I haven't been extremely active lately but I found that the 365 community is one I can always return to and have amazing feedback from. And I would firstly like to say that everyone's work is improving and looking wonderful (as always)
With that being said, I have an assignment for school due on Wednesday; a digital manipulation (so it's supposed to be entirely photoshopped, keep that in mind!) along the lines of "Ripley's Believe It or Not". One could either stick to the cheesy/typical "long hair, bulging eyes, more than one arm" etc photograph or explore surrealism. I decided to explore therefore resulting in this:
For my first time doing something of this caliber, I'm content with how it turned out. In my mind I had such a vivid idea and vision of what I wanted, however I didn't know how to convey it. I've learnt a lot though, which I find important and now know what to do for next time (and believe you me, there more definitely will be a next time!)
Nonetheless though, I would like to know what you think! Honest opinions- good and bad. If you hate it, tell me why! What do you think I could improve on? What would you change if you were doing this?
Want to know anything, how I did? Just ask! Before and after pic? Of course, let me know and I'll show you right away!
Maybe if you had your hand up in the middle it would require less blending of your torso/clothing and look a little more natural (as much as possible with a Ripleys!) That way it would look like you were touching hands together. Maybe a little less negative space above and some more wider would help too?
I think it would convey a better message with only two eyes. It seems lopsided, to me, with three and two faces. It's a great concept and you should keep working on this. I bet you will find the balance very quickly.
@shadesofgrey I was most definitely thinking of cropping before I printed it out. I'm just never one for cropping! I always find it to be awkward and look unusual, but you're right- there shouldn't be so much negative space.
I didn't initially want the bodies to be so close together! Like you've mentioned, further apart would be much more natural looking but when it comes to merging photographs in Photoshop,I realized that when shooting my neck and head should have (almost abnormally) stuck out and my body should have been back a bit so it would have been easy to piece together. Unfortunately I didn't have time to reshoot so I worked with what I had.
I tried separating the bodies but ended up with having one overtop the other and didn't really like that. I'll try out the hand touching though- I really like that idea.
@dmortega I wanted two eyes and DEFINITELY agree with the lopsidedness!
When putting photographs together, I used the eyes are a matching point- I matched one eye up with another and that's my overlap point.
When I began final touch ups, I realized I didn't like the whole middle eye thing- mostly because of it being lopsided, but also, the middle eye is much bigger than the left and right eye and makes it seem like they're out of proportion as well (I'm not sure if that's what you meant by lopsided or by it actually being asymmetrical).
Nonetheless, next time I'm going to try out a few suggestions from @dmortega and go with two eyes.
It certainly works well for the surreal Ripley's theme. Three eyes is strange and they don't really bother me since I know what you're going for. I think the only thing I might have done was to clone out the V in the neck area and what looks like a necklace. But then I read your responses to the others and saw that you really didn't want 3 eyes and you'd hoped to merge the two original photos better. So, as a final thought- for the first time out, this is great!
@stefanieneves I can't remember exactly where I read it but I remember that you should give your subject space in the frame to make the photo feel more natural. If they are facing left, you want more space to the left and vice versa. It feels like (to me) that because you have the subject facing left/right vs up/down that more space on the sides feels better. I totally understand the time constraint and I feel for you. I bet that if you play with this some more you will find a happy medium and really like the end result.
I think it would be more realistic if the 2nd pose was very different (arm up or something) so it doesn't just look like a mirror image, someone with their face pressed to a mirror. I think you need to clone texture into the middle areas. They have lines that don't look natural compared to the rest. If it's too hard, mabye one body with two necks/heads would be easier. Rotate them a bit to separate them.
@mikew I tried converging two separate poses but I found it to be too difficult- it's something that I'm going to work on though.
You're right about the mirror effect- I just found it to be easy to work with.
I'll keep the rotation for separation in mind, thank you!
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I didn't initially want the bodies to be so close together! Like you've mentioned, further apart would be much more natural looking but when it comes to merging photographs in Photoshop,I realized that when shooting my neck and head should have (almost abnormally) stuck out and my body should have been back a bit so it would have been easy to piece together. Unfortunately I didn't have time to reshoot so I worked with what I had.
I tried separating the bodies but ended up with having one overtop the other and didn't really like that. I'll try out the hand touching though- I really like that idea.
Thank you so much for your feedback!
When putting photographs together, I used the eyes are a matching point- I matched one eye up with another and that's my overlap point.
When I began final touch ups, I realized I didn't like the whole middle eye thing- mostly because of it being lopsided, but also, the middle eye is much bigger than the left and right eye and makes it seem like they're out of proportion as well (I'm not sure if that's what you meant by lopsided or by it actually being asymmetrical).
Nonetheless, next time I'm going to try out a few suggestions from @dmortega and go with two eyes.
Thank you!
And thank you very much :)
You're right about the mirror effect- I just found it to be easy to work with.
I'll keep the rotation for separation in mind, thank you!