Inspiration: Photomanipulation Artistry by Louvre89

January 5th, 2010  |  Published in Featured, Inspiration  |  9 Comments

Cottingley, by louvre89, a rising star on deviantArt. This photomanipulation is made up of many images...but you'd never know it!

Two-dimensional digital art tends to fall into one of two main categories: Digital Painting and Photomanipulation. Under Digital Painting you’ll find Speed Painting (a quick rendering done freehand, usually with Photoshop), and digital painting (same as speed painting, but not so speedy). Photomanipulation refers to creating a new image by pasting together elements from other images, a sort of digital collage. These categories are just for convenience, however, and sometimes it’s hard to classify a given work. Photomanips, as they’re called, tend to include lots of digital painting, to help blend the elements together. As you can see, the line between them is blurry, and often totally arbitrary. Given this rather unhelpful introduction, I thought we’d take a look at the work of a rising star on deviantArt.com, named Louvre89. She’s a 20-something Australian artist who’s starting to get professional freelance assignments, and it’s no wonder: she’s very, very good. In today’s article, we’ll dissect the work above, “Cottingley,” to see how the artist combined images to create something new.

First off, I’d like to express my thanks to Louvre89 for taking the time to document, using links, each of the images she used in the creation of “Cottingley.” On deviantArt, it’s standard practice to credit the stock artists whose work you’ve used; but Louvre89 takes it one step further and creates a link pointing to the actual file used. This makes our work as detectives so much easier. If you’re interested in learning how photomanipulation works, I’d heartily recommend that you check out this artist’s works, and spend time exploring the link credits to see what she started with. I’ve actually done just that in putting this article together. I hope it will encourage you to explore on your own. It’s a great way to learn.

Stock Fantasy Background2, by deviantArt stock contributor anaRasha. This is a terriffic starting point.

Louvre89 began with the image above, by deviantArt stock artist anaRasha. This makes a great starting point, since it’s like a stage set, waiting for further details to be added. The perspective is simple two-point, so as along as all of your photos are taken straight-on, they’ll match the perspective easily. Imagine you’re sitting in a theatre, sitting in the very center of the orchestra section. You have before you a short foreground, and then a straight, flat wall of a background. This is a good, simple stage setting to create a convincing photomanip with. As you get more advanced, you can move on to three-point perspective, with aerial views, plunging canyons, high mountains, and so forth. But start simple.

Here's a quick refresher. Thanks to Helen South on About.com for the nice illustration of Two Point Perspective.

In the following gallery are the remaining images used to create “Cottingley.” I’m amazed, when I look at how these sort of images are made, at how creative the artist was in choosing the source images. The key seems to be imagination. Rarely will you find exactly the images you need out there in stock photo land. You’ll need to creatively crop them, adjust, warp, twist, and otherwise bend them to your will. For instance, look at how the artist cropped the image of the large tree to use for her main “tree house” image.

 

Thanks again to Louvre89. Be sure to stop by and check out her beautiful work!

Related Posts

1. A Gold Mine of Free Stock Photos for Fantasy Images
2. Inspiration: Dominic Davison
3. Inspiration: Karin Eszterhás
4. Inspiration: Some Favorite Digital Artists
5. Inspiration: Ryan Bliss
6. Inspiration – Rita J. Maggart
7. Tutorial: Correcting Lens Distortion in Your Reference Photos

Stumble it!

Responses

1. Tim ONeill says:
   

   January 8th, 2010 at 1:07 pm (#)

   Bob,

   This is excellent. A very unique approach to showcasing a rising stars art. Bravo! The time it took to include the source images and brushes is really appreciated.

2. Bob Nolin says:
   

   January 8th, 2010 at 5:45 pm (#)

   Tim –

   Thanks for the kind words. It does take a bit of effort to put it together like this, but I think it’s worth it, since it shows how much one can learn by studying the links on dA. It’s a great resource.

   Thanks again –

   Bob

3. Lasse says:
   

   January 21st, 2010 at 7:06 pm (#)

   Hi

   It’s a awesome piece of work! Very inspiring!

   regards

   Lasse

4. Rita Regnier says:
   

   January 21st, 2010 at 10:16 pm (#)

   How do Photomanip-ers (?1?) handle the differing sizes, resolutions, etc. of the various photos or other images used?

   Lovely work!

   LadyLeaf

5. Bob Nolin says:
   

   January 24th, 2010 at 1:48 pm (#)

   Hi Rita –

   That’s a short question with a very long answer–a whole book’s worth of answer, in fact. The best on the subject, in my opinion, is “Photoshop Masking and Compositing” by Katrin Eismann. Deke McClelland’s Photoshop books are excellent, too. Any good beginner’s guide to Photoshop will help you with selecting, copying, and pasting, which is what you’re asking about. The short answer is, by using Edit > Transform > Scale in Photoshop, you can size your images up and down to suit. Not like in the old days when you had to get out the proportion wheel and calculate percentages for enlarging and reducing! (Yes, I really am that old.) Hope that helps!
   Bob

6. Rita Regnier says:
   

   January 24th, 2010 at 8:37 pm (#)

   answer to Bob Nolan

   Hey, Bob,

   thanks for the long answer! I should’ve explained I was searching for special secrets as I am pretty good for an amatuer at photo restoration; adding and/or taking people out of old family shots, etc,(using Elements, BTW, plus a great menu of small specialized apps.) on request, as gifts, and to build our family archive. I do a lot of creative non-photo work too; have a bunch to learn!

   I’ll just be clearer here about what I find worrying; no need to answer if, again, I should just refer to those books:

   Example: trying to select areas from 5 images: 3 photos (.psd, .jpeg, .tif), at various inch and resolution sizes plus 1 digital art piece (my own) plus 1 B&W clip art. Varying amounts of noise being main problem.

   Would the photomaniper be smarter to find another goal because the raw materials described above are too varied to composite into something worthwhile?

   Thanks so much for site and your help,

   LadyLeaf

7. Bob Nolin says:
   

   January 26th, 2010 at 9:34 am (#)

   LadyLeaf –

   Photomanipulation is a true art form, and not for the faint of heart! By that I mean, it really takes years to get good at it. I should know — I’m still working at it! It takes years to see how certain images will work together to form a new one. That’s why I showed the various images this artist used. You’ll notice how the choice of each is far from obvious. It takes some real creative imagination. That, and a very large collection of reference photos.

   To answer your question: yes. You can’t always fit a group of photos together successfully. Finding a group that work together – that’s the challenge. Good luck!

   -Bob

8. Rita Regnier says:
   

   January 26th, 2010 at 7:40 pm (#)

   Bob, again, thanks for answering, the advice and caution about needing years of learning and the creative spark.

   I plan on doing a lot of the learning and praying for the spark of inspiration.

9. Trackbacks says:
   

   March 12th, 2010 at 9:52 am (#)

   • Digital Image Magazine – Tutorial Fotomanipulation « Digital Creative Blog noch im Entstehen

Leave a Response