Graphic Challenge: Shadows on Cats

Not a bad pic at all, but shadows can make a siggy look uneven, so try making a sig with the lovely talkative Rosie

I didn't ask for a larger size so we can practise working with smaller images also

and the second pic for this one is the ever gorgeous Bella

ooooo looking forward to the results ! and the tips of course !!

Ann, why don't you try a few????

Ann, try it out, practise makes perfect, and someone has to go first!

Originally Posted by AbbysMom

Ann, why don't you try a few????

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Originally Posted by icklemiss21

Ann, try it out, practise makes perfect, and someone has to go first!

Click to expand...

well ..........I havent got a clue where to start

well off I go - wait for the disaster then

You never learn unless you try

OK that is true - but I am now stuck - I managed to copy the photo of Bella into a window - my next plan was to cut out the bright areas with the magnetic tool, with a 5pxl feather - then use the 'fill' option - but this is where I stopped dead messed about abit - did a duplicate copy etc............but all I could manage was more white - even when I tried to match colour from her fur with the dropper it wouldnt change .........so I'm stuck........

I'm I on the wrong track completely ? it was a guess

Try not filling it but using the different layer types or going to the contrast and hue sliders and changing it like that

well I can get Bella's face a little lighter but always manage to keep the sunlight showing bright..........well I suppose a lighter face is a start

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

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my effort - how come its ended up smaller - it came like that when I placed it in my window ??

Here is Bella



To begin with, I removed the extra fur from above Bella's head and where the 'hole' was from deleting, I painted behind it in the same colour as the local background.
Then I put a soft light layer over top to get rid of the fuzzy look the brightness gave and show the features better.
Then I used a well feathered lasso tool to cut out Bella NOT including the bright parts. I layered this several times.
The first layer is set to Linear Dodge and I used the hue/saturation tools to change the colour to a more yellow tinge to match the colour of the brighter parts, the other two (natural colour) layers, I set over this on screen (all at 83%).
I then took another copy of my slightly edited original layer and pasted it over the layers and set it to colour burn at 60%.
I then used a guassian blur at a radius of 2.5 on the original layer and the linear dodge layer to get rid of the hard edges

ETA: I cut out the eyes and made a new layer to set them at colour and put back in the colour I had washed out in using the screen layers

OK, here's my reworked Bella



Once again, I am sorry I don't remember the actual settings I used. Basically what I do is work on it, until it looks good to me, such as colours and brightness and contrast.

What I did is probably longer and more drawn out than most people do, but it's MY way, not necessarily the right way.

OK, what I did was used the lasso tool on the whited out sections and began adusting the brightness and contrast until the whited out sections were in balance with the darker sections of her fur, then I colour adjusted a bit until it looked like the same colour. Next I used the burn tool at at about 15 and burned in sections so there'd be some contrast to the hair. Then I used a Natural brush, as the blur tool, and shaped and formed the hair in the areas that I was working in, and blened it with the rest of her hair. After that I went to the adjustments and Auto Leved the picture and then Auto coloured the picture. Then I went to brightness and contrast and adjust that until it looked as good as I could get it. Then I added a little more saturaton to the picture. I then duplicated the layer, and added a small amount of Gaussian Blur, then duplicated that layer and downsized the opacity just a very small amount. After that I saved it for the web, and that was that.

I had a go at poor Rosie



I used the lasso tool to select bits of Rosie then I played with the colour balance. I added more red and yellow. For her bib I cut out the shadow then cut and pasted little bits of the paler part of her bib, then blured it a bit.

I am SUCH a hack at this, I started with Rosie. She is much smaller than she appears, isn't she?

I cut her out with the magnetic lasso, and cleaned the edges with the eraser. I blurred the edges, then lightened her up a bit. I then duplicated the layer, and changed it to soft light, again lightening it up a bit. I then put a soft outer glow on the first layer only.

Originally Posted by HopeHacker

What I did is probably longer and more drawn out than most people do, but it's MY way, not necessarily the right way.

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I don't think there is any 'wrong' way to do graphics (and usually my method is similar to yours, I just thought that the way I showed it would be easier for the people newer to graphics to try )

First, I cut out Rosie using the magnetic lasso and a feather of 2. Then, I made her bigger to work with (around 300px in height once cropped to her body size).

I then did a second selection of just her body and copied it twice setting both layers to screen to brighten the body.

I then used a small round soft edged brush and the sharpen tool (at a strength of 50) to sharpen her eyes, nose and tongue on the original layer.

I then made two copies of the lower layer and put them at 60% opacity soft light over the scren layers and used guassian blur at 1.5 on the original layer.

I then went to Image Size and shrunk her down to 150px and put her on my background layer where I chose colours that matched rather than contrast to her and put a pale yellow on soft light over the whole thing to tone down some of the brightness

I'll have to give it another go!!!

Originally Posted by AbbysMom

I'll have to give it another go!!!

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I like it, myself. It looks like a painting.

Thanks Hope! I did basically paint over most of her! I did learn a few things while doing it so I can probably do better next time.

Here's my attempt at a sig for Rosie



I worked on the photo at 3x zoom size. I cut rosie out with a magnetic lasoo and then tidied up the edges with eraser and blur tool.

I sharpened up the picture using the 'adjust sharpness tool' and then made 3 layers. One layer I used 'screen' - this gave some colour instantly back into rosies coat. The other layer, I added some saturation and lightness.

I played around with the transparency levels of all 3 layers until I thought I got the best mix.

To sharpen Rose's face up, I re-drew her eye -lid slits with black pencil and blurred them out. I also changed her tougue colour to a more prominent pink using 'replace colour. Her name and her toungue colour are my inspiration for this sig lol

I made the background just from playing with a brush and a background...using then filter gallery and hue/saturation. Filiter gallery wise, I used a few of the artistic effects. I was originally going for a colour background to match her coat (.g. reds/oranges/golds)

Then transposed Rosie onto the background to the right size. Added a drop shadow around her to make her glow and then blurred this in to the background.

When playing the the background hue/saturation, to my eye, rosie really stood out on blue. So I went for that.

Now onto the hard one...Bella and the shadows..dreading this lol