Most Complex Photos
I have chosen a select few photos that required the most effort to edit, yet
seem relatively simple at first glance. (Pictures will take some time to load
with slow connections, please be patient)
To begin, here is the picture of me as a tiny mermaid in
a vase.
To accomplish this photo, I first needed to
take a picture of the vase with the rose in it.
Next, I
needed a picture of myself in the proper pose. (I have taken the liberty to crop
it a bit for this demonstration). I used a fan to blow my hair in order to make
it look as though it is weightless in water.
Then,
I needed a picture of a fin that I could paste on me. I found a picture of
a mermaid sculpture on the internet and edited the fin onto my body. (As you see
one fin is blocking another in the picture, so extensive editing was needed for
the fin to look right).
After the fin was placed on my body and the background was removed
from the original pose, all that was left was to place myself into the
vase. The detail is so precise that if you look closely, you might notice
the color change on my fingertips to make it appear I am pressing on the glass
as I peer out. Click here to view
finished product.
I love the work of Brian Froud and wanted very much to
put myself into one of his pictures. There was one major problem with this
however.....photos are not drawings, and it is quite difficult to match them
seamlessly together. Here is the original picture found in Mr. Froud's book
titled Good Fairies, Bad Fairies.
My first
step was to take a photo of myself in the proper pose.
After using effects from my photo editing programs, I then altered
my outfit and roughly placed myself within the drawing.
At this point it was still obviously a photo stuck on a
drawing. Using a texture effect found in the software, I then added a
texture over the entire picture making it seem less like a rough paste and more
like one picture. After some finishing touches (like my pointed ears
and color effects) the drawing became complete. Click here to view the finished
product.
One other example of me placing a photo of myself into a drawing is the one
of me in the poster from the movie Labyrinth. Click here to view.
Finally, and perhaps the most deceptive of all my edited
photos, is this one:
So,
what is so deceptive about this picture? Well,
it's the fact that the couch I am sitting on--as well as the candle lamp next to
me--is doll furniture. Yes, tiny pieces of doll furniture. Here it
is, actual scale. (About 6 inches high).
I located this old doll furniture in a box and found myself
wishing it was real because it would make a great gothic-themed photo. I
decided to give it a try. First I took photos of the furniture with
special lighting. (Notice how the upper right corner is lit brighter because
that is the area the candles would be lighting if the candle lamp were
real.)
After that I had to pose myself in the position I would
be were I actually on the couch.
Now
all that remained was to put myself on the couch (Altering my colors so I match
the dark scene). I also needed to take the fake looking red covers off the
top of the candle lamp and edit on some actual flames. With all this
accomplished, the final picture is born. Most people can't detect exactly
what was changed until I tell them what I did. Click here to view the final
product.
And there you have it, a brief look into the complexities of my most extreme
work. That was all done with photo editing programs that severely lacks
any of the great editing features of expensive programs. If I ever get my
hands on one of those pieces of software, perhaps someday my photos will be so
seamless I won't remember which ones are real, and which ones are only a
dream....
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