The photo challenge this week by Peter Carvey was to take a mediocre photo and see if you could jazz it up to be a better shot. Take a look at the original first and some of the wonderful and creative effects people applied in post. Use this link to see what normal people submitted.

 

Here is the original, admittedly, less-than-stellar photo by Peter.

 

 

Okay. Then there's mine...

 

I didn't post it on the DPS site (couldn't figure out how since I don't have a website anyway), but I determined from some of the comments that not everyone has my sense of humor, and it wouldn't be appreciated. I do not wish to annoy people worldwide. But YOU guys should be used to my posts by now, and I hope you do enjoy a little fun with Photoshop. I realize that T3DS is also worldwide, but I hope you're not annoyed. I'm just trying to learn.

 

My version of the photo.

 

 

 

(p.s. I desaturated the image, increased contrast, used curves, cropped it...and then, well, went a little nuts)

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This is how I took the photo of the back of my head that I mentioned in Part 1. I frequently take a shot of a new hairstyle before I go out, just to make sure I am not frightening to dogs or small children.

 

Too lazy to dig out my cordless shutter release, and just anxious to get a quick idea, I started by aiming the camera at the bathroom mirror behind me--that is, guessing--and hoping I was in the frame. There are a lot of ways to take self-portraits, but this sure isn't a great one! Needless to say, I got a lot of shots like this. (Please excuse the awful color in these photos. I forgot I have incandescent-looking CFL's in the bathroom and neglected to set the white balance accordingly.)

 

 

An unusual way to take a self-portait, for sure, but who wants a shower curtain as a background? Well, this is a little better, but I couldn't hold the camera still that way, and had focusing problems, as you can see. I am making progress by at least getting my head in the frame. Now it was a challenge, just to see how I could do it without a remote that I have to aim at the camera. That would require some contortions or stealth-aiming.

 

 

How about a shot from the side to see how the Bumpit was doing? Hey! Where did all those chins come from?!

 

 

What I ended up doing was setting the camera on the TV, putting a swivel chair in front of it, and focusing on the top edge of the chair. I had the camera set to shoot five multiple shots, hit the shutter, sat in the chair so my head was about even with the back, and swiveled the chair slightly between shots to get five different angles.

 

 

So, there you go--another way to take a self-portrait. Do this a few times and it may explain all the snickering when you leave a room! Good luck!

 

Alas, dear Friends, if you have seen my previous post on the rise and fall of the Hair Weasel (http://www.the3dstudio.com/blog_detail.aspx?id=1196), I have more sad news to impart. The "upgraded" beaded weasel I referred to exploded in a shower of CLEAR beads not too long after it was pressed into service. (Okay, seriously--did any of you read between the lines on that post and get that I wasn't really just talking about a hair accessory? What, too subtle?) Anyway, the upgrade lasted even less time than the first one. Another one bites the dust, all that glitters is not...rhinestone...insert your own cliché. It was a weird summer to say the least, and I wish I had my $9.99 back.

 

But, enough with the DaVinci Code posts. I promise you, this post really is just about my search for the perfect hair accessories.

 

Halloween is coming up, and I borrowed a "slightly slutty" Alice in Wonderland costume from my BFF's college-age daughter. Oh, quit making that face--it fits and it was free! I admit it looks more like Alice in Cougartown or a cigarette girl/cocktail waitress from the Rat Pack years, so I'm going with that. The little hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds on the polyester apron qualify it to be cheesy Vegas. But I need big, bad 1960's hair to go with it--a French twist on steroids.

 

I first tried a combination of these items. I'm sorry to say they were of no use.

 

 

The "Hair Poufs"--mounds of...whatever...covered with fake hair on wicked little metal combs--were impossible to keep in line and ended up resembling randomly placed hair turds. The "French Twister" was even worse. ("Oh, la-la, right hand rouge!" Sorry, sorry...must focus...) One needs two friends and a prehensile tail to get that plastic and elastic to look fantastic. So, back to the store they went, and yes, my friends, I was then drawn to yet another As Seen On TV! display and purchased The Bumpits for, you guessed it, $9.99. I didn't include a photo, because you can't walk into any CVS pharmacy, Wal-Mart, or Target without getting assaulted by The Bumpits display. (What a horrible name. I don't know the image you get when you see that name, but I'm thinking of grizzled old guys in a rail yard, eating beans from a tin can. And sweating.)

 

There are three in the package: large, medium, and then a really tiny one. I'm not sure what baby Bumpit is for. Maybe 1980's bangs. Anyway, I chose to use the biggest Bumpit at the crown for a full Winehouse effect. I did a trial run to see if I could get a Bumpit to stay in my hair. Yes...and no. There is still a lot of hairspray, teasing, hairspray, pinning, hairspray, baked beans, and spam needed to keep this thing in. Since I am going to a dance and need the security, and the Bumpits are hard plastic frames, I put some of my hair through it and pinned that hair down to my head to secure it before flopping the ratted top layer over it. I wound up the back in a traditional French Twist, tucked the end up under the Bumpitted area, and sprayed everything, including my lungs, to death.

 

Here's kind of what it will look like on Saturday. Bear in mind this was done fast, just to get an idea. I wanted to see what it really looked like, so I took a photo of the back of my head.

 

 

Yeah, I know, underwhelming, isn't it? But I promise it will be ratted to the rafters on Halloween. Want to know how I took the photo? Read the next post...

 

 

 

 

 

I may have just stumbled upon a quick way to find stray background pixels in a cutout texture.

 

After using the typical lasso and delete method of removing a background in Photoshop, I loaded the .psd file into Corel Painter Essentials to check for strays. I saw a few gray blobs and went back to Photoshop to clean them up. Since I had made an alpha channel already, I wanted to see if I could see them there as well. Duuuh, it never dawned on me before to click on the alpha channel. BOY, did those strays POP!! It was so easy to lasso and delete them from here and resave the file.

 

I opened the corrected file in Corel again, just to see how it looked. Gone, Baby, gone.

 

Any thoughts on this method?