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Dthind · member Member # Joined: 12 Dec 2000 Posts: 436

So the CEO of my company is doing a powerpoint presentation for our annual meeting. He wanted his head added to a Sopranos picture. I did that, but his picture is too clean.

Any thoughts on how to make his picture still standout, but blend in more with the background ?

halo thirteen · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 5:47 pm

Hrm..
Well for one thing, the picture seems to be of poor quality, like it was compressed bad, so you could try to resave the head part with a low quality setting, so it could match the rest of the pic.

And I'm not sure, but I think the head looks a bit too big for the body, you might wanna try to make it a bit smaller.

Molybdenum-Indiscipline · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 5:50 pm

I recommend that you decrease the size of his head slightly, then lower the brightness and increase the contrast. Finally you should add some light values to his hair to match the other swarthy mafioso types. Hope that helps.

Dthind · member Member # Joined: 12 Dec 2000 Posts: 436

One thing I forgot to mention,

I was given this project to clean up where someone else started. Another employee copied the background from some web page and increased the picture size, hence the poor quality and over-pixelization.

All I did was re-scan the head shot, skew it and rotate it a bit left. I added some noise and lowered the contrast and brightness a little.

I probably should have said that.

So far the CEO (or as we call him Napolean) likes this, I however think it is boring.

Jezebel · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 6:16 pm

Well, you could always decrease the quality of the head the same way the guy decreased the quality of the background

Just shrink it and make it larger again, maybe save it out as a low-qual jpeg so it has a bit of jpeg compression nastiness to it. Then import the face back in and start tweaking. Maybe?

Beth

quaternius · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 6:23 pm

I've had to do this sort of thing on a couple of projects. In addition to some of the other suggestions I'd (keeping the ceo head on a separate layer) try a little [gaussian] blur of 1, 2 or 3 pixels on the ceo head,(but try other blurs as well), then desaturate the new head to match the existing photo. Trial and error 'til it gets closer.

Oh yeah, you'll probably want to try some edge sharpening on the head once you've done the other stuff - to get it to match the bad quality of the original.

My 2 cents, good luck!

[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: quaternius ]

Dthind · member Member # Joined: 12 Dec 2000 Posts: 436

Everyone, thanks for your advice !!

Personally I just wanted to add a beard and horns...

Sparks · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 8:08 pm

I used to do a lot of this exact same kinda thing... mostly putting my friends in compromising photos... but anyways, I digress

They way I'd do it, is first get the head back as its own image

Save it with higher compression settings till it matches the burring of the rest of the pic

Paste it back in as its own layer

Select the outline of the head, feather the selection a pixel or 2 or 3 or whichever way it blends best yet keeps its edge, invert it, cut it

then work with the color levels to mix the skin color, desaturate it a bit, take down the contrast and up the brightness a tad

Do a little cleanup around the collar with a tiny darker brown airbrush

airbrush highlights onto the hair from the sun like on the other people in the pic... or better yet, cut out the hair from your bosses pic, use the hair from the original sopranos pic and just blend it into the bosses face, but it may not look as much like your boss which I guess is the goal so take your pick

Hope some of this helped

[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: Sparks ]

synj · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 9:33 pm

FIXED IT! HEHEEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHA

[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: synj ]

feebsaint · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 9:44 pm

synj, you are a friggin' genius. I had to gather myself to comment. Yes, you did fix it... and a fine job, too!

Dthind... hand this pic over to your boss, and have him send the check to synj.

...instant classic...

feebsaint · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 9:46 pm

Ha.. this reminds me... I did a sopranos caricature some time back. Not to take away from your thread, Dthind... but Jezebel already answered your question...

Have a gander.

u2art · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 9:55 pm

BWAHHHHH HHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHA
Synj you are my damn hero!!

LOLOLLOL
HAHAHAHAAHHAHAHA
hashahshashashhashahsa
I am gonna steal your brain and eyes if I ever meet you...better yet, ever see lawnmower man...I am gonna live in your computer and just laugh and pee all day!!!!LOLOL

Art
Im crying here, now I cant see, hahahahaahhahahha

u2art · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 10:02 pm

damn Mike you posted whilst i did....i like that shit man...you use painter???? Looks damn nice, you are so exact...but you stretch shit...you are the master stretchinator exacticator extraordinair......um ok. Hear ye HEAR YE!! MIKE MAY ROCKS MY DAMN FACE!!! its cool..oh yeah...I agree with all comments on this thread...i had to say soemthing....aklways match the lower quality...noise is good too.

nickmarksdotcom · member Member # Joined: 17 Feb 2001 Posts: 244

whose the photomanip master??? Marks is!
whose the photomanip master??? Marks is!

hehehe here ya go. just clipped it out. saved it just the face as a jpg with low compression and pasted it back with a little bluring around the edges.

feebsaint · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 10:29 pm

u2art... nah.. he's not a painter creation, although that's what I do 98% of my art with these days. That caricature is done with verithin pencils... terra cotta and dark brown. you should check those pencils out, sometime... they rock.

i admit, however, that after scanning it, i bumped up the contrast, and killed the saturation a bit. i do that to all of my drawings of similar feel.

damn... i'm still laughing from synj's post. haha.. omigod!

feebsaint · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2001 10:35 pm

by the way, Dthind.... now that nick marks has ruined the quality of the face (as needed to be done to make it look better... that sounds wrong...), you need to goof with the lighting, too. backlight his hair, like the rest of the bozos standing in line. do what you can to match the lighting on his face, and he should fit in better.

tell your ceo for me, that he looks like a friggin' porn star... and has some of the wierdest eyebrows on God's green (but slightly brownish) earth.

Dthind · member Member # Joined: 12 Dec 2000 Posts: 436

Synj - While I consider that funny, I would be fired on the spot for even showing the picture. He Has NO (I Repeat NO) sense of humor unless someone else is suffering and he can watch.

The more I look at this the more I realize his head is too wide compared to the rest of them. I need to fix that.

Frost · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2001 5:48 am

Synj =D

I would just put a lens-flare eminating from his head, showing the absolute and shear brilliance of such a man! (what? me have a grudge against owners who reap the rewards of the hard working employees that actually do the work which sustains the company? nah.)

(kidding, sort of.)

[ June 22, 2001: Message edited by: Frost ]

Dthind · member Member # Joined: 12 Dec 2000 Posts: 436

quote:
Originally posted by Frost:
Synj =D

I would just put a lens-flare eminating from his head, showing the absolute and shear brilliance of such a man! (what? me have a grudge against owners who reap the rewards of the hard working employees that actually do the work which sustains the company? nah.) (kidding, sort of.)

[ June 22, 2001: Message edited by: Frost ]

I am trying to to take it too personal. But.

He makes $500,000 (USD) per year. He has his own T1 going to his house to check e-mail and sending nasty messages to us at all times of the day. By the way cable modems are available where he lives...

He LOVES to talk about the companies No Retaliation policy, but EVERYONE knows he is the biggest offender of this.

He can't make a decision to save his life about anything tangible.

He sent me to Las Vegas to take pictures of chairs for a conference to determine which color chair cover he would use (OK so it was Vegas, which wasnt bad)....

he took over from the founder a few years ago. The founder was a great guy that everyone liked.

oh well..

William H. Daniels · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2001 1:26 pm

Hmmm....

OK. Here it is:

Tell him that in order to do this any justice you'd need a better shot of the Soprano's cast, so you need to visit them on the set.

That should put him back a few bucks.

Seriously, is there any way to get a picture of the PHB with the light coming from above and in front of his head? The lighting on his head is from the (viewer's) upper left, whereas the lighting in the pubshot is from above the viewer. Note that the shadows are the same on both sides of their faces. Also notice that they are squinting from the light coming directly at them. Your boss, on the other hand, is staring wide-eyed into the sun. It's little things like this that can make or break a photo-montage.

If not, then try to even out the shadows on his face by darkening the (viewer's) left and lightening the right. I'll try this when I get home. I can't post an example pic from work.

[ June 22, 2001: Message edited by: William H. Daniels ]