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Elimination of Illusion
Elimination of Illusion
adigitalromance


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Male Portrait II (Expert Editing)
Camera: Canon EOS-30D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Location: A Digital Romance Studio
Date: Aug 30, 2011
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 320
Shutter: 1/50
Galleries: Emotive, Portraiture
Date Uploaded: Sep 1, 2011

 Spent a load of time of this. Thanks to Bear_Music for helping me choose and find ways to improve the image.

Originally two shots, one with me in the chair with my hand out, and another with me leaning forward with my face in my hand. My left hand is pasted and lined up in both shots, with the empty hand being covered by the hand with the face.

I used the liquify tool to reshape my hand, arm, body and faces. I have an outtake with a much more grotesque version of that.

Ran lots of noise reduction on the "mask" to make it look a bit plastic. Overlayed some NIK Silver Efex. Lots of selective curves layers for individual adjustments.

The flames are rendered from clouds with curves and contrast applied. Duplicate fire layer used for the light cast on me in the chair.

I also did some high pass overlays for sharpening effects which caused a lot of heavy graininess in my skin which I healed and used NIK Define to selectively remove.

I have my own idea as far as what I meant for the image to represent, but your own interpretation is up to you. :)

[Sep. 5th, 2011 02:20:34 AM]

Votes: 125
Avg Vote: 6.9280


This makes me really appreciate how hard it is to get a 7!

**POST CHALLENGE**

I'm grateful for my first honorable mention!
Check out this .gif of the creation process. Give it a second to load, it's 2.4MB.

Here also, are two outtakes:


Abandoned this idea early when I realized it wouldn't work well at 800px.


Went with more of a subtle edit. I didn't want to look like a gargoyle.

Statistics
Place: 4 out of 47
Avg (all users): 6.8595
Avg (commenters): 8.7000
Avg (participants): 6.4483
Avg (non-participants): 6.9359
Views since voting: 2654
Views during voting: 461
Votes: 185
Comments: 23
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 09/15/2011 11:50:05 AM
Congrats on the 4th place. Excellent shot!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/13/2011 03:38:29 PM
lolz you look lolz funny, you need to act better
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/11/2011 08:00:03 AM
I like this better than mine and thought it would win. Congratulations on the great picture and 4th place.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/09/2011 02:51:55 AM
Great work.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 09:45:37 PM
Congrats on an awesome image, the new PB, and the nifty star for 4th! And thanks so much for the gif showing how it was done - that's fascinating! Excellent work!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 09:04:54 PM
Congrats on top 5! awesome work!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 08:57:16 PM
Congrats! and thanks for posting the stages of editing gif - that is terrific!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 08:48:21 PM
What FABULOUS manipulation! I'm astounded, actually.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 08:42:50 PM
Hey, a new PB! Congrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 08:12:39 PM
Well done! Love the Gif, too.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 08:05:47 PM
Just missed out, thought it would ribbon, but close, well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
09/08/2011 07:51:23 PM
7
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/08/2011 05:39:59 AM
good use of the rule set, like that it's still primarily a portrait but also has that little something to make it expert, the object to the left is a distraction for me
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/06/2011 12:47:45 AM
Awesome work, both at time of shoot and behind the k/b. Concept, capture, keyboard. Front page.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2011 07:54:26 PM
Powerful! Excellent work!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2011 06:39:26 AM
What a good looking model,great image.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2011 01:05:15 AM
top 5, no vote
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/03/2011 02:47:20 PM
Excellent image. Love it. Hmmm...Gyaban?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/03/2011 11:08:28 AM
Love it!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/02/2011 05:17:59 PM
Wonderful work. A good imagination executed really well.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/02/2011 10:44:33 AM
An exercise done over and over again - well applied here. I certainly recognize the good work even if it's not exacly my cup of tea.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2011 09:40:27 PM
I am running out of over-the-top adjectives in this challenge! This rocks! Superb execution.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/01/2011 08:13:59 PM
Probably the winner, great PP.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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