Fantasy Portrait Example 1

This is another photo I took myself, of one of my best friends in my front yard. I can take pretty much any photo of a person and turn them into a fairy, but some positions are better than others. For me to turn you (or anyone else) into a fairy, just send me a picture of the person in whatever clothes you want, and make sure that there is nothing in front of the person that you don’t want in the final portrait.

Since this was a new photograph it didn’t require any restoration or repair. I was fortunate enough to be able to shoot this in ideal lighting, just before sunset on a slightly overcast day, so there were extreme shadows or overexposed areas.

Tip: When shooting portraits outside, my favorite environment to shoot in is sunny or slightly overcast weather, but out of direct sunlight, like the above portrait.

Now, to turn this young woman into a fairy, the first and most important thing she needed was a pair of wings. There are many different kind of wings and props I can use. To see some of the different props I can use in my Fantasy Portraits, please go to www.GinisMagic.com To add the wings, I had to VERY carefully select The part of the body that they would be touching; in this case the arm and back. Using Adobe Photoshop Elements, I then duplicated it on to another layer and added the wings on yet another layer. After moving the wings behind the duplicated arm and back, I adjusted the hue until I was satisfied. I chose a yellow orange because it contrasted with the purple of her blouse and complemented the flowers in photo. Then I used a diffusion glow filter on all the layers.

After that, I used different sizes of a brush with a very beautiful floral design to create the frame. I felt that a simple, square shaped frame wouldn’t complement the portrait well so I used the brushes to roughly imitate the shape of the portrait subject.

Restoration Example 1

For this otherwise beautiful photograph, the worst of the damage was in what is almost always the most difficult place to repair; the face.

Eyes are especially tricky when there are scratches or tears to fix. Luckily, with this photo, the majority of the damage was limited to only one side of the woman’s face. I used this to my advantage, especially when fixing the eye.

As with most photos that require restoration and repair, for this picture the ability to work with layers was absolutely essential. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, I highly recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS3.

To restore this photograph, the first step I took was to repair the largest of the scratches, which with this piece was the most difficult part. I used the primarily undamaged eye as a model while working on the other. After that, I took care of the rest of the tears, dust particles, and age spots. Once this was taken care of I worked on the contrast and saturation (though this may look like a Black & White, the final photo is actually in color). After that the only thing left was to get rid of some of the noise and burn in a few shadows.

Some of the damaged parts of this photograph are not visible here, but can be seen the larger example of this image in the Restoration and General Enhancements section of http://www.ginismagic.com/

Abstract Mermaid Tutorial

To create this image you'll need:

two pencils; one sharp and one somewhat dull, a piece of paper (a sketchbook would be perfect),
a scanner, and a digital editing program (the one used here was Adobe Photoshop Elements)

When I started drawing this, just like a lot of my drawings, I had no idea what I wanted it to look like when I was finished. But that's what is so great about art; you can watch yourself create something from nothing. It's a wonderful feeling.

Here's how to create and image like this one: It will be done half by sketching it by hand, and half in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

First, you need to draw a very rough sketch of the body of the mermaid. It does NOT have to be perfect, or even detailed; just the rough shapes that make up her body. Here you can make a choice whether to draw the hair now or to do it in your editing program. I used a calligraphy brush in Photoshop to draw the draw hair. After making the light pencil marks where you want them, go over them a second time with a darker pencil and erase the stray light pencil marks.

Next, you'll need to scan the sketch into your computer at at least 300 dpi (the more dpi the better) and open the file in Adobe Photoshop Elements. Use "Levels" to darken the shadows (dark pencils stokes) and lighten the highlights (background and stray light pencil strokes). Now, no matter how much you tinker with "Levels", unless you had an incredibly clean-cut sketch to begin with, you will probably STILL have stray lines. There's nothing for this but going over every extra line with you eraser tool.

After that, go to "Filters" and choose "Cutout" and use whatever settings you like most. I suggest 5 levels or less. After that, you just need to fill in any blank spots there may be and you're done!

My Suggestion: Get a piece of paper and a couple of pencils, one sharp and one dull, and just start drawing. If you mess up, don't start erasing, just use the mistake to create something new. you never know what you'll come up with.

Portrait Enhancement Example 1

This is a self-portrait I shot against a blank wall in my house. When I took this photo, I accidentally shot it with the wrong setting on my digital camera. As you can see, the lighting left A LOT to be desired, but fortunately I was able to fix that afterward. Once again, this work was done completely in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

For a better, larger view of this portrait, please visit my website,www.GinisMagic.com.

To get the finished portrait, my first step was to adjust the contrast, shadows, and highlights. Then I placed a lavender gradient behind the subject to give the effect of a studio-portrait and complement the blue blouse and green eyes. Next, I smoothed a few areas of skin that had some blemishes on them, though these are nearly impossible to see on these photos because there were very light. I also used a mild softening filter to give the skin and hair a smooth, healthy glow. Next came hair highlights, eyeliner, teeth whitening and faux eyelashes.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that the catch lights in the eyes are different than in the original. This is easier to see in the larger version on my website. The catch lights are different because in the original photo they were different sizes in each eye and they were awkwardly positioned, so I removed them and put in nicer, more attractive catch lights to bring attention to the eyes.

Once all of that was done, I experimented with different lights and sparkles and chose wound up choosing these.

Special Effect Example 1

This is a portrait I shot of my cat, Garfield. And below is an example of how I can take a simple, ordinary, albeit very cute subject and turn it into an engaging and interesting image.

I used two of my Special Effects on this image, both of which are made up of several different filters and some other digital tinkering.

First, to get the intense color, I used an effect that I call "Wonderful Drama". It involves a hue change, different for any individual picture; a diffusion glow filter, and some very specific settings on an Unsharpening Mask.

The second special effect is a bit more tricky. I call it "Pure Softness". The effect simulates a soft-focus filter and with it, I can make any image as soft and dreamy as I want. It's definitely one of my favorite effects and I use it quite often, especially on portraits. This effect requires the use of a program that will allow you to work with layers, a flexible gaussian blur, and VERY flexible lighting effects.

I always do this effect in Adobe Photoshop Elements. It's a great program. It's kind of the little sister to Photoshop Creative Suite 3. If you want a program that will do the basics that CS3 does but costs less and takes less room on you computer, Elements is for you. Howevever, if you're looking for a program for serious, detailed, digital editing with full functionality, Photoshop CS3 is really the only way to go.

Hello World!

Gini Here!

I can’t wait to start posting here and showing you guys all that I can do. I use digital editing computer programs to enhance and repair photographs. I can restore old and damaged photos, use special effects to enhance already beautiful images, and I can turn ordinary people into extraordinary beings.

I love what I do and as I do it I learn more and more. As I learn more, I seem to wind up falling increasingly in love with what I’m doing. I’m telling you, it’s quite the visious cycle.

Here I’ll be posting numberous examples of my work; including family photos, my own photography (another of my hobbies, but as a true amateur), and the work I do for other people.

I hope you enjoy what I show you and that you learn a little something at the same time!

~Gini of www.GinisMagic.com~