DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register) 
 
Challenge Entries
Portfolio Images
This image is not part of a public portfolio.
First Strike
First Strike
shamer


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Free Study 2007-08 (Expert Editing)
Camera: Pentax K10D
Lens: Sigma 24-135mm f/2.8-4.5 Aspherical IF for Pentax
Date: Aug 31, 2007
Galleries: Rural, Digital Art
Date Uploaded: Aug 31, 2007

 I was honestly a little bitter after some of the comments I received, but I'm over it now & I appreciate all the opinions expressed here!

I'm not 100% sure why I did this image like this - maybe I felt inspired by my trip out to California this month. My gig out there involved interviewing John Knoll (one of the co-creators of Photoshop) and Rob Coleman (George Lucas' animation director). I spent a few days at Lucas Film/Lucas Arts/ILM's main campus and also got to tour SkyWalker Ranch & Big Rock Ranch - maybe all that sci-fi & talent put me in the mood to do this...

--------


This is a collage of 6 images The original background image is this one:



(before editing)


(after editing)

After editing it (which was just some simple layer duplication overlay/screen blending modes & some adjustment layers of levels, curves & selective color), the image looked to me almost like some fantasy scene & I immediately thought how neat it might look if the silhouette of a dragon were up in that blood red sky. I'm not some fantasy freak, the thought just struck me as an interesting project & I banked the idea away as a possibility for the Expert Editing Free Study.

Well, the night before the challenge, I decided to run with the idea so I grabbed one of my kid's toy dragons & set up a little cyclorama on my kitchen island. To make a long story short, I ended up also shooting a Star Wars action figure for the wizard character & adding San Francisco's Coit Tower & a ski slope from Brekenridge, CO (both of which I shot this month while on various work assignments). The 'magik' is a handful of lights from the Golden Gate bridge - the long exposures I did on the bridge turned the lights into spiky balls. Here are those images:







It should be noted that although I drew from a number of different images for this composition, I didn't use any 'painterly' type effects to make this look the way it does. In fact, with the exception of the 'wizard's magic', I didn't use any special effects filters whatsoever. Everything was accomplished with adjustment layers, blending modes, dodging/burning and lighting my subjects in such a way as to mimic the light already present in the image they were to be composited into. I did do some cloning on the base of the Coit Tower in order to remove some Japanese tourists and also did some perspective correction on it as well. Only the magic required a filter, but even that was just photoshop's 'twirl' effect.

Lenses used in this composition:

Sigma 24-135mm f/2.8
Pentax FA 31mm f/1.8
Pentax 135mm f/3.5
Sigma 10-20mm f/4

Thanks to those that liked it!

Statistics
Place: 46 out of 503
Avg (all users): 6.5166
Avg (commenters): 7.0000
Avg (participants): 6.2571
Avg (non-participants): 7.1087
Views since voting: 2206
Views during voting: 328
Votes: 151
Comments: 29
Favorites: 6 (view)

Please log in or register to add your comments!

AuthorThread
 09/16/2007 11:11:24 PM
thank you for showing how you did this, great eye and 1337 photoshop skillzzz
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/09/2007 09:33:04 PM
Great vision putting all this together. Nevermind the negative comments about digital art, to each his own. Grats on a great image and score.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/09/2007 09:04:17 AM
I love it. This is awful to see images like this miss out on higher scores, because they're almost digital art?

And...maybe I'm going a bit too far by saying this, but personally, I'm not sure I understand why people get upset over "digital art" images. I think that expert editing challenges voters should be open to the digal art stuff. Just because it isn't strictly photographic in nature doesn't negate the fact that it's a beautiful, shining image... Photoshop editing is a skill, too, right?? :)

But anyways, stunning image. I love all the layers of colors, elements, and I guess I am a sucker for fantasy-type stuff on top of it all. Keep up the excellent work! :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2007 12:20:56 AM
Stunning image matey. Should have top-tenned!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/07/2007 08:35:17 PM
man i was expecting this to place higher. i would like to see some of the editing steps and how many images this is made from.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
09/07/2007 05:35:26 PM
OMG! whoa whoa whoa. This is amazing. Although this is probably the use of super expert editing, but still it's wow.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/06/2007 09:28:32 PM
Gorgeous fantasy photo.. 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/06/2007 04:47:01 PM
Looks more like graphic arts then a photograph. I don't know, taking the expert editing little bit to far for my taste.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/06/2007 01:27:28 PM
Its too busy for my liking, there's too much to be looking at, but a 7 nonetheless. well done. Your photoshop skills are certainly way more advanced than mine :-( Lol.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/06/2007 09:40:11 AM
Great fantasy photo. It's put together so well!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/06/2007 06:32:04 AM
Very creative and I love the intense colours, IMO the image is stronger and more subtle without the dragon.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/05/2007 08:10:32 AM
Sorry, looks too much like a cartoon or painting for my taste but still gave a 5 wich is good from me who usually hates digital art images here at DPC.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/05/2007 04:52:02 AM
Interesting, but looks a bit too unrealistic for my taste as a "photograph". I imagine this would do well as a poster however. Nice work on the graphics end of this.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2007 07:42:06 PM
great editing...like it alot
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2007 07:37:50 PM
VERY cool! great fantasy shot and lovely colors
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2007 11:03:11 AM
SWEET!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2007 10:39:56 AM
Interesing image.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2007 08:50:08 AM
Great montage. Love the contrast of complimentary colors. Well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/02/2007 01:51:05 AM
Ok, too fantasy, not enough photograph. Good though.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/02/2007 12:37:40 AM
I'm sure it was a hard work! Looks like a book-cover of "Harry Potter" or something else. Beautiful colors!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2007 11:44:13 PM
This would make an excellent fantasy poster.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2007 07:42:57 PM
A little bit too cartoonish - don't think that I hate expert editing, I have an image in the race, too - I just thought that this might have been even better with e.g. more noise. This way is too clean.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2007 04:30:45 PM
interseting take on this challenge - wonder how many images this took to genereate - well done but not my style 6
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2007 11:32:30 AM
WOW - that's fantasy exemplified!! Nice editing. Congrats on your hard work.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2007 04:56:06 AM
Excellent photoshop skills - no doubt about that. But to me this is an example on why I don't think expert editing belongs at DPC. Imo this is not longer photography but digital art and belongs more on sites like Deviantart than here.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/31/2007 10:22:36 PM
Wow!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/31/2007 08:20:49 PM
Wow! how the heck ya do this? amazing! 10!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/31/2007 08:17:32 PM
wooow. This is pure magic!!! You are insainly skilled...!!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/31/2007 08:13:29 PM
Fantastic! 10 from me.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 04/07/2025 01:22:21 AM EDT.