Thanks for your support.  I think I'm falling asleep.

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I won the Loebner prize !

Aerysoul has started an interesting thread about postworking lighting:
http://www.aerysoul.com/board/showthread.php?p=27754

 

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

Posfan and others really put a lot of work into their post-render editing, and it pays off for them in great results.  For the lazier among us (like me) a lot can be still be accomplished with less effort using just five simple layers.  I read about the basics of this technique on some photography website a while ago and often use it on my images.  I use PaintShopPro, so my brief descriptions apply to that program but if you use photoshop or something else the process is very similar.

1) Open your render in the image editor program and fix any obvious flaws like using a clone brush to cover body parts sticking through clothes, using a soften brush on sharp edges and Posette's collar/shoulder joint, etc.

2) Duplicate the original image layer four times so you have five layers all together.

3) On the bottom layer, flood fill the whole area with white (RGB 255)

4) On the second up from the bottom layer, make a sepia-toned version.  In PSP for example, on the Title Menu go to Adjust>Hue and Saturation>Colorize and briefly play around with the color/saturation level to make the layer look like an antique photograph or old drawing.

5) On the third layer up from the bottom, leave the original image unmodified (except for whatever you did in step #1 of course)

6) On the fourth layer up from the bottom, make a greyscale image.   In PSP for example, from the Title Menu go to Adjust>Hue and Saturation>Hue/Saturation/Lightness; leave the hue and lightness at zero but set the saturation to -100.

7) On the fifth layer up from the bottom (i.e. the top) flood fill the whole area with black (RGB 0).

Now just play around with the opacity and/or blend mode of the layers to get many interesting results.  The image below shows only a tiny number of possibilities (sorry if it's a little hard to see, I was trying to keep the file size down; the original image in (a) was around 600x600 pixels).

a) This is what the original image looked like.  Nothing special here, it's just a stage scene I use for Posette to try on clothes, so it's overlit so I can clearly see what's going on.

b) I made a fair looking black and white image by leaving the greyscale layer at 100 percent opacity (blocking off everything below it) and adusting the black layer opacity to enhance the dark areas of the image

c) The opacity of the black (top) layer was pretty high and set to overlay, the greyscale was turned off (I think, I should have kept notes as I went along)

d) I personally tend to like soft and desaturated-looking colors.  Here the black layer was off, the greyscale was at low opacity, and the middle layer (original image) was set at low-medium opacity, allowing the sepia layer to show through.

e) I made a freehand selection around just Posette and then deleted just the part of the image with her figure in the black layer, the greyscale layer, and the sepia layer.  Then I set the black layer at near zero opacity and played with the opacity of the middle three layers (especially by turning down the middle layer) to make a sort of ghostly Posette for Halloween

f) Continuing with the modification in step (e) where I cut the part of the image with Posette out of most of the layers, here I put the top black layer at a lowish opacity, left the greyscale layer at almost full opacity, and put the middle (original image) layer at 100 percent opacity resulting in an image where Posette seems to spring to life or jump out of the drab scene behind her.

This method allows for very fast results.  It didn't take much longer to make the six frames a-f than it did to assemble the overall picture set posted here.  Although I'm definitely not saying anyone should speed through their work (after all, you want to make something you can be proud of and that takes effort), if you're at that point where you're looking for something from your image but don't exactly know what that something might be this is an efficient way to experiment.

Endosphere

This topic could need a little fresh air......

Making of Autumn Winds - see final image in my gallery here

This is a redid as I used the wrong filesize for printing. The pose is slightly different to the original. I worked on the glossary and used P6 Jessi and with the right skin, she can look gorgeous.

It's part of  The 365 Theme Challenge - Theme Leaves!!


click to see bigger version

Let's see

1. the original Poser render including Jessi's huge forehead
2. painted hair behind her head: needs to be darker than the front hair
3. front hair in a nice red color
4. she's too pale for that hair and the background I've chosen, so I duplicated the original, deleted the light parts and set that layer to multiply at 100% opacity
5. she looked better but still too light. So I duplicated the original again, this time deleting the dark parts and set that layer to overlay with 80% opacity - perfect!!  
6. adding my background - looks kinda dull  
7. rendered Scatter leaves mix - 2 different layers
8. added one leaves layer behind the figure and used gaussian blur at 30%
9. added the second leaves layer on top of the other one and used gaussian blur at 12%
10. added frame and title - et voila!!!    


Edited for typos  

Making of The Harbinger- see final image in my gallery here

Using Postwork to change the bodyshape of Posy



Shall we?

The first is the straight out of Poser render: Posy with a nice face and bodymorph and a V2 Skin. Due to smoothing polygons and using displacement in addition to this morph, there are lots of black spots.   Healing brush to the rescue!  

1. Touching up the black spots with healing and clone brush
2. Fixing of elbows, knee and shoulders
3. The Liquify filter is your friend!! Use it!!! The result is Posy with a Dita Von Teese corset figure.

on to the face....



1. Cloning the eyebrows and then liquify them to the new shape - same for eyelids
2. As you see I rendered her without lashes in order to change the eyeshape and eyelids since I knew this texture makes trouble in some areas. I rendered a separate Lash figure which I'll add later after I applied some eyeshadow.
3. Again the Liquify filter is my friend - for the eyes and lips which were cloned before.
4. the cheeks have some strange crease, but with cloning they look fine now.
5. in the last pic you see the added eyeshadow and lashes.
6. I gave her some new irises and pupils since the liquified ones were to lifeless. Also the lips got some overlays with a new bumpier look
7. the usual adjustments of skinglow in order to make her fit to the background.
8. The jewels got to dark so I dodged them and then used color replacement to gave them a lighter look of the original color.

In order to finish that piece, Posy got hair, wings and something to cover her nakedness - but not too much!!  

Edited for typos  

Note to self: Don't write tutorials at 3am in the night/morning!!!

Ah...; great tutorial!

Very straight forward directions; seems easy to follow along.
{I still use an old version of photoshop; so I can't liquify... but I just may try this anyway.}

Thank you for sharing the re-created image, and your production technique.

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

without Liquify it will be difficult to change the shape easily.

You should grab the free version of Corel Paint Shop 10 - it has a similiar filter using a grid/wire frame to change shapes.

The morph with Shaders and in comparison with the Stargazer Skin direct out of Poser - rendered under the same light as the final pic.



Actually only some minor makeup fixes were needed, a lil tweaking of the eyes, and that's it!.

The lashes are a free separate figure and also rendered, but as a separate layer.