This is the next in my short series of everyday things photographed in an unordinary way, and this time I've really taken that brief to heart.
This is the kitten to a pair of stylised cat/kitten sculptures in limed oak. Mrs S and I both like them very much, so I thought the little kittie deserved a treatment that is definitely out of the ordinary...
@gabigabs@sissyaj FYI - I photographed it in colour on a black background then imported the raw file into Lightroom. There I converted it to B&W, compressed the tonal range around the mid-point and then inverted the image so that all the tonal values were reversed. Finally, I again adjusted the mid-range tonal values (now reversed) and finished by painting in a shadow to anchor the image on what has now become a completely white background - pencil drawing was the effect I was aiming for.
@sissyaj You do a tone curves adjustment and change the direction of the tone ramp so that it runs from white to black instead of black to white. It sounds much more complicated than it really is - it's really only a five minute job to do the whole edit. It did take me a little longer because I shot the image too tiightly and had to go into PS to increase the canvas size; while I was there I thought I might as well add the border.
Fascinating hearing how you did this, and I would say you did achieve a pencil drawing effect. On first glance that is exactly what I thought it was, but I knew you would not take a shot of something like that. I really like it.
@joansmor I guess you're sort of right Joan; as shot it is definitely low-key (dark cat on black) so inverted it becomes high-key... but then I adjusted the tonal values of the cat down again. There are no blacks and, apart from the background, no whites in this image, which is what gives it the feel of a pencil sketch.
Thanks for letting us know how you did this. Makes my eyes cross, but I love knowing how creative you were on this. :-) I didn't notice the faint shadow until I read your brief
@fishers Thanks Ian - it's actually a bit larger than the usual ornament; this is the kitten and it's not much smaller than a full-size cat: the cat, who is sitting upright, is the size of a medium dog. Watch this space, perhaps....
I'm in awe Richard. I started to play with processing it seems like ages ago, but was never satisfied with the results so bar the usual cropping/contrast/saturation etc. maybe I ought to try again!
I like it, fav.
Ian