Some Deviant Art Favourites

Here’s some images I really liked from one of my favourite web sites…

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Revenge on Estella Warren (in Photoshop)

My previous post spoke of taking unwanted pictures and transforming them into something that is more pleasing to the artistic eye. Well here I took a picture of Estella Warren. The original picture of her was topless. I decided to crop it from the shoulders up. I applied a Gaussian Blur to try and get rid of the grain and ‘bumpy’ bits. But I must admit that I had a tough time with this image because the resolution is fairly small. I give the original picture below and then the various effects I used. This was all done in the filter gallery. If anyone is interested in trying the same thing you can leave your comments, and I’ll email you the original version. I found the filter gallery a nice basic introduction to Photoshop. In the last image I got bored of making Estella look arty, and took out my revenge on her!

Original cropped image.

This one I bleached and took the color out of it.

Can’t remember the exact combinations for this one.

Filter Gallery > Brush Strokes > Crosshatch

Filter Gallery > Brush Strokes > Dark Strokes

Filter Gallery > Sketch > Notepaper

Filter Gallery > Sketch > Torn Edges

Filter > Liquify

PhilosopherPoet

Transforming Porn (in Photoshop)

I collect images; this also means from time to time I time stuff that isn’t necessarily artistic, or savory. I got about 3000+ pornographic images from a recent LAN. I held onto them because of a theory that never fails me. This theory goes that if you collect enough stuff, in between the rubble, you’ll find something you can really work with.

Why these photos are good to work with if you haven’t taken any yourself is because a lot of them aren’t ‘cleaned up’ like a Angelina Jolie or Heidi Klum wallpaper would be. Of course you’ll find your candy blonde, red lipstick-ed, and airbrushed to death models. Although you’ll also find your lesser known woman, who can still be worked with. I found two images that caught my eye. The first thing I did with both of them was crop out parts of them that would classify them as porn, rather than a nude. I suppose I am sort of bluffing myself using a porn star as a nude…but bear with me.

The first girl named Natasha “Something Russian Sounding” I chose because their where a lot of things I could play with in the photograph. She was twisting a shower rose around her body, her head was turned to the side, there was a glass door to her right and an actual wall to her left. In addition to all of that there was light hitting her from her right, water droplets on the door, and water gleaming on her body. Let’s also not forget the tendrils of water coming out of the rose itself.

So there was a lot to work with. I didn’t want to keep this image in one format. I wanted to break it up. I also saw the possibility of turning the shower head into the head of a telephone, but that never worked out, so I kept my ideas simple. Once I had cropped the picture, I explored the lighting of the image. Often shadow can throw off an effect to want since its reverses the response. A negative is a good example. I wanted her body to be blue, now I didn’t mind the ‘white’ shadow that came out. If you had a problem with it, you’d have to use the magnetic lasso (or slice tool) to create a negative around the shadow. Then maybe bring out the magenta in the shadow and maybe brighten the shadow before hand.

Anyway the first image I played with for a long while came out well, I used multiple effects the second I just used one effect for the whole image. They are titled ‘Pieces of Natasha’ and ‘At that moment’.

Pieces of Natasha

At that moment

More next time…

PhilosopherPoet

That look women can give you

Sometimes woman have certain looks they can just throw your way. Look is a very general term, the look I’m talking about is that unique one. It’s a friendly one you can’t help feel means something. Well, sorting through my photos on my PC made me think of giving some killer looks of others. When you happen to be a witness of The Look, you can’t help notice some character spilling through. None of the women I post I know, however you can use your imagination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I seem to be in a photo-sharing mood. These are truly inspiring!

 

May the images rest gently inside you…

 

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

What happens when you stay up too late…

What does happen? The possibilities are endless I guess. I do suffer from insomnia which is anxiety related. So tonight I couldn’t sleep, and this is what happened when I decided to stay up too late. I got hooked on Flickr, and was browsing images at a relentless pace. There’s an unimaginable amount of photos there, which means it’s a perfect thing too keep an insomniac busy.

 

Here are some of the discoveries I made. There is no order and they are all done by different photographers. (Yes, I regretfully don’t acknowledge the artists behind these images. In the future I’ll try to be more resourceful, with that sort of thing.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said they are all in a totally random order, although each one spoke in its own way.

 

 

Flickr pretty good medicine for insomnia (I’m not sure it cured it though.)

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

A great Portrait Photographer – phoenix1975

This is the part in my blog where I find a photographer I like and give a short spiel about them. I like to take photos, but its also satisfying seeing a good eye at work. This one that I have in mind happens to be from DeviantArt.com (the coolest art website, everyone who read this should go and have a look at what’s there.)

 

Here’s where you can find him:

—>http://phoenix1975.deviantart.com

—>http://www.dannygoedicke.de

 

So here’s some pics from phoenix1975. First off I’ll start with what he looks like:

 

I haven’t included the titles of the pics, I’m in a rush this morning. You can see them on his website, or dA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy the photos? I surely did!

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Dolls as people

I got inspired to do more photography, and grabbed some dolls, that would be Barbie dolls to take pictures of. I’m pleased with what came out of it. I didn’t really spend enough time doing it. All in all I must’ve been there for about 20 minutes.

 

I’ve learnt one trick in photography, always take your photos in color, for the simple reason that there is more to play around with in photoshop. The one black and white image below was originally in color, but I decided to reduce the detail and turn it into grayscale.

 

Here is what came out of the exercise…

 

 

 

Watching her relax

 

 

 

 

 

 

You were there

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your broken hand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What dreams are built on

 

 

 

 

There’ll be more next time

 

PhilosopherPoet

Candle Experiment (with Photoshop)

I was going through some of my photos I took a while ago, and though I’d share some of them. These are pictures that I took during a power cut. I got bored very quickly, and thought I’d turn it into a creative event. So being as inventive as I could I took some pictures. There’s something about that glow that the candle gives off, which I really liked. At that stage I’d recently bought a new skull ring which I used in the photos. The pictures have all been edited. I couldn’t live with myself if I sent them into my blog as raw images. So I’ll give a gallery here, of what my experience came to. These are also viewable on my photo account on dA (deviant ART).

 

Here’s what you can paste into your browser should you wish to surf:

—> www.madphotopoet.deviantart.com

 

I normally give some comments with the pictures, this time I’ll just give their titles, and you can figure out the rest.

 

 

know what it means

 

 

 

 

 

Skull Candle I

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skull Candle II

 

 

 

This final one was of the first batch that I went through and edited. It also is the most accurate in reflecting the candle ‘glow’. The rest are adjusted. All the above where just roughly tweaked. You could say I took more care on the one below. I’ve also become a fan of cropping images, since it creates a workable visual space for the viewer. Let’s face it…sometimes we just don’t want to have our eyes bombarded. I try and keep the flow of energy in my pictures, simple slow the eye doesn’t do too much work. Once your eye has to start concentrating on the image, it simply dismissed as crap. I’ll cut to the chase and show that next one, I could continue this subject for quite some time.

 

 

 

awake in the dark

 

 

 

I suppose that this last one is also one of my favorite shots, which is why I stuck it right at the end. I love the soft light that the candle give to the skin. This shot I just love the position of the hand, and of course my beautiful ring.

 

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Kurosaki Ichigo – Photoshop-ing with Anime

Like I’ve said previously that I’ve started a Photoshop journey. These pictures are recent ones that I’ve added on to my deviantArt account. If anyone happens to be interested in that…

 

—-> madphotopoet.deviantart.com

 

Nevertheless I’ll still reveal what I managed to come up with. The following pictures, are from the anime episodes of Bleach (the character being Kurosaki). The one after that is from Chrno Crusade, also one of my favorite anime to watch. The final one is one of Inoue, also based on a still.

 

I loved the ‘metal effect’ I created on Ichigo’s face I thought worked well, an indication of his mind coming apart. This was based on stills from the anime. The shocked expressions of Ichigo I think was from a scene when he got wounded. Whatever it was the lighting around his face was great to play around with. The second, Ichigo picture I did I included the characters Rukia, and Inoue (Left to Right).

 

Personally I prefer the second one since there’s just more in it. The first Ichigo, still has merit, so I didn’t discard it completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the Chrno Crusade one. Not as impressive in my opinion.

 

 

 

 

My Last pic for this post. Also from Bleach, a picture of Inoue, just with my own background, I messed around with. Just for interest’s sake, I turned down the contrast, since I find the hair more attractive, and redder. Also the skin stood out more. The blue eyes that she’s known for, vanished slightly, but nonetheless I’m happy with the end result. These kinda images, encourage me to explore photoshop more. I’m know expert, but the satisfaction you see, when you’re stuff starts to take shape is worth it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s about it, in terms of photography. Maybe more next time, and some anime!

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Photoshop… the Photography god?

I’ve been interested in photography for a while now. Last year I installed photoshop CS3 and played a bit, but mainly watched tutorials slowly learning how to get to grips with the system. For many reasons I had to format and re-install everything and in the process ‘lost’ photoshop, and forgot about it for a while.

Then I got interested in photography this year. My folks have been suggesting that I pick up a photography course at some stage, since they feel I have a knack for it. Also staying with them now, I’ve been fiddling with the digital camera, and in the process come up with some interesting results.

Yesterday was the day that I install the famous photoshop again, and I’ve begun to get a bit serious about it all. My main focus is using it to morph images. It could mean making duds better, or transforming an existing beauty…giving it a different angle artistically. I’m not pro at this stage but so far I’ve been pretty pleased with the results I’ve had.

 

This one was just a standard black and white pic that I tweaked up a bit. I adjusted the contrast, and added a touch of grain to blur and bring out the shadow.

 

 

 

Me and my lil sis, taking a walk on the beach. I titled this one ‘ghost walk’. Since we were in the foreground we seemed to be enhanced, and the sun (like most days) did its magic, and gave us the right angle. I also enjoy the poses of people, and the fact this isn’t a studio shot, gives it more meaning.

 

 

This one is different from the others, but the pattern seemed to work out very well.

 

At the moment this is all I’ve got time for, but there’ll be more on its way. I would also appreciate any advice, sites, magazines, blogs etc to help with photoshop.

 

May The Photographic Muse Be With You

 

PhilosopherPoet