Scream Challenge

[Lon Howard]

I am curious to see what others can do with this. While walking about I found this portion of a tree with some bark peeled off which I thought was suggestive of the famous 'Scream' painting by Edvard Munch. So I shot it and have given it so many work-overs that I am about to scream myself! I think this is the best I have come up with although I've changed my mind several times over about that. I've tried many different combinations of composition, textures, exposures, filters, etc., and still remain unsure about how to present it. Help, anyone?? Arigato!





Original 'raw' capture:

[Bobobird]

Actually the original looks just fine and shows off quite well the screaming face. A tiny bit of side lighting on the right might have helped.

[Lon Howard]

Thank you Bobo. I was thinking that I might bring the exposure up on the right but I thought it may appear to be a little too flat, so I didn't. I'll give it a go and see how it looks.

[jiro]

Any chance you can upload the RAW file, Lon?

[Lon Howard]

Any chance you can upload the RAW file, Lon?

Tinypics is all I've ever used to upload, Willie. Is there another method that allows you to upload an actual raw image?

[jiro]

Tinypics is all I've ever used to upload, Willie. Is there another method that allows you to upload an actual raw image?

Yes. go to this link and drag and drop the RAW file to the green box. Good luck: www.mediafire.com

[Lon Howard]

Yes. go to this link and drag and drop the RAW file to the green box. Good luck: www.mediafire.com

Thanks Willie. I'll give it a go but it'll have to wait till tomorrow ... am volunteering at the county fair right now and working off my iPad so I can't get to the image till then. Thank you!

[Lon Howard]

OK Willie, here's the link to the raw image (I think ... )

http://www.mediafire.com/?2u7d9t2d2kzhy7l

Thanks mate ... let me know if something went haywire.

[jiro]

OK Willie, here's the link to the raw image (I think ... )

http://www.mediafire.com/?2u7d9t2d2kzhy7l

Thanks mate ... let me know if something went haywire.

Everything went fine. Will work on it later. Thanks, mate.

[Katy Noelle]

That's great that you noticed that, Lon! I can't wait to see what Willie comes up with!

[jiro]

Here you go, Lon: I think now it's too obvious. I used a lot of warp transform tool, liquify, dodging, burning, lighting effects layer, vignette, a lot of cloning, and a lot of coffee! It was fun working with it. Hope you got "scared".



Gotta go for now. Had to pick up the kids from school.

[arith]

It is a tough one; this is softer on topaz detail with a linear light layer amongst otherss.

[Lon Howard]

Thanks guys! There are so many ways to go. I did one that was cropped real tight like Willie's, but then I got the idea that unless there was advance notice that it was a tree, then a viewer might not know that so I backed away a bit to show some moss and bark ... still wondering if that's valid. Willie's makes you feel that a skull just came around the corner and bumped foreheads with you. I would've never thought to go soft like Steve did but it worked ... definitely more moody and the hue on the moss is ... well, exorcising! I think I scrolled through all the Topaz options, but used only small touches of the dark/ghostly and simplify ... there's a bas relief layer in there somewhere too (just a wild out of the blue thing ) The vignette is definitely a good idea so I've got to get that in there for sure. The project will go on and I very much appreciate your ideas (And any more to come should someone have the itch)