it, an opportunity to explore and develop their post-processing skills and to examine and learn from how they and others approach the task. Although there will be a vote, the idea is not to be competitive, but to engage in a learning process. So, discussions and exchanges of views as we go along, are encouraged.

The culture and values of CiC as embraced by its members makes the need for over-formalisation of procedures & guidelines largely unnecessary. However, we cannot always know who is joining the forum and some formalisation is required, particularly to protect the work of the person who has offered the image for post-processing.

These procedures are:-

• Photographs should be posted in this thread before the closing date (don't leave it too late).
• No voting allowed for your own entry.
• Each entrant will be allowed one submission.
• All entrants must work on the file made available for download. Any other image posted into the thread will be deleted.
• Entrants may use appropriately licensed images to assist in the creative process (the original image must remain recognisable).
• The image file made available for the challenge will remain the sole property of the person who made it available for the purpose, under a Creative Commons SA Licence. A full copy of the licence can be viewed HERE
• Any person downloading the image offered for editing in this challenge, whether they submit an entry in the challenge or not, is deemed to accept the terms of the licence and to be bound by it.
• A decision to pursue a claim against anyone breaching the terms of the licence shall be a matter solely for the copyright holder; i.e. the member who offered the image for download in this challenge. ‘Cambridge in Colour’ cannot be held responsible or liable for any breach of the Creative Commons SA Licence.

NB - The best way of dealing with this formality is to resolve that the only thing you will do with the image you downloaded is work on it for entry in this challenge and that you WILL NOT use it for any other purpose.

Voting, Choosing the next image file and telling us How You Did It:-
When announced, voting (open to any member) will be by Private Message (PM) to Donald, over a period of two days or so. This will ask you simply to say which you think demonstrates best PP skills and artistic presentation. Automated voting may be introduced at a later stage.

The ‘winner’ of one challenge will be asked to provide an image for the next challenge, or delegate that ‘honour’ to a Mod. The ‘winner’ will also be invited to tell us what they did (so keep a note).


The image file:
The file for this challenge has been provided by Angela (Cerian), one of the joint winners in PP#3. You can download the file in one of three formats:

A DNG is here (15.5 Mb)
This is the TIFF version (43.1 Mb)
And you can get a JPEG here (8.8 Mb)

Have fun!

[Cerian]

#1

[MiniChris]

#2

[carlitos]

#3

[Rasbury]

#4

[PhilipM]

#5

[Donald]

Okay, we have a winner.

And it is ..........................

Philip
for the second month in a row

And thank you to everyone for such a large vote. It's great when lots of people vote.

Philip

You are now invited to tell us how you did it.

Also, I will be in touch by PM to invite you to send me a file for use in the next PP challenge.

[carlitos]

Philip my congratulations! I found your edit very funny. Nice work .

[MiniChris]

I liked all of them and found it hard to pick a favorite. I was afraid I'd offended every Taoist and Buddist in the free (and not so free) world. My belated apologies as it was done in the same jest as the other images. Great job, Philip!

[Rasbury]

Congratulaations Philip!Loved it when i first saw it.

[PhilipM]

Thanks Donald. Thanks to everyone for their votes. Thanks Carlos, Chris and Ron for your comments. Much appreciated. I am absolutely delighted with the win. Three months ago the only blend mode I knew was on my wife's mixer.

I am still very much in a learning phase and learnt a lot while doing this Challenge. There are very possibly easier and/or better ways to achieve the same result.

To reply to your invite, Donald, on how I did it . . .

For those who are interested, the process was more time-consuming than anything. I used the upper arm closest to the light source as the basis for all the other bits of arm that I added. I made a copy (on a new layer) and rotated it to a suitable angle, then used a hard brush to shape it. The result was very "2D" - no sense of depth, so I copied it a second time on top of itself (new layer), applied a "Difference" blend mode at 50-70% opacity, depending on how heavy a shadow I wanted, then used a soft brush to paint away the part of the arm I didn't want in shadow. I used the same method (on another layer) to put a very light shadow on the front of the arm to increase the "3D" effect. I repeated this process for the other arm.

I used the hand on the knee for all the "new" hands. I cloned the knee where the hand had been taken away. The hands were rotated and sometimes mirrored. Additional shadows caused by the arms over the curves of the stomach and/or face were added, again using the "Difference" blend mode with 80-90% opacity for a darker shadow and a hard brush to shape around the curves. I also placed a shadow on the back of the hand on the "See" and "Speak" figures. If you look closely on the "See" figure, both hands are the same orientation. I just moved the thumb on the one hand to the other side.

I created each of the three figures in separate files, then extended the background on the rightmost figure's image to the left and merged the other two images in. I tidied up around the edges with a soft brush and made minor adjustments (cloned) to the very blurry shadows at the back to bring them into line with the adjusted shapes of the figures. Each of the three original files had around 17 layers each, other than the Background, for all the bits and pieces.

Once again, thanks everyone for the votes.

Philip