1 of a 4 Part series of photos themed to match a local dance studio’s Competition dance routine. I really had to plan my shots carefully in advance. These are youth dancers, so I only had A small window of time during their scheduled dance practice to get the shots needed for their portraits. Also, the entire series of images were edited using ONLY Photoshop for the iPad. The iPad version of Photoshop does not have all of the bells and whistle‘s, but as the app continues to improve I am learning each new feature as it’s added. In time I hope to consider myself an iPad Photoshop expert.
Critique the Community
Personal Projects
We Want To See Images From Your Personal Projects
Submission Deadline: Fri, 22 Jul 22 15:30:00 +0000
This contest has ended.
Voting is closed.
Congratulations to the winners!
So you pay to have portraits taken of your competition dancer… they cut the child’s legs off in Photoshop and replace them with tentacles.
How would you feel?
Thankfully, the dance studio I photograph for, has some really cool parents.😅
(Don’t worry I gave them normal portraits too)
Apparently this is a snapshot.🤣
Well I can somewhat see why. Technically, it isn't. As work went into it. That would make it a 2. -but I can see why some might rate a 1.
"1" is reserved for "you give you mom a camera, see presses the shutter"
But in this case; the photoshop work is basic. in a sense of: "You give your mom photoshop, and she messes around with it for a bit and this is the result"
1. Paste a background,
2. slap on some tentacles (that are facing the wrong way anyway.)
3. Lasso the legs of the girl - paste on top.
4. done
It has a "first go at photoshop-feel", so I can understand why some would rate a 1.
I will take it as a compliment that my 25 layers composited in Photoshop for iPad are so well matched to each other as to seem to be a simple background replacement with a filter on top.
Your mother must be quite technologically literate. Because I assure you the dance moms that this photo was designed to please basically thought I was capable of witchcraft.😅
I mean, I’m competing against school photo quality portraits. So I know I’m not shooting for a four or five star photo here.
But I still had to make an image that a mother would think was A pretty photo of her daughter, and captured the outfit… which is really what young dance portraits are about. At this age, they can’t really be expected to pull off the cool Instagram dance poses. You can check my portfolio to see what I do in camera with those girls.
I suppose I’ll have to forgive someone’s ignorance if they think that setting up an entire portrait studio, and then editing an image to match a very specific aesthetic of a Disney character, while also matching the other three images in the Disney villains series. Maleficent, Cruella Deville , And the evil Queen from Snow White.
I’ll have to forgive them if they think that it’s as easy as say… taking a picture out of an airplane window. Which I’m sure is a lot more difficult to execute then I think it is. Basically point out the window, and then edit that stuff in light room. No need for Photoshop. But that’s my ignorance of the process.
Clearly it takes more effort than that, or else that’s basically a snapshot. Right?😉
I mean, it’s not like you can intentionally light another airplane that you photograph out of a window. It’s just really cool that you have a unique opportunity to take those photos. And I appreciate that you took the time and effort to carry your camera and do that… instead of flying the plane I guess.😬
But anyways, comparing my image to the source material… I think I nailed it.😏
Source:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fe/c5/01/fec50178c1dfbee17c606aa676f776f2...
I will admit, it bothers me that I couldn’t find tentacles that matched the curl I needed while also being closer to anatomically facing the correct direction. Unfortunately, I did not have any black and purple octopus at my disposal to photograph the exact angle of a tentacle that I needed. But I’m gonna go ahead and claim that tentacles are very twisty and maybe this version of Ursula just likes showing a little bit more suction cup.🤣
I’ll admit, I have no problems with anybody who gives me a needs work For noticing the tentacles. But I do also hope that some people will recognize this as 100% portfolio worthy… if your target audience is dance moms.
Maybe in the future there will be a critique the community that challenges us to redo one of our previous submissions in an attempt to show off how much we’ve grown. When that happens, I will Spare no expense to get just the right appropriately plump model to execute a “fine art Ursula”. I will spare no expense. I will even pay the $25 to go get my own tentacle assets at the aquarium.😉
Hey man, I appreciate the comment. I really do. Even a sharp criticism in the comment section is better than an anonymous one star.
As for the “pasted” background… It’s a black layer with a blue and purple layers on top that have been masked away to reveal the pattern that is similar to Ursula‘s magic from the cartoon.
Reference image
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/articles/205000/disney-princess_205255_3...
I think my biggest argument against anyone who would claim that this is a snapshot is how I successfully matched the villainess up lighting of the reference cartoon while still keeping my subject looking soft and pretty. I mean, her skin looks soft and glowing, right?
Reference cartoon
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fe/c5/01/fec50178c1dfbee17c606aa676f776f2...
Are you a photographer? You have zero photos.
And just to be clear. I join these contests so that I will receive criticism, and so that I can debate with hyper critical people. I’m not really here for the competition. I’m trying to encourage people to give me feedback so that I can get better.
The only way to improve is be brave enough to actually show people your images. Right?
But, I do think that there is a a misconception about an image that is intentionally trying to look cartoonish.
I think that these dance portraits are significantly better than the dragon ball Z photo I did with my daughter. You can see that with my profile images.
But mark my words, I will eventually improve my technique of putting young children into cartoon/animated environments to the point where even this hyper critical community will probably give me about a 3.5 star. 😉
I know I’m not there yet. But I’m having fun along the way. I appreciate you commenting. I wish I could see some of your photos.
I gave this a 2 "Needs Work" because I think it needs work specially the motion blur bottom of the skirt on top of perfectly sharp tentacle makes it look very copy pasted and there was no attention to detail of matching the focus/sharpness of the two images. Even when doing fantasy composite work we should be mindlful to match the source material so it looks seamless. For me it looks like a girl just hovering over an octopus and I don't get the feeling the octopus legs are part of the girl. I'm sorry you feel a score of needs work is unfair.
Not at all. That’s a very good criticism. I am certainly not upset with any two stars. At the time I made this, Photoshop for iPad did not even have gussian blur as a feature yet. It was in the, coming soon features. At this point, it has incredible AI selection and masking along with blur filters.
Maybe I should bring this tiff file back up and soften those tentacles, I could even dodge and burn them to match the up lighting.
I appreciate the observation. And I had only ever expressed doubts towards someone who could give it a one star.
I’m always happy to hear helpful criticism.
You are going to love this!
I went back and did some retouching to the tentacles. Nothing drastic, just added some blur and dodging and burning.
I posted a before and after on my social media pages, and the mother of my subject immediately reached out and wanted a copy… I guess that is proof that that was a good criticism.
https://www.facebook.com/230178107643756/posts/pfbid02ujJZcDYeXs8nW3uRjr...
As for the poor selection at the bottom of the dress, I’m going to have to photograph differently in the future when I plan on removing someone’s legs. The tips of the dress were gauzy and see-through. Lesson learned about being aware of transparent fabrics.
I’m getting such good feedback on this Ursula photo. I can’t wait until I can update it and then possibly submit it at a later date after applying the improvements. Now that I no longer have to consider preserving the look of the dress for the dance mom (kind of an important element of a dance portrait) I think I can actually make the tentacles seamlessly transition into the dress so that it has a far more polished look to it.
I don’t know if this one is receiving more comments than my evil queen and maleficent photos because it has the most glaring errors… or if it is the one that has the highest potential and therefore worthy of people typing out a criticism to try to get it to where it could be really good. 😅
I’m looking for some images to give me a reference of how to transition the tentacles to the body…
I would like to submit this image as after the fact justification for how much suction cup I’m showing.😅
Thank God the skirt is there.😬😆
http://media.syracuse.com/post-standard/photo/2013/06/-4be93150ef51b13f.jpg