More pixel pushing

Here's another example of the "Liquify" filter in action.

As in the previous post, our hero needed a bit of beefing up. He's a good looking model, but once again, was not as chiseled as was required by the publisher. Also, we needed to spice up the heroine's look a bit and a little cleavage goes a long way-- so I created a path for the scoop of the dress and painted the skin with the painting tools. Eventually the dress color was changed to a creamy white.

side by side:

Photoshop still amazes me

A while back I was presented with a "small" problem regarding a book cover illustration. Every once in a while, we get models in the photo studio, who, for some reason or another don't look exactly like their head shots. Ok, more often than not, this occurs, but sometimes it's quite a surprise. For this particular book, the publisher requested a guy who was a native of central or South America with shoulder length dark hair. As is traditional in this type of cover, the model was to be fit and pretty muscular. He would be photographed in a cargo pants and boots, a tight tank shirt as well as shirtless. He would be holding a large Bowie type knife and looking intent and sexy at the same time. Since the book was already late, we didn't have much time to find models that fit the description and absolutely no time to request recent photos from the model ahead of time. The model selected then shot in NYC by Shirley Green, who is an amazing photographer I use on a regular basis. The day of the shoot, my rep called and said the model showed up at the studio and was a bit "small", and he was not sure if the model would work out. Since we had no time, I asked him to go ahead with the shoot and I'd hope to fix the image in Photoshop.

  I got the DVD of images the next day and literally did a double take when I scrolled through the images in Bridge. Yikes! I actually said aloud, "I hope I can pull this off." I picked a shot in Bridge and launched Photoshop CS4. I went straight to the Liquify filter. Used correctly, this amazing tool lets you pull and push pixels with wonderfully realistic results. After a time, I clicked ok to apply the filter's effects to the image. I was stunned by what I saw. It actually worked and it looked good! Flipping between the before and after images was a delight. What an amazing application. In addition to beefing up the model, I gave him a slightly wider face and angular nose and raised his cheek bones. Finally I added the boots, changed the color of the pants, and changed the knife. Thanks Adobe, you saved the day (again!).