Do You Prefer One Over The Other

I like the first one better, Robert. I like all the subtle background and frame elements except the sort of hand-drawn embellishment. I find it distracting and not blending in well with the other elements. I want to look at the dancer, but my eye keeps going to those two drawn elements, my brain trying to figure out what they are doing there. Nice work overall though! I find dancers and their costumes and poses very interesting (to say nothing of actual performances!)

i don't like either one. if i had to choose the top one is better, the second one looks like a sea monster. i don't like the border on the top, it takes my eyes away from the main subject. the back is also a bit bright. the background is good on the top as well.

---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I'll have to say I like the second one better because it seems you've taken the original and really transformed it into something different more than in the first version. Also I like the frame better on the second than the first.

I liked the last one

Thanks.

The borders are for cards, and when these designs appear on other decor items, I like how the resulting placements adapt to fit the particular decor item.

... throw pillows, for example. ... Have a look at the throw pillow on this one, and tell me if you think the "distracting" border element works in this case:

I like the first one better, Robert. I like all the subtle background and frame elements except the sort of hand-drawn embellishment.

You like what you like, of course, and good for you for being honest about it. But let me tell you why I added those elements, which are not hand drawn by me, by the way - they are art deco graphic design corners that I have chopped the long extensions off of. ... And what I was trying to do was create something a bit more interesting than the standard rectangular frame, ... trying to create some aesthetic asymmetry there.

I decided that it was not a distraction but a diagonal line harmonizing with the upward gaze of the head in the background, leading across the dancer rather than taking away from her. I still like it, and I will keep it, because this is what I like.

Mike S., I take it that you do not like sea monsters, but, in this case, that is one lovely sea monster, and I find her interesting. Thanks for your honesty too. I figured that you might not like either one. (^_^) But I still like both of them, and I will probably use both of them.

Robert, I still can't say the drawn elements add to the pillow. Maybe it's just me, but when I look at them, they are a bit jarring to my eye. The other frame elements are soft and sort of dreamy, complementing a feminine figure. And then the drawn floral or leaf element....kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. Can you soften it and perhaps add some transparent color? Just a thought....take or leave.

Edited: I think we were typing at the same time. Yes, I do like what I like :)

Joy M.,

You seem to like a touch of subtlety where I like a touch of boldness.

The intrusion that you perceive is probably what I am going for, but you just don't like it. A taste thing. Thanks for making your case, in other words, but I am leaving it for now. (^_^)

I like the original best. The photographer has perfectly defined the primary element and secondary element. Yours perfectly destroys the composition while trying to make everything first. Horrible, in my opinion.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Can I be frank?

I hate the frames. They look very amateurish. Throws the composition off and turns it into a rather tacky craft project.

I think this is a lovely image and would benefit from simply a thoughtful, soft colorization, which I believe you can do well.

I love the last one!

You have a really cool, bold style.

Well, lots of honesty here.

I could not ask for anything more. ... I expected nothing less.

Yeah, I can see the "tacky". I guess that's what I was going for - a tacky, .... not so tactful ... , in-you- face bordered, frame look. ... Guess I suckceeded. (^_*)

A straightforward, masterful colorization would be boring to me. Yeah, I think that I might be able to do it. But I do not want to. ... I don't like golf. I don't like curling. But there are certainly masters at it, whom I respect for their mastery.

Dan T., don't hold back now. (^_^)

Tell me what you REALLY think.

Here was the first stage, ... before I apparently screwed it up (according to some):

...

Visually underwhelming ;)

I like the one you just posted without the frame.
The psychedelic one could work if the frame were as "alive" as the rest of the image.

the main problem with the colored version is that the girl has her back totally washed out and while the background looks nice, it doesn't match the saturation of the lady. so she looks almost pasted in there. the hair and skin tones should look darker. i'd try to balance that stripe on her hand. i think either the background needs to be weaker, or she has to be saturated as well. or at least a color that stands out better.

avoid using auto levels and such, that would create a blinding backside as it were.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I don't care for the frames on the first two, they detract from the image. I prefer the last one you posted.

As a potential customer, as an artist, I both prefer the blue/right/newest......it answers your need for embellishment and my need for the subject to BE (not shouting) the subject. the "first stage blue" one.

She is quite gorgeous. ! And tastefully presented in the blue one....below.

Robert,

Against white skin purple is often a mistake. The contrast does not work. JMO

I like the blue negative space one. The original is only okay. Not a great photo to me. I am really speaking to the negative space and the ornate workings. Not my thing.

Dave

My first impression, I like the first one.

Just for fun,

To Mike ... limitations of source image and limitations of my software/skill, as far as getting that tonal balance you (and I) would like to achieve. ... very frustrating not to be able to fix this. ... I know what you mean. ... I feel your pain. ... I have no cure yet.

I agree with Viva :) Her pretty porcelain skin against that gorgeous blue with swirling elements is quite striking. She looks very silvery, platinumy....and that's why jewelers use midnight blue velvet in boxes and presentations for diamonds, white gold, and platinum....that blue is perfect for showing off such gems and precious metals. I think your last version is really lovely :)

this last one is better than the others.

i use many exposure layers using curves and masking them in. making pale things contrasty and so on. you can also use exposure control to help pop details. unless the image is very old and the lighting was poor, you can often regain quite a bit of the detail. but you should be downloading the tif when you can, 16 bit works best.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

i took the very first image into photoshop, desaturated it totally, and grabbed the center of the curves line, and took it straight down. there is quite a bit of data in that, enough to see soft curves in her shoulder. if you made masks of that, making it progressively darker, and using a soft brush, you can add in the areas that need filling. that's how i do all of mine.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

make a clone of the tail, fill with black soft blur, place on the frame and fade. use warp to give it a little more depth to match the curve. that's the proper way. the easy way is to use a style using shadow. but the tail has to be off the page to get a full length shadow. otherwise there will be a gap.

or you can sketch it in there.

your mostly going for a dark line on the border, and maybe a very light version on the girl (because she's further away the shadow would be softer, more spread and faded).


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Oh, so the shadow would go on the girl too -- even better -- frame AND girl - great !

Crap, I don't think that I saved a working copy with the tail layer, so I might have to create that all over again to get the basis of the tail shadow.

Thanks, I'll get to it, and I WILL save that working copy, in case I screw it up.

This thread reminds me of a pinata.
Blindfolded and swinging wildly in hopes that something sweet will eventually fall out.

Compositionally bettah! Move her left. The space differentials should be reversed so she sits comfortably in the space. At the moment the right space is crowding her.

I would lose the tail. It adds nothing and is in a different style.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

it really depends where the virtual light is. one is on her shoulder, but there can be more than one light. you can make a lasso tail, doesn't matter much. shadows do weird things.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Keep in mind that the dancer is NOT separate from the original background, and so to move her ALONE is not a simple task. ... It's not like the background is just going to magically stay there, since it is part of the original source image. ... Extracting her and recreating the whole background underneath is way more than I want to tackle with this one.

The tail extends from under the dress, as I imagine it, and so I am not seeing the conflict of styles that Dan mentioned. ... The colors are complementary to the dress (a bit more saturated to echo the deeper saturation of the dancer's skin now).

A line extending from the right, lower, inner corner of the frame to the left, upper, inner corner of the frame runs parallel to her posed right arm, bisecting the arm lengthwise.. ... Another line extending from the center of the fish fin to the right tip of the fish fin runs roughly parallel to her left posed arm. ... This was intentional.

How'd I do on the shadow, Mike?

This thread reminds me of a pinata.
Blindfolded and swinging wildly in hopes that something sweet will eventually fall out.

Not really, Joe B., ... I assure you that I am NOT striking blindfolded, but rather with the clear insight of my critics. ... What you are seeing is the process that sometimes precedes a resolution, when all suggestions have either been ignored, attempted, or homogenized within the creative interpretation or partial application of the artist under the gun, namely moi. (^_^)

i'd keep the shadow off the dress or make it lighter there. otherwise it makes it look like she's flat. and maybe make the tail a bit brighter because light is on it now.

in any case... there will be candy at some point maybe. either that, or a really upset pinata.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

... attempted what Mike suggested, ... also brightened a few other areas to try to balance the effect:

Maybe too much ................................................................................................................... Maybe just right

........

Okay, now it's hard to tell a difference between the two, but I thought I overshot it on the frame in the first one, and I got that back in the second one.

... at the obsessive stage now ..... ha !, as if he wasn't before !

everything is looking kind of the same now.

maybe she needs a curly mustache.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

We were typing at the same time, and, yeah, I agree ............... about things looking the same, as you see that I edited my earlier comment.

... although .................. a mustache could take it in a new direction, for sure.

... and plastic wrap ... let us NOT forget the plastic wrap.

Plastic wrap on pinatas makes them much harder to break, so David might have the right idea, after all [yeah, right].

a bit of plastic wrap, maybe a bubble in the middle using spherize. cut it out the background and add black for more negative space.

---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Negative space, yes, I forgot this vital addition to my corrective efforts.

Speaking of plastic wrap, I might be about ready to wrap this thread up. ... I will pick my two best resolutions from this venture ... (1) my best effort at a "tasteful" colorization with a bit of decor, and ... (2) my best effort at the wild colorization-mermaid thing.

I will post those by the end of the day, side by side.

I need to take a break on this -- it's been six days, and the seventh day is when art gods rest. (^_^)

(^__^) ...

in the six days you made this, i completed 4 new images.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Don't forget all the rejects, Mike. (^_^)

If you count THOSE, then in the time you completed 4, I completed about 14. ... I just happened to trash most of them.

Seriously now:

............

These are my two final resolutions.

The chain of hideousness, of all the other versions, shall be zapped.

rejects go into the trash, you can only have one final one.

the one on the left is the better of the two.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Love the one on left.......compliments.

There you go. Definitely left. Va-va-voom!


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

I thought I was done, but Mike's joking suggestion about a bubble led to this serious refinement of my own parody of the whole thing (with the question mark/exclamation point above):



rejects go into the trash, you can only have one final one.

"One final one, eh? -- is this another incarnation of Savad's Law? ... I'm afraid that I will have to violate it, as I have TWO final ones, ... or one plus one teetering on finality, depending on whether the bubbles get the thumbs up or thumbs down. ... That mermaid thing currently has three versions -- (1) One with NO tail, but a very annoying dark area at the bottom left corner, hence the tail. ... (2) Another one with the tail to try eliminating that annoying NEGATIVE space, and ... (3) The one I just posted with the bubbles.

Failures take more work than successes. ... This is how the lesser art gods must work.

Speaking of art gods, I had a thought yesterday that might jolt those who believe in divine creation:

What if the creation of art reflects the creation of the universe?

It might take multiple attempts to arrive at a universe that is not a reject.

Where might we be in this chain of rejects?

Are we one of the rejects, and we just don't know it, because the span of human civilization is so short, while the span of cosmic evolution is so great and engulfs this?

And now I teeter on a bannable topic. [Does this guy have no sense of decorum?!]

WARNING: Do NOT discuss further, or this thread will be closed. [Audience erupts in resounding applause of approval.]

So we stopped....what next???

Robert has been good-natured enough to show us all the work he went through to get a final result. There are some wonderful lessons here: Don't be afraid to experiment, and don't be afraid to fail. Sometimes failed experiments lead to outstanding art we never would have arrived at any other way. Sarah McLachlan described it as "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" -- very accurate.

Artists also have to have the insight to recognize when something isn't working and then have the motivation to cut bait or take a different path.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

There was a lot of cutting bait here.

Just sayn'

Dave

I've been reading this thread for a few days without response. I like/love all the variations except for the black and white that was first posted. I didn't like the one with the moustache either, but I almost liked it. It may come into fashion someday soon where women are sporting more facial hair.

It's come a long way and the image is stunning. These last two, especially the blueish hued one is the best for me. The sea foam teal is halloween..ish but I love it anyway.

In violation of Savad's Law for having TWO (not one) final result, I suppose the penalty shall be death by humiliation.

The overall winner IS the more straightforward colorization that makes the dancer look very stunning (read "sexy").

I am also keeping the one with the bubbles. ... Love my bubbles, since they echo the fluidism theme that is the basis of the layers that I used to do that wilder colorization.

Just to indicate that some ventures take longer than others [Mike S. ...(^_^)]. .... I did another new image yesterday of another totally different photo.

In the case of the current thread, part of the process was allowing the feedback to do its thing, which takes longer than just forging ahead in individual silence.

It's a good exercise, where the end result is that I get practice in doing things that might please the masses, as well as doing things that might not, BUT that please moi.