articles/Tablets/marriageheaven-page2
by Mike McNamee Published 01/11/2004
How we did it
Tom Lee's original picture of cellist Nick Byrne was shot for a CD sleeve. Carol took this image into Painter and used the following sequence to clone it (rather than Quick Clone):
1. Open Colour Corrected RAW file from a Photoshop psd.
2. Click Edit>Clone on Painter.
3. Click Select All the Edit>Clear (back ground turn blank white).
4. Click Edit>Fade and set the opacity to 11%, this brings back a very faint ghost of the original image to act as a cloning guide.
5. Roughly clone over the parts of the original to be taken to Photoshop later, thus simplifying the composition.
6. Save the image from Painter as a psd file
7. Open the original file
8. Open the psd "clone" file in Photoshop
9. Holding the shift key down, drag the cloned image and drop it onto the Original (the shift key forces the clone to drop absolutely lined up pixel for pixel to the original).
10. Duplicate the clone layer
11. Go back to the clone layer and apply a Graphics Pen filter the try the Blending modes to create an effect that you like.
12. Go to the duplicate of the clone and apply a Filter>Sketch>Chalk and Charcoal with white as your foreground colour (it matters!).
13. Change the blending mode to taste.
14. At this stage Carol normally looks at the cropping possibilities to bring detail up in scale. Very often the composition can be strengthened by very selective extraction of smaller parts of the image. She will also try out a number of blending modes and layer opacities.
The workflow above looks complex. However it only took 20 minutes including trying out quite a number of options. Obviously then, this is not a technique to try and build into a workflow for producing a proof CD show for your client.
In Use
Bundled with the Intuos is a "lite" version of Corel Painter, "Painter Essentials". Painter remains the software of choice for mimicking natural paint media. We chose to review the full version, now at number IX and brought in digital painting expert Carol Tipping to give it a really demanding workout. Carol is one of the UK's leading experts in this medium and holds the dubious distinction of being one of the few people to ever wear out a Wacom pen. One of Wacom's long-standing problems is their replacement market, their tables rarely break and even more rarely wear out. On top of that, people get possessive and very attached to them!
There are 0 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Thursday 1st January 1970