Another attempt to filter a portrait. What do you think?


Reworked an old shot of mine. Maybe a better subject to filter?

Originally Posted by tmlphoto Another attempt to filter a portrait. What do you think?

To be frank, I don't know what to make of stuff like this. #1 certainly looks like an impressionist portrait, so in that you have succeeded. Somehow, though, I think I would be more impressed if you had done it in paint or pastel. I just find it difficult to think of it as photography. Graphic art, certainly, and it is an appealing image. Color me old fashioned, I suppose. Or filter me, if that's the coming thing.

I find the filter on the portrait to be pretty good, but sloppy in places that an artist never would be.

I like the effect a lot on the butterfly shot. I've always liked that shot.

Originally Posted by rsinmadrid To be frank, I don't know what to make of stuff like this. #1 certainly looks like an impressionist portrait, so in that you have succeeded. Somehow, though, I think I would be more impressed if you had done it in paint or pastel. I just find it difficult to think of it as photography. Graphic art, certainly, and it is an appealing image. Color me old fashioned, I suppose. Or filter me, if that's the coming thing.

Thanks for looking. I'm not sure "what" it is either. It's fun to play around with though. Thats as close as I'll ever get to a paint brush. I think I almost failed Kindergarten due to my lack of drawing skills .

Originally Posted by DavidTO I find the filter on the portrait to be pretty good, but sloppy in places that an artist never would be. I like the effect a lot on the butterfly shot. I've always liked that shot.

Thanks for commenting David. I just downloaded this filter today (it's a free plugin for PS). It has a fairly extensive set of controls, so I have only scratched the surface. I think I'll print up the butterfly on some matte paper & see how it looks.

Here is another version of the same head shot using the same filter with different settings. I'm not don't really like this that much, but it shows that there is quite a range of effects one can get from this one plugin.

Originally Posted by tmlphoto Thanks for commenting David. I just downloaded this filter today (it's a free plugin for PS). It has a fairly extensive set of controls, so I have only scratched the surface. I think I'll print up the butterfly on some matte paper & see how it looks.

Cool. What bothers me are the parts that should be harder edges, like the curve of the cheek and the detail around the eye. There's stray flesh tones in the background, stray dark eye detail where it should be skin. You could probably just use the clone or spot healing tool to fix it up, really.

Originally Posted by DavidTO Cool. What bothers me are the parts that should be harder edges, like the curve of the cheek and the detail around the eye. There's stray flesh tones in the background, stray dark eye detail where it should be skin. You could probably just use the clone or spot healing tool to fix it up, really.

Yes, I did do some cloning, but probably need to spend a little more time to really get a good result. It's much more involved than just running it through a filter one time. There are whole web sites devoted to this type of thing.