Digi paper portrait collage for PSP

[AmaG]

First attempt. My technique was different but I never would have even tried this if it weren't for the talented Olga!

 

[zinzilah]

Gorgeous, the whole family of ours fell in love with your doggie, Ama! Thanks for playing! Super result

 

[purlz76]

Finally I had the time to play with this tutorial.

I played cheat by using the Magnetic Lasso, instead of the free-hand. :

I tried to use colours to highlight & contour the face. But it turned out like I had a major sunburn-peeling session.
I tried to use lines to do the contour. But it made me look older & fatter. LOL !!!
I tried to darken the nose. But it made the nose look HUUUUUUUUGEEEE !!!
In the end, I just be minimalist abt it.

PS: this is one cool method to beautify an ugly face-photo.

 

[Dalis]

Olga, Is there any particular thing you look into a picture to make it a good "candidate" to do this?

 

[zinzilah]

Nope, I just need to like it enough to not mind spending time working with it. And large shapes help if you are in a hurry I need to upload my first attempts which were birds photos. Just to show it doesn't have to be a person, as Ama has illustrated too.

 

[Li Li Wee]

Olga, Is there any particular thing you look into a picture to make it a good "candidate" to do this?

Dalis, maybe you would want to try to poster edge the photo? Just to get the shades first then clip the papers? That was what Juliette and I did…

 

[Li Li Wee]

Olga, Is there any particular thing you look into a picture to make it a good "candidate" to do this?

Dalis, maybe you would want to try to poster edge the photo? Just to get the shades first then clip the papers? That was what Juliette and I did…

 

[norton94]

Thanks for the fun!!
Here is mine

 

[purlz76]

Krista, as long as you (or any one of you ladies) can do the shadows in that way, I will LOVE it to death. Cos I am still unable to achieve that effects w/o making myself look hideously ridiculous. Kekekekekek!!!!

 

[zinzilah]

Krista, this is just gorgeous! Love what you did! Superb.

 

[MariSt]

Wow. that's a cool technique!

 

[zinzilah]

This is something I've been promising for a while, a tutorial for digi paper portrait collage for PSP or with you help maybe not only.

This whole thing started when I saw the pin by Neisha on Pinterest with the geometric portrait of Twiggy with a promise of a tutorial. The links unfortunately were duff, but I thought to myself how hard would it be to figure it out, and after experimenting on 2-3 pictures of ducks I then spent 3 days trying with the first portrait. Several scrap-its and lets-start-it-agains from scratch. I made a mistake and created it first in the original resolution of 1024x768 and then liked it so much I wanted to do it again but this time not flood filling, instead using the solid papers. I finished it after 3 days and about 20 odd layers (all of which are merged layers in their own right)and it still looked too "patchworky", more than I wanted. So I set up a new task, and tried again until it comes almost easy. I will try to explain it to you here, but please remember I am hardly a wordsmith, so ask questions, if I can I will answer here, if I don't know, I am sure somebody will pick it up. I would like to keep it like open source, so we all add to the tutorial, and the experts in other programs if and when they work it out, or need to change something do so by adding to the thread therefore making it more usable by the others, and making more accessible and wide-spread. One more thing: I can hardly call it a tutorial, it's more of my thoughts on the matter and the looksie into how I do it. With that being said...

Let's begin. I thought it would be easier to show it on the new image, I haven't finished it at this stage, but I am sure we'll find out what it looks like in the end... eventually. If you want to learn from my mistakes save the intermediate stages! I lost my work around midnight last night (I guess I was too tired to notice which file I was closing without saving) so had to start again this morning but the first steps would have the last night's results showing, keep in mind that no two results from the same image will be the same. You don't have to choose a portrait, it can be landscape, full body, duck, sillhouette, you name it, it can be done, but I like portraits, so I open the photo made to fit the size I need it to be when I will eventually use it. Mine comfortably fits into a document 12x12 inches.
View attachment 309754

I zoom in on the part I want to start with, I usually start with the eyes, so zoom in on the eyes, and select the area you will be filling with colour or paper next, again, you can use different tools, I do it with the lasso in Paint Shop Pro that I feel more comfortable with, having used it for 10 years. To create not too jagged an edge I use the point to point lasso with the smoothing of 13.

View attachment 309755

View attachment 309756

I open the white paper reverse the selection (Ctrl+shift+I) and hit delete, so that I am left with two blank eyes for that lovely zombie effect

View attachment 309757
View attachment 309758

I make the layer invisible (if at any point you need to ask HOW about anything, please, do, but for now I assume that you already know) and select the next portion of the eye.

View attachment 309759

Here is a small trick: I open the folder with different papers next to the portrait many a time to match the colour better, like now whilst looking for the colour of her eyes.

View attachment 309760

Now I use brush (round somewhat squashed and tilted) in black for the pupil, and white with reduced opacity for those highlights, I add a couple of lights using my trusty lassoo for those stray hairs in front of her baby blues, and then lighten the colour of selection with the Shift+B and playing with the sliders (remember that trick at any point of the game), if you want the two or more shades of the same tones of colour.

View attachment 309761

Continue building your image like that using papers to replace the selections. Remember you don't have to go from the bottom up like for a cake, if you want to create a detail of the cheek, and then decide to go for the major part of the face in the other colour, just position the layer underneath, save your time, not having to go carefully around the cheek highlight...
View attachment 309762
I keep blending the finished areas, that way you will keep it to a more manageable number, note, I saved the eye details separately from the face so that I could go back and add the eyelashes in between.

View attachment 309764

See when I finally get to doing them, I make them too dark to look realistic, (I used the lasso with smoothing 2 to create the shape) so I use the trick with Shift+B again to lighten them.

I start working on the hair strands, this time I use freehand tool on some of the strands, and point to point on the others.

I didn't save the intermediate photos and now only have the last png file but I hope you have understood the principles of building the image up, and merging once you are happy with the result. As a cheat in some of the other portraits I have done, I used one main paper to do the whole face, or arm for instance and then altered lighter and darker patches by using the lasso tool and Shift+B darkening or lightening the areas I wanted to change. See the dress for this exact technique.

I do hope it was helpful for you and am looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Please hook us up here with the links to the pages you create using this tutorial.

 

[mcurtt]

Thank you for the tutorial, I missed it the first time around. I will definitely be trying it!

 

[zinzilah]

Just updating with my newest LO using the digi paper portrait