Kelpie Puppy

Some friends stopped by last Sunday for a visit and to introduce us to their new 9 week-old Kelpie puppy. He is going to be a challenge - full of smarts and herding instinct mixed in with a great deal of personality.

Thanks,
Jeff




The second includes some new processing experiments I have been trying to refine.

Those are nice I really like the look of #2. Did you use Lucis?

Hi Dee Dee,

You are very observant. I have been following a number of threads that have addressed the "Ilustrator" style of processing. A number of people posted they have been using LucisArt but still many others have been willing to share their process to achieve a similar look with much more control and sans the $160 for a plugin.

The process is lengthy, it involves a lot of shadow/highlights, high-pass sharpening, noise reduction, some 'simplifying' steps along with layer masking. I never approach any photo with a recipe but use whatever I think will work the best at the point I am am in the process.

Add onto all tose steps a little Paint with Light and some Orton and BAM(!) you end up with something like this.

If you do a search on dpreview/retouching forum for "Illustrator Style" and I think 'cspringer' was one of guys who was very helpful, you will get and idea of the direction I took.

Great fun and a time eater too!

Thanks,
Jeff

Thanks for sharing this Jeff. I did look that up and found a lot of good info there. I really like this look, although your photos stand very well on their own also!

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for sharing. I also think the 2nd shot is absolutely adorable. Very well done. I will definitely check out the style over at DPReview. I have never heard of the Illustrator style. Do you know which forum that it was posted in?

James

Thanks James,

Do a search in the "Retouching Forum" for "Illustrator Style" - that should get you going. If I have time I'll get more specific on some links. Also if you go onto Flickr and do a search for the "Strobist" Group and then from there do a search on "DAVE HILL", there is someone there who posted a step-by-step of his own similar technique of this style.

There has been a bit of hub-bub around trying to guess and duplicate the style of processing found at davehillphoto.com .

The bottom line is you must start with a low noise, well-lit, sharp-as-a-tack photo to begin with. The process creates a lot of noise and unwanted atifacts.

Have Fun!
Jeff

Original:

Just to make it easier to start to understand the process, here are a few links:


http://flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157594577686705/

lucis simulation
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1010&message=19007081
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19841406
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19841521
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19929547
related – Robert N
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1010&message=19736123
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1010&message=19780526
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/... .../11/photoshop-lomography-photo-action/
Scott D
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19815193
chip’s suggestion
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19815792
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19816750
jeff p
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19817570

Marvin’s instructs
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19901423
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=19905854

That should get you started.

Have fun,
Jeff
--

Oh, thank you for the links. I know I commented on these images earlier. Infact it was before DeeDee and I did say I did not like the contrasty image. I adore this image that you just posted. But now that I see the technique I realize why an entry that I was up against recently looked like a Rockwell illustratation - duh! And another duh- I probably did not press okay submit........
so here goes.... think press....
Great images of this charming pup.
Okay gang - how about another challenge on seeing how this technique works with our own images?????

YEAH would love this challenge! I would really like to learn how to do this well. And yes Jeff thank you so much for those links! They are gold. I have only had time to go thru the first few and am bookmarking as I go. I am finding like you said you do need the right kind of photo for it to work really well. Lots of fun to play with this, it would be a good challenge.

Not to be contrary, but I like the original (#3 above). The processed version (#2 above) looks over-cooked to me and makes me wonder if a lot of digital data got thrown out along the way. It might be interesting to watch the histogram during each step and track data loss through the process.

Over-cooked is right! I make no bones about it. I call it over-processing when you go beyond the normal color correcting, levels, sharpening etc. Its not for every picture or for every person, that's for sure.

Just like HDR, Orton, solarization and what ever manipulations are out there, this one is the current fad in some circles and it will run it's course.

But for now, I am having fun and learning a new skill set. I am getting requests from customers to process images like this.

I am sure, as with any excessive manipulation, there is a lot of information cast away - but at least I always have the original to go back to.

Have Fun!
Jeff

I am adding a third Kelpie Puppy pic.

I took the original into Photoshop and then placed the over-processed Kelpie picture on a layer above and then reduced the opacity to 30%. The Illustrator process will tend to emphasize details that normally are not brought out. By combining the two, you can get a more 'natural' image with more detail evident

I'll have to try that last one Jeff thanks for the instructions. It is nice and subtle but effective.

I actually really love your "over cooked" version the best. I really like your original photo too...but I like always like to see something a little different than the norm.I strive for that in my art as well (although don't always achieve it). For me, it is just a real treat to look at something for the first time and think, this isn't like the hundreds of other nice photos of a puppy I've seen...this one goes a bit further.

I am starting to see a lot of images done with similar treatment and I suppose at some point it won't seem "fresh" anymore but I think it worked really well with this particular image and worked great. The loss of detail in areas doesn't bother me, I think it looks quite artsy.

Oooph. I went waaaay too far fantasy way lol but I wasn't getting this to work at all like it should. I am posting it only because I will hopefully be able to look back and see some progress! Maybe I didn't start with a sharp enough image to begin with....more likely I didn't follow the directions right.

Quote:

---

I took the original into Photoshop and then placed the over-processed Kelpie picture on a layer above and then reduced the opacity to 30%.

---

Yeah, that's it! I frequently use a similar technique in Photoshop CS2. Duplicate layer, switch from 'normal' to one of several filters (screen, color dodge, linear dodge, multiply, soft light, hard light, luminosity, overlay etc.), reduce opacity to taste (often down to 5-25% or so, and merge layers. The shadow/highlight tool (advanced menu) can produce a similar effect.

But it's all good... Celebrate the digital revolution!