I came across this photo that I was really impressed with. It’s of a man dressed as Megamind standing on a city street. The highlights and shadows on his cape and false cranium looked very painting-like. The background looked almost inconsistent because it was real. So, I wanted to see what I could do with photo manipulation to improve it.
First, some credits, since this isn’t my photo:
Original photo was by Elemental (who’s okay with me using it)
Costumed Villain played by Kildread
Costume Created by God Save The Queen Fashions
So, I took this and applied a Photoshop Oil Paint filter to come up with this:
This was pretty good. The filter simplified the background nicely. However, this is a picture of a costumed villain. It didn’t seem right for him to be walking around on the streets in broad daylight. It would be better as a night scene. I also wanted to put in the invisible car.
How’d I do it? Well, in the interest of disclosure, I had some instruction from someone called thinwhite_duke over on the LiveJournal community. Anyway, I used two layers with a copy of the image on both. I cut out Megamind, the sky, and the red light on the traffic signal. Then I Adjusted the levels on the layer with the scene to make it dark and night-like. Surprisingly, the signs magically transformed into neon signs without my actually doing anything. Then I used variations on both layers to make it bluer. I added a layer between the two and put a gradiation in for the sky. And I burned and dodged both the dark scenery layer and the original layer to touch things up. Then I painted the highlights for the invisible car on another layer. It was actually very easy.
nicely done- really like the dramatic look and blue hue.
great photo! awesome costume!
Thank you. 🙂