Creative Portrait

[Trader]

OK, I am trying to get artsy here. I had the pleasure of shooting a very pretty model named Natalya but I am looking for more than just a conventional portrait. So I created a butterfly mask in photoshop.

I am not so much interested in a critique of the original photo. If you want to comment on it that is fine. What I would like is feedback on the mask. Does it work? Is it over the top? It has a drop shadow and a bevel to make it pop off the image. Adding that sort of seperated it from her face but I think I like that. Should it be cropped to be about square cutting off the left side entirely? Any and all comments are more than welcome. Thanks for taking the time to look.

[Japaslavian]

Sorry, but it doesn't work for me.
It is one of those things where if I saw it without you having me told me all of this, I would just say, "why not just take the shot with a real mask on to begin with?"
This one is just too fake to work. It's a 2 dimensional mask on a 3 dimensional person. It would need to wrap around her face more that just sit on top of it. And the coloring doesn't really fit either.
A good attempt and at least you know you could do something like this if you wanted to, but not working for me.

[Ginger Pixie]

Originally Posted by Trader

OK, I am trying to get artsy here. I had the pleasure of shooting a very pretty model named Natalya but I am looking for more than just a conventional portrait. So I created a butterfly mask in photoshop.

I am not so much interested in a critique of the original photo. If you want to comment on it that is fine. What I would like is feedback on the mask. Does it work? Is it over the top? It has a drop shadow and a bevel to make it pop off the image. Adding that sort of seperated it from her face but I think I like that. Should it be cropped to be about square cutting off the left side entirely? Any and all comments are more than welcome. Thanks for taking the time to look.

Honestly? No, for me, it doesn't work. I really like the idea... but it makes her eyes look very odd, which may be the result of the angle of the butterfly.

I think you need to wrap the butterfly around her face more for this to work.

The photo underneath looks very good though. Why not invest in a real butterfly mask? Or use facepaint to paint one on...

[css_mine]

I agree with the above comments that it does not work. I think that the shadow and bevel may be one reason that it stands out and does not look natural. I also agree that since the face is a an angle and the mask is not it also appears a little off. Great idea and good luck with it.

[Chewys Dad]

Nope, It doesn't add a thing to the Composition and is Distracting.
Looks like a beautifyl model. I'd love to see her face.
Michael

[jbm1991]

It could work, however its too flat. To make it work you'd need to round it to her face and add a more realistic shadow. I'd also reduce the bevel a bit. If you were willing to put quite a bit of time and effort in you could get it to work

[Dyfam]

Really, not much to add.

The butterfly doesnt work at all! It just doesnt fit, and it looks too artificial.

Try taking a look at some tutorials for Tattoos inserted in PP, maybe that could help a little?

Cheers

[peeperita]

i agree about "wrapping the mask"......possibly work with your transform tool's warp feature......or if you have a later version of photoshop.....the liquify tool would be useful.....

your beveling, although your intent is good, isn't working well for you......i like the highlight part but the shadow edge isn't doing what it needs to do.....try setting the "shadow" blending mode of the bevel to screen so it disappears.....and then try inserting a shadow layer between the mask and her face.....using a soft, almost black brush, paint in where the shadow would naturally fold over the contours of her face......set that layer's blending mode to multiply and start reducing the opacity of it until it begins to look more realistic.....you might need more than a couple of layers of shadowing to allow for deeper and then not so dark areas of shadow....

using this same idea, i would also suggest that you apply a little shadow over the mask in the earas that are away from the light.....bending it a little more....

nice try though!

peeper

[wulf]

Like the others, I'm not sold on the butterfly mask but I'm more interested by what you mean by "artsy". If you want to give the image a fantasy effect, you'll need to make the mask 3D and probably do some other work too.

However, perhaps you are thinking of scrapbooking? A friend of mine is keen on that and has lots of examples on her Flickr account. In that "artsy" craft, sticking flat things on and around photos is the way it is done; you could follow that line by adding other elements to the image as well.

Wulf

[Trader]

By "Artsy" I/we were going for the fantacy type thing. We were going to put her name on the left in a font the color of her tank top, characters stacked one on top the other but that didn't work because there was something off with her eyes. Next we were going to go for wings on her back - that didn't work at all. I tried the mask and I think we all agree that is not working. Even when I did a wrap against her face it still didn't not improve the original image which still has the problem with her eyes. Thanks for all the suggestions.