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I thought I'd share a simple before and after of a pin-up image I recently finished working on. A lot of individual techniques go into various aspects of the way I do pin-ups. I'll attempt to detail certain aspects for those interested as soon as I can. In the meantime, I welcome your comments and critique.
Very nice image. I notice that you thinned her waist just a bit and this improved the look of the bust line as well. Nice job with the colors and repeat in the art work as well as the shadow of the stool. Good job.
I like the vibrance and color...you went a little crazy with her left breast, though...its odd torpedo-ness was the first thing I noticed after the gorgeous color. But overall, very cool, and way beyond my PS skills.
Thanks for the comments everyone. I usually don't generate this many replies so quickly -
I appreciate everyone's critical eye. I do usually generously apply the liquify tool, in this case her dress (front and back) and bust. I struggled with the bust because I was trying for a 40's/50's look but didn't want to go too "torpedo" looking. Hopefully I achieved that.
If you want to try the process, here goes:
The first thing I do is to duplicate the layer. On this new layer copy, I make body sculpting changes via the liquify tool. From here on, I keep this layer as my master copy. I usually flatten to preserve the newly liquified version as the background.
Next I'm ready to make my extraction mask. The mask is for objects only, no shadows. First I duplicate the background layer and place it in a new group/folder called PINUP and add a mask to the layer. Usually I use a combination of the pen tool and brush masking to make my selection, but for this particular image, I used a trial version of Topaz ReMask 2, which I'm very impressed with. The mask itself still needed a little touchup so I brush masked the fine tune adjustments. At this point I add a solid color adjustment layer on top of the now unused background layer to help me scrutinize the mask a bit better and eventually serve as the new color background. I spend a lot of time on the mask because it's critical to getting a believable extraction.
Once I get a mask I'm happy with, I use an older method of what I call "pinching the mask". Pinching the mask adds a little believability to the edges of the overall extraction. To pinch the mask edges I first make sure I'm clicked on the mask itself. I run Gaussian blur at 0.6 pixels. Then I run levels (not the adjustment layer levels) on the mask itself. I pull the mid tones (middle) slider to the right about half way, (to approx 0.40) and the edges of the mask will pinch in ever so slightly creating a clean edge. At this point, I'll go and re touch up the hair as pinching the mask can ruin the finer details of the hair.
TIP: If you really worked the hair prior to pinching and want to preserve it while pinching the mask, hold Ctrl/Cmd and click on the mask. This will make a selection from the mask. Use a marquee tool of choice to remove the selection from everything but the hair/head. Invert the selection Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I and now follow the routine to pinch the mask.
Once the mask is completely done - I move the mask itself onto the PINUP group/folder as I'll eventually have multiple layers inside the group while editing the image and it's easier to maintain a single mask this way.
Next I use the image layer in the PINUP group/folder to start my edits beginning with touch up of the skin, makeup and lips. I do all of my image enhancement, dodging & burning and Joe's secret sauce stuff here. This particular image had extra elements to be added like the paint on the palette and the image on the canvas. All this stuff is kept within the PINUP group/folder.
Next I add the shadows, and for that I usually copy the shadows of the original background layer and paste it on a new layer (shadow layer) above the PINUP group/folder. I set the shadow layer to multiply and pull the opacity down a bit add a mask and invert it so it's hidden (black). I paint in the shadows by hand via a soft low opacity brush where needed. In order to avoid painting over objects I need to protect, I start off by Ctrl/Cmd clicking the PINUP group/folder mask to make a selection and invert the selection again. Now when I paint on the shadow layer mask, it won't affect the objects in the image.
Occasionally I'll also add a reflection in the floor. It's important to note that shadows still exist if there is a reflection, they're just a little more subdued. But the point of the shadows in such a surrealistic image is to ground the objects into reality.
The last step is to add the light burst and sometimes a vignette to the background color. For the light burst, I make a new, empty layer over the Color Fill layer we made a while back. I'll scribble a shape around the objects with the lasso tool and fill with white paint. Gaussian blur to 200+ pixels and adjust layer opacity to taste. For a vignette I use a levels adjustment layer with the mid tone slider pulled to the right (approx. 0.60). I use the light burst lasso and blur technique again on the vignette mask with black paint this time to hide the darkness in the center. Again, adjust opacity to taste.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. I'll probably make a video or three about parts of the process as it's is a little in depth to write about on the forum from the top of my head. There's probably a few small things I missed.
Thanks for looking and taking the time to comment. If you have any specific questions, let me know.
Here's a screen grab of the layers palette to help visualize the steps above.
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This was actually pretty easy and fun. It's 3 layers of color with various sizes of color blobs over one another. Each layer has a bevel and emboss fx layer applied. Then flatten them onto a single layer and use the smudge tool to make the paint look messed about. I used the new fan paint brush in CS5 for the smudging.
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