Radtech1
18th of December 2007 (Tue), 22:08
I got an interesting request from one of Marcia's friends, and that when she wanted some portraits of her kids done in an Andy Warhol style. Specifically she liked his Marilyn Monroe shot, so I set out on the web to find out what exactly the shot was made of, if I could deconstruct it and try to rebuild. The two things that I noticed right off the bat were a grainy high contrast monochrome image with solid color tinting.
So I set out to try to duplicate it, beginning with the portrait. The setup was very easy, a single flash to get the harsh shadow was on my right, with him facing the flash and eyes towards the camera.
Unfortunately her son doesn't really like the camera and 30 plus shots were all very stolid, except one. I don't remember what his mom had said or done but he suddenly raised his hand up to his left temple and was trying hard not to laugh. I asked him to stay with it, keep laughing, but he went right back to flat and bland. Fortunately I did press the shutter once and got a single capture that had a little bit of fun in it.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443230/1ce7582a/m1_online.jpg
The only downside to the shot was that he had his chin and pushed down into his chest, which doubled up the skin underneath of his chin. At first he said "no way", but his mom liked the expression - especially when compared to all the others. I told her let me work on it, and we'll see if we can get something that he will agree to.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443231/6be068bc/m2_online.jpg
So this was my first edit. I started with cropping, to center and get rid of some of the shadow on the wall. As you can see I managed to clean up the chin, and got rid of the extra folds of skin.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443232/f2e93906/m3_online.jpg
Overall, I was satisfied with the first edit, but I was afraid the shadow of the little finger across his eye was going to turn pitch black when I bumped the contrast - so I went back and was able to remove the shadow. Now I was able to actually start on the Warhol editing.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443235/6c8daca5/m4_online.jpg
Started with monochrome, then I did a couple of harsh light layers to boost the contrast. Where I really had difficulty was getting the grain to look right. I tried real film grain (which I've had good luck with in the past), I tried the grain filter, I tried a combination of both, and in all cases it added too much gray. I finally got on the right track when I found the "splatter" filter under the "brush strokes" menu. Once I got that I was very satisfied with what I had. Now all I had to do, was to add the color.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443225/75969de4/m5l.jpg
And here is the final result. The client is very satisfied, and I am too. Just wanted to share the process and the result. Questions? Comments? All will be appreciated.
Rad
So I set out to try to duplicate it, beginning with the portrait. The setup was very easy, a single flash to get the harsh shadow was on my right, with him facing the flash and eyes towards the camera.
Unfortunately her son doesn't really like the camera and 30 plus shots were all very stolid, except one. I don't remember what his mom had said or done but he suddenly raised his hand up to his left temple and was trying hard not to laugh. I asked him to stay with it, keep laughing, but he went right back to flat and bland. Fortunately I did press the shutter once and got a single capture that had a little bit of fun in it.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443230/1ce7582a/m1_online.jpg
The only downside to the shot was that he had his chin and pushed down into his chest, which doubled up the skin underneath of his chin. At first he said "no way", but his mom liked the expression - especially when compared to all the others. I told her let me work on it, and we'll see if we can get something that he will agree to.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443231/6be068bc/m2_online.jpg
So this was my first edit. I started with cropping, to center and get rid of some of the shadow on the wall. As you can see I managed to clean up the chin, and got rid of the extra folds of skin.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443232/f2e93906/m3_online.jpg
Overall, I was satisfied with the first edit, but I was afraid the shadow of the little finger across his eye was going to turn pitch black when I bumped the contrast - so I went back and was able to remove the shadow. Now I was able to actually start on the Warhol editing.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443235/6c8daca5/m4_online.jpg
Started with monochrome, then I did a couple of harsh light layers to boost the contrast. Where I really had difficulty was getting the grain to look right. I tried real film grain (which I've had good luck with in the past), I tried the grain filter, I tried a combination of both, and in all cases it added too much gray. I finally got on the right track when I found the "splatter" filter under the "brush strokes" menu. Once I got that I was very satisfied with what I had. Now all I had to do, was to add the color.
http://dc27.4shared.com/download/32443225/75969de4/m5l.jpg
And here is the final result. The client is very satisfied, and I am too. Just wanted to share the process and the result. Questions? Comments? All will be appreciated.
Rad