Living Dead - a GIMP flower experiment

Replic · Dec 21, 2004

I can't tell if I hit this photo on the nose or not. It's taken 8 total hours logged in front of GIMP constantly playing and nitpicking over this damned photo, so you can tell that I'm still not sure on whether or not the GIMPization came out right. But alas, I need some help guiding the way.

I took this photo...

And then GIMPed it into...

Alas, stoarge quality is poor, and as always, simply e-mailing me shall score you a free (non-autographed) high quality copy for furhter judgment :lol:

:roll: :mrgreen:

terri · Dec 21, 2004

Eight hours...? Man, that's a LOT of time! Not that you didn't get a decent result here, but.....you know you could have done the same thing by hand with a box of photo pencils in less than an hour, right?

If you like this look, you might want to print it out and try it by hand next time.

Replic · Dec 21, 2004

Time to color in the photo:...... 2 hours

Time to nitpick some finer details:.... 2 hours

Time to change everything, change it back, nitpick even finer details, until eventually realizing you just keep undoing the finer changes back into what they were, rinse and repeat?:.....4 hours plus 2 months in a mental institution.

terri · Dec 21, 2004

:lmao:

Nutter, I see. I'll just say it's fabulous, so you can take your hands off it. How's that? :wink:

Replic · Dec 21, 2004

Nah man, I want critiques. The only way I'm going to get better at this is if I get serious critiques. I can't see what's wrong with it now because it's the only picture I've been able to work on for the past 3 days.

Thankfully some portrait shots of my brothers girlfriend came out nicely and should keep me busy for the winter break. (Some were outright seductive, till my brother quickly changed the focus on the camera. A shame- they woulda came out nice :-D.)

So critique away guys. And gals.

sillyphaunt · Dec 22, 2004

No critique here.. so shoot me..

I love the colors you picked.. I have so been there on the painful process of fixing a photo until you go batty becuase you can't tell if it looks any good or not.

mentos_007 · Dec 22, 2004

heh I prefer the b&w image

the colors are "not real" for me

andycarnall · Dec 22, 2004

Did you shoot it in B&W originally?

If you shot in colour and greyscaled it first, I would suggest letting some of the colour back into the stone work (just a hint) - to me it looks a little too stark at the moment

hlasso · Dec 22, 2004

Very nice.

I suggest you color the floor to get a better result. A light touch of brown might be nice and give more life to the scene

Replic · Dec 22, 2004

It was originally shot on 35 mm B&W film. I'll try the brown tint and repost.

What else can I do to improve it?

terri · Dec 22, 2004

Painting your background brown will push your colors forward, naturally. Be certain that your background color effectively complements your foreground.

Replic · Dec 22, 2004

And how's this?

matthew robertson · Dec 22, 2004

Replic said:
And how's this?

Too much. Just a hint of red-brown is needed; it can still convey the monochrome feel. You may hate me for saying this, but you might also want to desaturate the colour levels a little. I faced this problem recently myself (at http://robertsonphoto.blogspot.com/2004/12/rear-view-mirror.html ) and found that I needed to desaurate the colour by 10-20% to make match the greys, even though I was specifically looking for the colour to stand out. Sorry about plugging my own site, but that's how I solved a B&W Brick + Colour effect.

I've been working on hand-colouring an IR image (using a graphics tablet), so I know how tough it can be. Keep it up.

Replic · Dec 23, 2004

That is an incredibly awesome pic. How long did it take you to actually finish the coloring on that photo?

I'm not lucky enough to have a tablet- instead I zoom way in and use the mouse as slowly as possible to get my work done.

Also, I edited the picture with less red, and brought out the colors brighter. To save load time, I replaced the third image posted in this thread with the new one.

Comments on that image is now needed!

matthew robertson · Dec 23, 2004

Thanks, but I'm not that good. That started life as a colour digital photo, and wasn't hand-coloured. I just offer it as my solution to the problem of combining a little of the brick's colour without losing the feel of the monochrome. The main image is at about 10% saturation (-90), and the colour portion had to be reduced to 80% (-20) to tie in. Combining colour with B&W can be very iffy because even natural colour can be too bright if it's not kept under control.

I do like the more recent image better, but I'd push it even further back toward monochrome. But, that's a matter of taste, and mine can be unusual.

My tablet cost as much as the Photoshop Elements software that I use it with, so by that standard, it's a bad case of diminishing returns. (It doesn't improve the end product as much as the software does, even though they cost the same.) But, I do use it for any intensive editing that needs a brush. If you enjoy hand-colouring images, it's worth it.