Commission-WIP

[Garth Herrick]

Dear Barbara Mae,

You have such a nice finish to your portrait that I hate to bring up what bothers me the most, which is the shapes and structures of the kids noses, compared to the reference photo.

On the girl's nose the shadow suggests a much thinner nose than in the photo. Also while the nostrils are placed exactly right, the tip of her nose is too low, which makes it an adult nose rather than a child's.

The boy's nose should be structurally more broad too. The shape of his nose is distinctly different in the photo; the one you depicted is a little finer.

On the girl's eyes, you can probably get away with eliminating all of the black in the lashes. There is no evidence of dark eyelashes in the photo. I would try to work on the shape of the eyes too.

On the boy's eyes I would pay attention to their shape and lack of hard edges in the photo.

There are minor refinements that could be made to the indentures making the expression around and under the girl's lips. I would also pay attention to the structure of her neck.

Overall, like everyone else has said, you have a very successful painting going. The kids hair is particularly well done.

I hope I have not been too hard on you. I think you are getting close to the finish.

Garth

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Originally Posted by Garth Herrick

Dear Barbara Mae,

You have such a nice finish to your portrait that I hate to bring up what bothers me the most, which is the shapes and structures of the kids noses, compared to the reference photo.

On the girl's nose the shadow suggests a much thinner nose than in the photo. Also while the nostrils are placed exactly right, the tip of her nose is too low, which makes it an adult nose rather than a child's.

The boy's nose should be structurally more broad too. The shape of his nose is distinctly different in the photo; the one you depicted is a little finer.

On the girl's eyes, you can probably get away with eliminating all of the black in the lashes. There is no evidence of dark eyelashes in the photo. I would try to work on the shape of the eyes too.

On the boy's eyes I would pay attention to their shape and lack of hard edges in the photo.

There are minor refinements that could be made to the indentures making the expression around and under the girl's lips. I would also pay attention to the structure of her neck.

Overall, like everyone else has said, you have a very successful painting going. The kids hair is particularly well done.

I hope I have not been too hard on you. I think you are getting close to the finish.

Garth

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Dear Garth,

It never occurred to me to turn the photo's to black and white.......what a difference! You can more easily see the tonal values and it highlights areas where you might be going wrong. I assume tha you do this via the Channel feature, anyway this was where I found the the option. I can't think why it didn't occur to me before!

I will be working on it again today and going through all your points in turn.

Thank you so much for your help Garth, it really is very much appreciated.

Take care,

Barbara

[Garth Herrick]

Originally Posted by Barbara Mae Hudson

It never occurred to me to turn the photo's to black and white.......what a difference! You can more easily see the tonal values and it highlights areas where you might be going wrong. I assume tha you do this via the Channel feature, anyway this was where I found the the option. I can't think why it didn't occur to me before!

Dear Barbara,

In PhotoShop, I simply used Image/Adjustments/Desaturate. There is more than one way to get there. Using Channels like you said, gives you even more options. If a color is intense, you can push it toward black or white or anything in between, by adjusting the color chanels before you desaturate. The method I used effectively treats all three color channels as equal. Another good option is to convert the RGB file to Grayscale mode.

Garth

[Garth Herrick]

Barbara,

Here is another suggestion to help you straighten out the drawing and proportions in order to get a good likeness: If you can, print details from the reference photo (of the girl's head and of the boy's head, etc.) to the same scale as the painting. I find this immensely helpful in my own work.

There is a measuring utility in Photoshop buried in the eyedropper tool. Measure the head in the photo, and measure the head in the painting. Divide (using a calculator) the dimension from the painting by the dimension from the photo. Write down the result. Under Image/Image Size in Photoshop you can use that calculation result to multiply with either the height or width dimensions to make the photograph file match the scale of your painting (first you may want to reduce the DPI to 96 so you don't have an overwhelmingly huge file).

Once you get the hang of this it is easy to bring your reference image right up to the scale of your painting, and from that you can print out any detail needed, to hold up right next to your painting for comparison.

Hope this helps!

Garth

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Barbara, I think you have done an excellent job on this portrait and it has been interesting to watch the suggestions for improvements and how your painting has evolved.

I don't have Photoshop but I'm reading a lot about it. I have a WIP posted and wanted to get a better idea of the values so I took my reference photo to Kinko's and made a couple of black and white copies. It was helpful to enlarge the photo to the size I'm working on, as Garth suggested in one of his posts having the same size to look at is helpful.

I'm now wondering about how valuable Photoshop might be but that's a subject for another threat.

Barbara, I will continue to watch as you improve this painting. I think it's amazing that you can so easily correct something once it's pointed out to you, not everybody can do that. And that's what is so great about this forum, all the help people are willing to give.

Joan

[Garth Herrick]

Originally Posted by Joan Breckwoldt

I'm now wondering about how valuable Photoshop might be but that's a subject for another threat.

Joan

Threat?! Joan, you are scaring me!

Garth

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Garth, sorry about bat. Next tim I'll use spelchick.

Joan

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Originally Posted by Garth Herrick

Barbara,

Here is another suggestion to help you straighten out the drawing and proportions in order to get a good likeness: If you can, print details from the reference photo (of the girl's head and of the boy's head, etc.) to the same scale as the painting. I find this immensely helpful in my own work.

There is a measuring utility in Photoshop buried in the eyedropper tool. Measure the head in the photo, and measure the head in the painting. Divide (using a calculator) the dimension from the painting by the dimension from the photo. Write down the result. Under Image/Image Size in Photoshop you can use that calculation result to multiply with either the height or width dimensions to make the photograph file match the scale of your painting (first you may want to reduce the DPI to 96 so you don't have an overwhelmingly huge file).

Once you get the hang of this it is easy to bring your reference image right up to the scale of your painting, and from that you can print out any detail needed, to hold up right next to your painting for comparison.

Hope this helps!

Garth

Garth, I wonder whether this works in Photoshop Elements as well. I've had a devil of a time matching the size of reference photos to portraits in the past. This would definitely make my life easier!

Leslie

[Garth Herrick]

Originally Posted by Leslie Ficcaglia

Garth, I wonder whether this works in Photoshop Elements as well. I've had a devil of a time matching the size of reference photos to portraits in the past. This would definitely make my life easier!

Leslie

Leslie, I have no idea. I don't have PhotoShop Elements. If someone does, maybe they can check if there is a measuring tool option in the eyedropper, or somewhere else.

Garth