Manipulative Thoughts

[noone]

I want your opinions on What makes a good manipulation:
Lighting- model and Scene should have matching shines, shadows, lighting angles
Camera/Scene perspective matching the model's perspective
The size of the pool of Quicksand (Whole image, or as a smaller prop with safe areas around it)
Other elements to Add to immersion (quicksand warning signs, Deep wet footprints, Splash residue/struggle ripples etc.

Elements that detract (happy faces and such, excess or gory nudity, obvious patterns in the manipulation- I.E. the quicksand has little "floating rocks" on the surface, Burrs/spurs/and fuzzies of poorly applied Photoshop, The scale of the scene and the scale of the model are radically wrong/conflicting, the scene perspective and model perspective clash, I.E. she's towering above, looking down on you, but the background is at a look-down-on-angle.
The biggest crime in my opinion? The quicksand scene is too small or has clear opportunities for self-rescue...
No quicksand peril? no struggle? no Interest for me.

One thing that bugs me when I see manipulations is the "Straight edge of doom".
Where the model appears to be a cardboard cut-out pasted directly in the image.
Do me a flavor, eh? "Flatten the layers, and brush some of the quicksand on to the model's skin so that the image is just as 3-d as she should be. Curves man, curves, are everything...

Here's a few Scenes I am trying to "make work" with the Nuclear power tewelz of photoshop torment. Somethimes, Round Hole meats Squaaree PEGZ... Gnar. Sozz. itz o130 an I have been chickin sanz hed 4 almost 70 hours.

So, a few questions:
Do these scenes work? or "try again" which ones are Bad? Which ones Work?
In what ways can I improve?

[noone]

Scenes I may "tweak" or graft from (or on to) to make quicksand Scenes, perilous situations...

[noone]

Soon my henchmen, soon, we will go and rob the technology center - but not before our dear heroine meets her fate in the quicksand death trap I fiendishly prepared for her...

[noone]

Hahahahhaha- the vile villainess laughed as she watched the superheroines delicious yet doomed struggles...

[noone]

"Just how long is this going to take?" the Henchgirl pouted. "She's only sunk down to her hips"...

[noone]

note: many of these images would receive grafts of sand, and cropping to change the focus/center point.
Elements such as houses, ducks, water and such would be chopped out completely, unless it is a positive contributor.
Just so ya know, most of these images are "Raw" an untouched by me... for the moan-ment.

Again, the questions I submit to all of you is: how can I improve?
Stop going big and work on the tinny additions?
Better tone/light matching?
learn how to add ripples/splat marks?
Learn how to dirtyify the sinkettes?
Try to learn masking, layering, and detail "buffing"
Revisit/relearn to use of filters entirely?

Bop me on the nose for what I am doing wrong, and tell me how I can do better please.

[MadMax359]

note: many of these images would receive grafts of sand, and cropping to change the focus/center point.
Elements such as houses, ducks, water and such would be chopped out completely, unless it is a positive contributor.
Just so ya know, most of these images are "Raw" an untouched by me... for the moan-ment.

Again, the questions I submit to all of you is: how can I improve?
Stop going big and work on the tinny additions?
Better tone/light matching?
learn how to add ripples/splat marks?
Learn how to dirtyify the sinkettes?
Try to learn masking, layering, and detail "buffing"
Revisit/relearn to use of filters entirely?

Bop me on the nose for what I am doing wrong, and tell me how I can do better please.

of this list, the element i like the best is the ripples/splat marks
from your first post, i second the motion that happy faces aren't what i prefer... at the least keep it ambiguous so the viewer can project the damsel state of mind she/he desires

[cerberus]

I'm not sure if this will help but here are some of my thoughts and things that worked for me.

I want your opinions on What makes a good manipulation:
Lighting- model and Scene should have matching shines, shadows, lighting angles

Yes, very important, if the lighting in subject and background don't match it'll always look like a cut and paste job; It's not just these though, light intensity, number of sources and colour tints and temperature need to be dealt with. Studio photographs of models tend to be lit either by several lights to give a flat, almost 2-D, result or by a single strong light to create a high contrast result with bright highlights and deep shadows. For the multiple light images you can use dodge and burn to paint in shadows and highlights, this has its limits though, as too strong a use of these tools can result in colour casts and loss of detail. With the single light source images you can adjust the contrast, saturation and vibrance to bring it in line with the intended background. If the light direction in the subject and the background don't match you can always flip one of them left to right, this may help.

Camera/Scene perspective matching the model's perspective.

Again, very important, also all points of contact between the subject and the background need to be consistent, e.g. if you have a subject leaning forward supporting themselves on their hands and you wish to “place their hands on the surface” in the background, this fixes the depth to which you can sink their “other end”.

The size of the pool of Quicksand (Whole image, or as a smaller prop with safe areas around it)

I don't think this is that important, you just have to make it sympathetic to the subject, e.g. if it looks like it would be too easy for the subject to climb out, use a subject that is tied up. There are several on this forum that would thank you for that!

Other elements to Add to immersion (quicksand warning signs, Deep wet footprints, Splash residue/struggle ripples etc.

Generally no. For signs and footprints, if they are in the background picture already and fit with what you are trying to do, use them; otherwise it is a lot of work to get them to fit and look right. For splash residue, the more you try to put in the harder it is to keep it looking real, so think how much there is likely to be and do the minimum you think you can get away with. After all, if it doesn't look enough you can always add more. Ripples: water ripples, bits of cork floating in water ripples; real bogs and quicksand really don't move as much as most people think, floating peat bogs may undulate but the frequency is low and the wavelength is several feet, it's not going to show in a picture.

Elements that detract (happy faces and such, excess or gory nudity, obvious patterns in the manipulation- I.E. the quicksand has little "floating rocks" on the surface, Burrs/spurs/and fuzzies of poorly applied Photoshop, The scale of the scene and the scale of the model are radically wrong/conflicting, the scene perspective and model perspective clash, I.E. she's towering above, looking down on you, but the background is at a look-down-on-angle.

A lot of this comes down to personal preference and the viewers ability to suspend disbelief. Some things will be more of a problem for some people than others. If you pick a variety of subject types and situations you should be able to keep most people happy most of the time. Happy faces aren't too much of an issue, what really bugs me is the “Zombie smile” and the deadpan expressions you get on a lot of studio models. The type of emotion doesn't really matter but the model should be showing an emotion of some kind! Regarding “floating rocks”, I have seen numerous quite large rocks “floating” on quicksand, the tide rolls them into position on the way in or out and they sit there giving the impression that it's solid ground until the quicksand is disturbed; just another delicious part of the trap that is quicksand! Burrs, spurs and fuzzies: sometimes doing a manipulation you reach a point where you think “if I try to fix this any more I'm going to mess it up completely”, often that is a good point to stop, step back and decide if you can live with the result as it is. Generally I try to be a bit less critical with others' work than I would be with my own. I am in total agreement with you on mismatches in scale and/or perspective for me this tends to destroy any attempt to suspend disbelief and all I end up seeing is a couple (or more) images patched together that don't add up.

The biggest crime in my opinion? The quicksand scene is too small or has clear opportunities for self-rescue...
No quicksand peril? no struggle? no Interest for me.

As I said above there are ways around this: tie the subject up before you throw them in, are they stuck too deep to be able to pull themselves out, is there an incoming tide... There are lots of things that can be imagined to make the image work.

One thing that bugs me when I see manipulations is the "Straight edge of doom".
Where the model appears to be a cardboard cut-out pasted directly in the image.
Do me a flavor, eh? "Flatten the layers, and brush some of the quicksand on to the model's skin so that the image is just as 3-d as she should be. Curves man, curves, are everything...

Agreed, also feather the edges slightly (smudge or low level erase) so edges, hair etc blends into the background rather than stands out separately in stark isolation.

Again, the questions I submit to all of you is: how can I improve?

Practice and experimentation – I started doing manipulations as a means of learning Photoshop, I'm hopeless at using things just to learn (low boredom threshold) so I needed a project to keep me engaged. I found this worked for me and encouraged the “if it doesn't work – try something else” philosophy.

Stop going big and work on the tinny additions?

Not sure exactly what you mean by this, but it is the tendency to use pictures of canyons and long beaches as backgrounds, then absolutely. If you want drama in an image get up close and personal. Of course this makes tone/light matching, splat marks and dirtying the sinkette more critical.

Try to learn masking, layering, and detail "buffing"

I haven't used masking or detail buffering that much, but layers definitely, my photomanips are all created using multiple layers, a minimum of seven but mostly considerably more. These give you a way of trying things non-destructively, working on foreground, mid-ground and background separately, overlaying things etc.

Revisit/relearn to use of filters entirely?

I don't use filters that much except if I'm looking for an “other worldly” appearance.

Here's a few Scenes I am trying to "make work" with the Nuclear power tewelz of photoshop torment. Somethimes, Round Hole meats Squaaree PEGZ... Gnar. Sozz. itz o130 an I have been chickin sanz hed 4 almost 70 hours.

So, a few questions: 
Do these scenes work? or "try again" which ones are Bad? Which ones Work?
In what ways can I improve?

note: many of these images would receive grafts of sand, and cropping to change the focus/center point.
Elements such as houses, ducks, water and such would be chopped out completely, unless it is a positive contributor.
Just so ya know, most of these images are "Raw" an untouched by me... for the moan-ment.

Whether scenes work or not is a matter of how they are dealt with, consequently I can't really say which ones are right for you. However, I can say these aren't right for me, I'd want backgrounds with the critical parts a lot closer (I'm talking 30 yards or less, sometimes as little as 2 or 3 yards) and from a lower perspective in most cases. When I started doing photomanips there was no Google image etc and finding useful backgrounds was difficult. However, I have an interest in photography so I started taking my camera to the wet and muddy places I explored and produced my own backgrounds. I won't kid you, carrying around 3 grands worth of camera and lenses through these kinds of areas is a bit of a hairy experience and not for the faint hearted, but I only fell over once and managed to keep the camera and lens out of the mud. These days with waterproof adventure cameras etc with decent resolution, this isn't quite such a risk. The photos I'd take would be from different heights (eye level, waist level and about a foot or so off the ground) and from various angles to give plenty of scope for matching subject perspective and lighting to the background. So, there is a possible idea for you, could you produce your own backgrounds? There are a number of advantages to this: you can target backgrounds to the subjects you are interested in, you shouldn't need to do as much work to use the background, you will know the background so scaling should be easier, you don't have to worry about copyright infringement and you get more satisfaction as you feel more of the result is yours.

I said earlier that I use multiple layers, at a minimum I'd have the following:
layer 0 – Background, this wouldn't be touched, except adjustments for lighting i.e. to contrast and or brightness etc.
Layer 1 – Subject – the “cut out” sinkette/s adjusted for brightness and or contrast etc. and some feathering around the edges to help blend into the background.
Layer 2 – Copy of the background (taken after lighting adjustments), I would erase enough of this to reveal the subject, this method gives some scope to adjust the subject (layer 1) position and depth for best effect without chopping any of the subject off, also allows for later readjustment. Further, you can erase around any grass/twigs in front of the subject to give the result some depth and 3-dimensionality.
Layer 3 – Reflection, any wet surface will have a reflection of the subject between them and the viewer, this will be a partially transparent inverted copy (flipped vertically) of the subject compressed or elongated as appropriate. Bits can be erased where solid bits stick up out of the wet surface or where parts are obscured by foreground objects.
Layer 4 – Shadow, I used to do this by hand, you have to guess what the shadow of the subject falling on the background surface would look like, though I've found that it isn't as critical to be accurate as you'd think (if you have trouble guessing what the shadow would look like so will the viewer).
Layer 5 – Dirtying/wetting around the the boundary between the subject and the mud/quicksand.
Layer 6 – Splatter etc.

If you have multiple subjects, unless they are connected/touching, have them in separate layers to allow them to be moved and positioned independently. Various bits of dirtying splatter etc can be can be put in separate layers to allow independent adjustment of position and density. I think the worst case final version I've ended up with is over 20 layers but I've exceeded 40 layers in some interim stages (I had to merge some of these down as the machine was grinding to a halt). I usually save the psd with all layer separate, then flatten the image and save again (different name) as a psd and finally crop to produce the jpg.

[Boggy Man]

Studio photographs of models tend to be lit either by several lights to give a flat, almost 2-D, result or by a single strong light to create a high contrast result with bright highlights and deep shadows. For the multiple light images you can use dodge and burn to paint in shadows and highlights, this has its limits though, as too strong a use of these tools can result in colour casts and loss of detail.

For multiple lit models, it would be simpler to use backgrounds that were shot on cloudy days, which are free of shadows.

[MadMax359]

and Noone... it looks like you joined after Cerebus stopped doing Manips, but he was Fantastic!

here's one he did for me... go back and find the thread where there are about 100 of his manips

p1s.jpg