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How To Talk For Artists And Users (Photo-Manipulations)

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thehangingtree

Proconsul
Staff member
Recently I have had some private discussions and a couple public ones about manipulating pictures or post-production art if you are the original author of the work or asked to do the work by the artist. One thing that holds us back is getting started. If Crayola Crayons had been invented today the ‘User Manual’ would be at least one hundred pages.

I had played around with Corel since 2005 but got more serious when a moron neighbor signed a contract to have a 200 foot cell tower put on his property…

I went out and took pictures from all the neighbor’s properties aiming when this thing would stand. Then I took a picture of a 200 foot cell tower and merged it with the other pictures. My wife was an I.T. person so I had access to a roll printer and made 2’x3’ pictures of the manipulated pictures. When we presented the posters at the county public hearing the tower was denied. The cell tower representative said it was the only one he knew of being turned down.

I did over forty pictures but will only show two originals and the merged result.
1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg


After that I learned how to make clothed ladies naked and, more difficultly, how to make naked ladies clothed.

4.jpg 5.jpg

So besides our little fun there are other uses for the skill. Some of what I cover will seem very obvious to some of you but if it helps a few more join in, be patient. If you have ideas, add them.

This will cover how to do things in Corel but I am told Photoshop is similar so if you see a term that I use in Corel-speak and can help someone using different software please translate.

The subject of this lesson will be an excellent render by Mermaidhunter.
10.jpg

For my part I will be loading Poser 6, and trying to learn that. When I get that down, god help you ladies…
tree
...Isn't Eulalia cute???
 
We restore old photographs using Photoshop. We even managed to recover some photographs from glass plate negatives.
Burn!!!???
 
We restore old photographs using Photoshop. We even managed to recover some photographs from glass plate negatives.
I'll throw one in I have spent many hours on. Please when you see me describe something in Corel tell our friends what the hell I'm saying in Photoshop.

I am looking forward to this !

I hope you are. I had a photo I took that needed one of your pictures. That, along with some side remarks, sparked this whole idea

Tree
Burn!!!???
if you wish...


First you have to get the picture. I don’t like to work with pictures smaller than 200KB and don’t look much at pictures over a Mb because of what I pay for internet here. This picture so caught my eye that I didn’t notice that it was less than 130KB until I started doing this thread. Just goes to show you don’t need huge files if you’re only going to post them.

So I opened the picture and saved it as a Jpeg document. Opening Corel I opened an existing document (second icon upper left, other programs vary, last time I say that.) it saved as a 16 x 12.5” (about 40.5 x 32 cm, last time I do that conversion, also).

Nice picture that it is I am only going to use the woman (no surprise to any who have been here any amount of time). First I click on the view on the top tool bar and put a grid on the picture. Using the Mask tool I select a rectangular mask to take in the girl on her cross. The selected area is 7 x12.5” wide. I right click (Yes, it’s a PC, I have no clue what a Mac would do and they are probably bored by now, anyway) and click ‘copy’ then open a new image (far left on the top tool bar) and size it to 7 x12.5” then I right click again and hit ‘Paste’ . The little vixen appears, usually smaller than the window but if you drag the boxes in the corners she soon fills the space. In Corel you then click on object, scroll down and combine all objects with background.

At this point Mermaidhunter’s picture has got smaller but gone from 127kb to almost 3.5 MB. No offense meant, Sir Hunter, but since your background is of no interest to what I am doing to the woman you have produced, I will go back to his source drawing and delete it. In Corel I will select File Save as and save my image as (whatever) and save it.

At this point I have captured the image I wish to work with, deleted the source image from my hard drive, and by saving the work piece freed up my RAM.

She still doesn’t look too happy…
6.jpg
tree
 
Me like! :D


Sorry, Admi is still rubbing off on me! :p
 
Because I have a certain photograph I want to merge the picture with I click on image and scroll down to Image flip- horizontal.

I save the Corel file this way so it’s not using RAM…
7.jpg
tree
 
Well Mr. Tree, i hope you succeed with poser, in other groups i have been shot, beheaded, guillotined, yes i know that is beheading too, hung and been spreadeagled on my bed with dynamite up my pussy on a slow burning fuse,but crucified, never, so i am looking forward to your efforts, i got to paint shop pro 9 but when coral took it over it lost me, too complicated,i am only a simple soul
 
, so i am looking forward to your efforts, i got to paint shop pro 9 but when coral took it over it lost me, too complicated,i am only a simple soul
I do look forward to using poser. As for whatever "photo shop" you have what I am going over here is much the same in most of them, which is why I am saying if I say a command is 'this' and someone knows in a different program it is 'that' I encourage them (or you!) to jump in and mention it.

I use Corel because that is what my wife used and she knew computers. Now I am use to it and have too much invested to switch.

My goal here is not to show off my massive skills:confused:, but to encourage others to join the fun!

Tree

And yes Dorothy I eagarly wait to crucify to again... and again...spikes 2.jpg
 
I Just do is as a pastime love, i can`t be washing and ironing all the time, i could get a picture of a crucified girl and superimpose my head on it, that is easy to do ,but it`s cheating and it does`nt give me a buzz at all,mostly it`s used to make the camera photo`s we take look better, i or hubby could take a quick picture of one of the children then find out he or she has a flower growing out of the back of the head, paint shop pro can fix that. up to now i have never killed myself with a manip ,but after meeting you, it is a very tempting idea
 
Because I have a certain photograph I want to merge the picture with I click on image and scroll down to Image flip- horizontal.

I save the Corel file this way so it’s not using RAM…
7.jpg


Since I know that my background photo is a darker image when I take out the background I use a dark color. To speed up the process I use a mask tool (in this case the rectangular mask) to block out large portions of the background then use the fill tool to black it out. This is much quicker (on my computer) than using a paint tool on large areas.



If I were to be placing her image on a daylight sky background I would have used a light blue. If she were to end up in the woods, say at Tree’s estate, I would use a medium green. If you know your background, mask your subject with the most prominent color in it. It makes it easier to blend the picture into it. If I don’t know where I am going to use the poor girl I will use a light grey to take out the background.
8.jpg
This next picture shows a couple of things (besides the obvious breasts). First I copied a 2”x2” section of the picture and blew it up to a 4”x4”. My goal here was to let you see in the area near her nipple I use a very small paint tool, in this case custom airbrush, with the brush size either a 1 or 2, zero soft edge when I am right in the tight corner. As soon as paint my way out of the corner I will increase the brush size to at least a 5 and if I am doing a straight or even a gradual curve a larger brush size. The larger the brush size you can use the quicker you get rid of your background.
9.jpg

This picture also shows what happens when you work with a low resolution picture. Mermaidhunter posted this picture as a 127kb jpeg. This lovely pair of breasts is now 400% the size of his picture (if it were that easy!) and even after jpeg compression the picture is almost 250 kb, almost double the data of his 16 x 12.2 inch posting!!! You can easily see where the Corel software tried ‘guess’ what pixels should be what color. But that’s ok because where tree is done she will have nice smooth breasts again and you will find on your monitor MermaidHunter’s original doesn’t look much different from the highly massaged breasts.

Tree reminds to the site would like you to keep your posts around 400kb or less!!!
tree
 
This will cover how to do things in Corel but I am told Photoshop is similar so if you see a term that I use in Corel-speak and can help someone using different software please translate.
Not knowing what themes you have in mind, may I point at Melissa's Photoshop thread and suggest to kind of combine efforts and build on what already has been published?
I am currently playing around with DAZ and Poser as well, won't have time to seriously work with them before next year however.
 
Hi T,
Can I ask at this point why you are not using the freehand lasso tool which must be available?
 
Not knowing what themes you have in mind, may I point at Melissa's Photoshop thread and suggest to kind of combine efforts and build on what already has been published?
quote]

Stick the link to it here...
Hi T,
Can I ask at this point why you are not using the freehand lasso tool which must be available?

Yes it is available and I'm just about to get to my next mask tool. By your suggestion I will show two!

Tree
I have no idea why my reply showed up like that... moving on...


Ok we are going to call our girl L’ilSiss since she started asking me about Corel and her first crucifixion was on a desolate abandoned factory’s roof with no one around to watch but her fellow cruxies Messa and Eul and she deserves a public crucifixion…

The next picture shows L’il pretty well masked off around the outside. When painting a straight line if you click the brush at one end of the line you want to do then move the cursor to the end of where you want the line if you press and hold ‘alt’ then click the mouse you get a nice straight line!
10.jpg


The commands differ with different software but I’m sure they all have the same feature. I bring this up for another reason. In my Corel book and the tip at the bottom of the screen it says to use CTRL. It doesn’t do a damn thing if you do!!!



Another thing I do when painting around curves instead of dragging the brush with the mouse around the curve I first use the zoom tool to blow Siss’ breast up to fill my 18x11.5 inch monitor. I move the mouse around the edge of her breast (she likes that) holding the ‘alt’ key down and don’t a series of short lines to make the curve. It sounds like it shouldn’t work but what do you think of this?

11.jpg 9.jpg

(I meant the curve, Admi)

You will also see the confused pixels from the background are gone, so there was no need to worry about them earlier. We’ll see later if L’ilSiss’ breasts need massaging.
tree
 
A note about ‘Save’ and ‘Auto save’. One of the beautiful things about computer graphics is the ability to ‘un-do’. You can try something and if it doesn’t work you simply ‘undo’ it and try again. Some programs can be set to auto-save. If yours can I recommend you TURN IT OFF. Once you or the program saves something it there or you ‘paint’ over it.

By the same token while it is less of an issue with newer computers with greater sized RAMs and processor speed once you get to a point you are satisfied with your works click the save button. That way if Tree spills his Seagram’s in your computer you have still a prayer of recovery…

Save often but wisely!!!

tree
 
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