February 2013 Video Tutorial - Advanced Image Retouching

[Gare]

@Frances—

The choice of colours is spot-on, and I like what you did conceptually.

You did more than retouch; you sort of re-photographed the image(s).

The quality of resourcefulness is beyond measure when it comes to what you need to do, and what you have to work with. Again, this is not an apology for Xara...it might take a little longer to invent a solution by choosing which tools to work with than a bitmap editing program, but I've been stumped in Xara fewer times than I have ears on my pointy little head!

I won't tell you right away what I did to this photo, but I did do some retouching, and if the idea behind the image is clear and you can't see what I did...then that's called invisible retouching and what you should usually strive for.



You want your work to go unnoticed; you don't want to leave a "signature" in a retouched image file.

My Best,

Gary

[angelize]

I can't tell for sure what you did but I'm guessing either you added something that wasn't already there (an almond perhaps?) or removed something unwanted? or did you fake the depth of field?

[Gare]

Much more subtle.

I'd been working in Barb's garden, and my nails were a filthy mess, not what a hand model's hands should look like.

It might seem like a trifling, but you'd notice how awful my hand looked before I worked this area over. Again, it's what you DON'T see that is the mark of a good retouching artist.



What I'll do next, after we've had our fill of the pagan idol, is post one of the most common problems in image retouching, one that gets asked on all the forums: what do you do when someone's eyes are closed in a group photo? The answer lies in the process: You make darned sure before your talent leaves for the day that you get a pic of that person with eyes open so you can add the correct eyes to the group photo where everyone else looks okay.

It will be a challenge because you'll be working with people, and objects are much more easy to fake than human portraits. The human eye has a keen sensitivity to people pictures that have been tricked up. But it can be done, I did it, and I'll show you before the March tutorial.

Here's something I did in Xara years and years ago. I was in both photos, I used my hand up to the wrist and did a linear transparency fade into my kid brother's forearm. It's all about the process; the photographic session was the real hero. I got the idea to swap places between photos and left the rest of the illusion up to the tools we have in Xara.



-g

[stygg2003]

Before we move on to clean nails, eye kidnapping, arm transplants which I'm looking forward to all, here's my effort at tiki idol, excellent photo re-touch tut., although I might not have it spot on

Stygg

[Gare]

You got a little something going on at the base of the left shape you added,Stygg, but at a casual glance, any viewing audience would assume you photographed a complete object. You did good.

I'm still working on the transcript, in case anyone feels this will help!

My Best,

Gare

[dcahall]

Had to try this one also. I did have a little of problem. I had a hard time creating the "dents" on the nose. When I tried to use the line or pen tool the ends of my lines were square. Not rounded like yours were. I spent a long time trying to get a shape that would create a shape that worked well. I did use the square line and then feathered the heck out of it, then resized it like crazy to try to come close. How do I get a rounded end to my lines?

In the beginning of your process you said you need to combine the objects because you cannot clone from one object to another. I somehow missed that and after I lined the three object up, using the chin as a guide, I created the "close zone" on the first of the object and then was able to place my cursor over either of the other two images to get the results. It still worked. I did try another time after moving one of the second two images and although stuff would still show up in the "clone zone" it did not show the correct portion of the image when I moved my mouse. Interesting, I am going to mess around with that some more.

OK - so here is my result:



This was another great tutorial. Learned some really valuable things that I never would have discovered on my own. Looking forward to your next step in this process.

[angelize]

To change the ends of the lines open the lines gallery and at the top there is a drop down list to set the end cap. Chose round cap, click OK and you will get lines with rounded ends. Or if you have Designer Pro X you can zoom in and use the shapebuilder tool.

[dcahall]

I thought I had done that yesterday and it did not work but I went in a few minutes ago and it worked fine. Do not know what I must have done wrong yesterday.

Another silly question: I have XP&GD 2013 and do not see what the difference is between the Shape Tool and the Pen Tool (which I just added to my toolbar). Also, during Gary's video he mentioned something about holding down the shift key while he was drawing the lines around the mask. Either I did not hear him correctly or I am doing something wrong. I just tried it and it did not do anything for me. What am I doing wrong?

[Gare]

Hi DCAHall—

There is the Shape tool (used to be called the Shape Editor Tool) which is common to all versions of Xara, and what Frances is referring to is the Shapebuilder tool, which is not a feature in Photo & Graphic Designer. You have to pop for the "grownup" version to get that tool, sad to say.

Okay, if I'm wrong here and you're honestly asking the difference between the Shape and the Pen tools, I'd refer you to last October's video tutorial and also check out September. These tutorials show exactly how to use each tool, so you can see the difference—and decide which one is easier for you to use.

I don't believe I mentioned using the Shift key while drawing the outline around the Polynesian face, but I did mention pressing the Spacebar—doing this temporarily toggles you to the Hand tool, so you can pan your view, no need to use the scroll bars on the document window. This is a viewing option thing and has nothing to do with your creative work and the tools.

Here's how to get to the line gallery and its options:



And you did pretty darned good for someone who insists on calling themselves a non-artist, DCAHall!



My Best,

Gary

[dcahall]

OK, one more post where I just could not resist some additional playing around and combining tutorials. This time I combined Gary's tutorial with Stygg's to come up with something kind of interesting (IMHO).



As always, your comments and suggestions are welcomed.