Caffeine Fueled 8 Hour Composite for Photoshop Gurus

[Brian Soto]

I stumbled into this thread the other day https://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum/graphic-design-showroom/53841-chick-beforexafter.html, and thought I might borrow the image (model's name is Kirby Griffin) and see what I could cook up. What started as a small quickie exercise soon turned into a sleep deprived sprint to the borders of human sanity that only Hunter S Thompson and his lawyer (and possibly other compositors) could fully appreciate. I think the lion's share of the time went into digitally painting rim light and highlights, and trying to get the clipping whites in check. Anyway, this is the outcome of that all night tumble down the proverbial rabbit hole. This is the low-res version, as I'm not sure how large files can be here.

The before images:




The composite:





Thumbs up for the PSGurus nod.

 

[Pepper]

Nicely done. This is an excellent piece of work. I love how the car is stretched and gave a futuristic look. But there is one thing that is bothering me - the light on the left side of the car. Other than that I love this image. I love the clouds, the lightning, and also the sign. Great job.

-Pepper

 

[Paul]

One colour with four independent images that for me do not blend at all really, quality is low also.
Maybe go for the biggest and highest definition images to combine next time, it makes blending a lot easier and friendlier on the eye.

 

[Brian Soto]

Nicely done. This is an excellent piece of work. I love how the car is stretched and gave a futuristic look. But there is one thing that is bothering me - the light on the left side of the car. Other than that I love this image. I love the clouds, the lightning, and also the sign. Great job.

-Pepper

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, one thing that isn't ideal when working with other people's images, is that you're really handcuffed to conflicting light sources. Trying to compensate for that has become something of a practice in itself. It's a progress I'm fortunate to get a lot of practice on doing batch processing of a lot of images for my day job. Cheers.

 

[Brian Soto]

One colour with four independent images that for me do not blend at all really, quality is low also.
Maybe go for the biggest and highest definition images to combine next time, it makes blending a lot easier and friendlier on the eye.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, as mentioned before, when I don't control the images, I'm pretty well hostage to disparate sensors, and light sources. The look is deliberately grungy, so that green tint is as controlled byproduct of the theme. The upload of the image is low-res, yes. I typically work with the no less than 300 dpi images. I actually work as a retoucher, and design book covers with a buddy as a side-venture, so HQ it's somewhat gospel I adhere to. I might start using some of our purchased stock images for personal compositing projects. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Paul]

It took you eight hours to come up with that composition?

 

[Brian Soto]

It took you eight hours to come up with that composition?

Nope. I was lying to trick just you, Paul. It was important that you didn't have the truth. Yeah. It took me a fair bit. Again, most of that time went into painting highlights (like her hair, and the car), and making rim light look as natural as possible. I was trying for cast light of that neon sign onto the car, but all of my attempts hurt the verisimilitude. It's easy when the images all have the same directional light. Not so much when you have to paint them.

 

[Paul]

Love to see something you are happy with, you know with all light sources the same way and quality right up their.

 

[gedstar]

It took you eight hours to come up with that composition?

@Paul

I haven't been around for a while but I have still been checking in every once in a while, Paul I actually like the photo manipulation and think it's very well done.

Have to say I find your above quote NOT very nice! whether it took 1 hour or 24 hours to accomplish does that really matter? as you are a forum moderator I can't for the life of me understand why you are so critical of the time it took to produce the final image. I can understand offering advice and critique but I personally think this comment is a step to far.

This site is the main reason why I enjoy using Photoshop so much, it has been very helpful to me and many others I'm sure, personally I think you should tone down your comments a little, we're not all perfect and here to learn and gain more experience.

Sorry to all, if this offends anybody else here.

Ged

 

[Paul]

@Paul

I haven't been around for a while but I have still been checking in every once in a while, Paul I actually like the photo manipulation and think it's very well done.

Have to say I find your above quote NOT very nice! whether it took 1 hour or 24 hours to accomplish does that really matter? as you are a forum moderator I can't for the life of me understand why you are so critical of the time it took to produce the final image. I can understand offering advice and critique but I personally think this comment is a step to far.

This site is the main reason why I enjoy using Photoshop so much, it has been very helpful to me and many others I'm sure, personally I think you should tone down your comments a little, we're not all perfect and here to learn and gain more experience.

Sorry to all, if this offends anybody else here.

Ged

gedstar

Thanks for the kind words, my comments are my own observations and written how i would say it to anyone's face.
I understand i come across at times a bit bullish, but i have no time for ***** footing nor do i ever intend to be wishy washy in my opinions/replies (we all have that right).

The OP made the bold title of eight hours, i merely replied with my thoughts especially in light of the OP's previous post about how bad work posted can be misleading to newbies and the rest a like, not saying this is bad work but to have a new member jump in making such bold statements for me needs to back it up with either exceptional skills in whatever topic it may be, or pull back on the over use of unfounded opinions.

Tom threw one in about football coaches, all i can say to that is i would hope at least the coach could kick the ball or throw it showing some ability.

How can anyone be criticle of others work when you yourself have no real ability in that field?