[Sumaleth]

Here's a go at trying to realistically modify an existing photograph. Why? Go here; http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum2/HTML/005802.html

This is the modified one;



It took me a lot longer to do the small changes here so I didn't do as much as I intended to do. Does the change stand out?

The original is;

http://users.bigpond.net.au/sumaleth/flindersorig.jpg

Feel free to add new parts to it.

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Spooge; do you think it's a good exercise just like this or is there something more specific that I could be doing in order to make the task more worthwhile?

Row.


[This message has been edited by Sumaleth (edited October 25, 2000).]

[Frost]

Looks good Suma, but that green roof (and flag) you added is out of perspective as it should be more skewed towards the center of the building. Other than that, the values and hues seem pretty good, I had trouble finding what you had changed/added. =)

[Binke]

HEyy that looks pretty cool Suma!
Good job! Quite hard to tell that the left tower was painted.

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Art Dimensional

[General Confusion]

Suma and anyone doing this exercise.

I do repainting/retouching alot to imagery. One thing that I know that's a factor to doing this sort of thing is resolution. What looks good in a lower res does not hold up when it's higher, as is with any image created, but when doing this it is much easier to fool the eye when it's lower res. I would suggest doing this at a much higher resolution, maybe resolution comparable to film res (not even sure what that is). Then, if you can fool the eye, it will have been much more beneficial to you. Not kowing what res this is done at, I'm probably wasting your time, but I thought it could be helpful

later

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State of Confusion

[Waldo]

Here's my two cents...

[eetu]

yeah it might be a bit more useful doing this
in a higher res.. well one can learn quite a bit about faking camera aberrations and compression errors this way <grin>

i had to try, but this is quite obvious :\



eetu.

[General Confusion]

AM

quote

Quote:

I know the main reasons for me for doing these exercises is values and rendering

Rendering being the keyword. That is exactly what I mean. If you were to render (attempt to make your additions appear seamless to the actual photo) these add-ons to a lower res image it is absolutely much easier, because the pixels aren't as fine making it easier for you to fake it. If you were treating this as a matte painting, you res has to be high for the sake of film necessities. So IMO you'll be hurting your progress by using photos for this kind of exercise. If you want to learn values try using some real life set-ups, the color will be more true, then what a photo can provide, etc. And you learn what things make an image appear real, texture, form, lighting, etc.

I think it's detrimental to try to "retouch" a photo at a low res cause you are retouching... to a low res, which may train your eye to see things incorrectly. I would say if you are just practicing studies, etc. render objects around your house, don't make full blown illustrations, just snipets of imagery, then apply that knowledge to your next masterpiece

I may have misunderstood the intent of this exercise, because in your original post, it seemed like you were interested in replicating a matte situation, so this may be off base, if it isn't, do you get my point?

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State of Confusion

[AliasMoze]

GC. I'm only speaking for myself about the intent of the exercise. I myself have no plans to do mattes professionally. However, the act of adding to a photo and trying to paint photorealistically is a good exercise. Ultimately it's to learn how to paint that way from scratch.

I understand what you mean about resolution. One of the concerns I have upfront is how to res up and down. I have a digital camera, but it only shoots at 1600 x 1200. So, I'd have to res up to 5000 wise to paint with any detail. I'm not sure how the original info will res back down again to 640, but that's something I'll find out I guess.

So, at least for me the goal is not to recreate a matte painting scenario, just to practice painting and rendering realistically.

[Sumaleth]

Frost;

Ack, you're right, it does look like the top is about to fall off!

GC;

You make a good point there.

I used to do a bit of this sort of thing where I used to work and we only ever worked in video resolutions, so I had looked for an image on the net that was pretty close to that sort of resolution (the image here is just a crop of the original since I didn't work on a very large area).

The next one I do will be closer to film resolution (anyone know what that is?). Although it's actually hard to find film-res images on the net.

This image was painted x4 the size that it is here and is actually a lot more detailed than you can tell from this small scale.

Alias;

I didn't use any rubber stamping here but I would use that if I thought it was suitable for a particular task and I wasn't doing it as a painting exersize.

About scaling the image up to work on; I actually scaled it up x4 but used the "nearest neighbour" scaling method (rather than any of the filtering styles).

What I was thinking was that it wouldn't blur the image, so at the end I could scale it back down using the same method and the original parts of the photo would be identical to the start.

Or I guess I could just scale down the "fix" layer in the end and then put that back over the original image. Probably only really matters at these small scales where a blurry photosource doesn't really want to get any more extra blurring if we can help it.

All;

The best way to view changes here I've found is to load both images into different browsers and then just flick between them.

Great changes Waldo and Eetu.

Row.

[spooge demon]

This is a good exercise.

Also, do copies (exact copies) of master paintings. This I would like to see. I gave all mine away

Film rez is 2056*1550 or something close. Loki will know. Some films were done at 4k a while ago. Pissing contest, nothing more, and really expensive. Some films are done a little lower and sharpened before going to film. This is motion picture I am talking about. Print is much higher. Danny will know this, I think.

The question of rez is interesting. It is easy to get away with more murder at postage stamp rez. On one hand, working at lo rez teaches you to see correctly because you do not get caught up in detail. One the other hand, it is very forgiving.

I would suggest, and I do this myself sometimes, to start at lower rez, and then blow it up to fine tune it. Just don�t put any edges in low rez. Low rez also allows more freedom with the brushes. Painting quickly in large areas is painful at best at 5k.

Do try to find higher rez source. Then shrink it and do your block in. Go back to your original file and rez up your painting and finish it. you will probably learn the most that way. Of course you can just work on the hi rez if you want. If you are doing small changes this works fine. Larger stuff should be toyed with at lo rez.

Oh, the things you have been doing look nice, but a little safe. Best to start slow, I know, but you can be a little more ambitious. I know you need to stretch more because you all have pulled it of 100 percent! Go to the edge of what you know, fail a little bit.

[Francis]

How bout this one?



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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[AliasMoze]

Looks pretty seemless to me. I actually had to look hard to even know what was changed.

Did you paint directly on, or did you rubber stamp anything?

GC, I'm also planning to do some of these. I know the main reasons for me for doing these exercises is values and rendering. So I won't be concerned about having the image hold up under high res. I'll probably shoot for 640 x 480 final res and will paint somewhere around 5000. But I think allot of us are doing it for values and rendering practice.

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited October 25, 2000).]

[chalker]

Francis, that's so cool, are you a matt painter by profession ?..

[Frost]

Francis: Oh no! It's independance day all over again! =) Very nice, hehe. Although it would have been nice to hace charred bodies and skeletons standing there ... =)