Artistic splash-effect portraits
How I discovered a method to change a ordinary portrait into something gorgeous!
Article pubilshed on 2018/06/02
This post is assigned to the categories: Black and white, People and creative portraits
All right, buckle up, there’s something to see again! You and me, we’ll discover it together this time. But sadly I’ve to disappoint you right at the beginning.
There will be no normal image to see.
So let me tell you what we need: We’re gonna go get our painting stuff out together. Yes, our painting stuff is required … Just like we used to know it from school.
We need a brush, a paint box, sponge, water, maybe a little piece of cloth and a tube of opaque white. What is definitely not to be missed: A beautiful, large canvas and an extra portion of creativity. That or something like that is our approach.
Instead of real, physical materials, we need Photoshop and its tools:
Special brush tips provide an unique look, colors that have been thought of beforehand ensure an extra portion of liveliness to our plan.
We want to create a portrait that you don’t get to see all the time. There are several reasons for this: On the one hand, a person is quite manipulated. This process also involves a certain amount of time. On the other hand, the picture can no longer be compared with the original in the end. Some people say that this is no photography anymore.
That’s enough reasons to start away.
Of course, all of it begins with a portrait of a person. When taking the picture it should be ensured that the person can later be well cut out in Photoshop: A long focal length is appropriate.
And then the creative transformation begins: Open the picture in Photoshop and cut out the person. Don’t worry, you do not need to be too accurate. Now comes the exciting part: The next step involves some magic and our creative splash-effect portrait is done!
Dramatic pause.
Nice tutorial, I guess? Well, the required steps are described much better by the folks of Blue Lightning TV than I ever could explain. Just search for them on YouTube.
If you turn left instead of right in some places or use one tool instead of the other, you can create your own individual results. This just requires time and some willingness to experiment with Photoshop. The rest will come on its own. Pweh!
After I had finished my first picture, I made some copies in Lightroom and then split toned them.
I couldn’t believe what beautiful versions I could create with just one additional click.
I wanna give you two thoughts here:
First of all, imitation and cloning is something good. The recooking of recipes with your own ingredients also brings out your own dishes. New ingredients also bring new dishes. Furthermore, you should do things differently than the mainstream.
When I uploaded the pictures to 500px.com, it was ofttimes commented that this would no longer be photography. I won’t deny that, but it was still fun and a creative alternative.
And believe me, it doesn’t hurt to change perspectives once in a while.
