Pattern Design

I created this for one of my class projects.

Scrap into Art

I followed a tutorial today. I enjoyed it because it shows that you can turn scrap into art.

The scrap,

The result,

BMW Headlight - Filter

I liked the Zebra one that I did below so I made another attempt on a photo that I took a while back of my friend's BMW 335i Headlight

Result,

Zebra - Filters

I found a picture of a Zebra and I thought it'd be cool if I tried some of the filters to create a Collage.

Result,

Compositing

This one was a long one.. but here's what I started with,

Adjusted the density via Levels. This brought out more contrast and gave the image more 'pop'
I used color range to mask off the foreground and selected the sky.
The result of color range. (Kind of like selection tool)
Added it to channels
The masked layer
Created another layer and made a gradient for sky because I felt like the background did not have that 'pop' feeling to it.

Added noise to the sky layer

Now, it's time for the Compositing.

I opened another image that I wanted a part from to add to the image above,

I started by duplicating the blue channel and clipping the levels.
Now I masked off some of the parts that I did not want to include,
There it is!I used color balance to remove the red from the harbor
Next, I took a part of another picture to add to what I have,
A stone head
First time using the 'defringe' tool, it helped soften the edges so that the head doesn't look like a piece of cut out.
Result,
Duplicated the layer to add another stone head
I made a 3rd head, then used the brush tool (blend: color) to color the stone heads and soften the edges of the stone heads a little bit more via layer mask
Up next, I wanted to add a hindu to the image so I found a hindu and selected him,
Used the defringe tool again (I love this tool!)
Then I used a layer mask to feather the carpet a bit to my liking,
Now I used another layer and the brush tool in color mode to paint the green shirt that's on the hindu to blend a bit with the stone heads, then I attempted to make a weird glowing fake sun.
Filled the sun with a linear gradient,
Then I duplicated the hindu layer and attempted to make a reflection that the fake sun is creating,
And that's it for today!

touch up - Brian Luan

My friend asked me to take a picture of him since he needed to submit a picture for his business. We sat down and chose one of the few that I shot and decided to go with this one,

There were a few things that needed to be done;
-Tone down the highlights on his forehead
-Fix blemishes
-Remove hair from forehead
-Remove pimples
-Tone down the scar next to his left eye

I started removing the pimples and fix the shadows first.

Then I removed the hair that was on his forehead.

Then I used the dodge tool and fixed the highlights on his forehead.
Before & After

Jan 25th 2009

I was looking through a gallery that I photographed for my friend and his girlfriend's birthday party... and I noticed that I caught some 'cake in the air' action!

In between his right arm and the plate


Right above his plate... I like the shadow on the chair from the flash... AND the girl in the background brown stripped shirt /w jeans is about to attack the girl on the left laughing at her own boyfriend.


And there it is! I even caught a piece of cake that fell from her face.

The rest of the pictures from this event can be found on this gallery via smugmug

I hope you guys enjoy! :)

Touch up

Here is what I started with an 8bit RGB file.

I started by cropping out the outer edge of the picture and did a bit of touch up in levels


I felt like there was too much green in the picture so I used color balance to add more Magenta


I used the spot healing brush, patch tool and clone stamp tool to fix the blemishes on her face


Up next I used the magic wand tool to select the background and duplicated a layer of the inverse so I could do something about the background.


Added a gradient layer behind the layer above.

The edges were really nasty so I added a layer mask and started working on the photo some more.

I felt like the gradient layer wasn't mixing very well so I changed the gradient colors and added a bit of noise.


Then I decided to paint her sweater a different color with another layer, blend mode: color (nondestructive).


Then I brought more detail to the image by creating an overlay highpass layer.


Unsharpmask and faded it @ 85% luminosity

Result,

I felt like her eyes weren't "popping" as much so I used the dodged tool and worked on her eyes for a bit and this is what I got.

That's it for now :)