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Warp is something I use in many of my images. I have been interested in warp since I first discovered the art of Polaroid SX-70 manipulation. I tried to get some of that feeling into my photography, where I became interesting in capturing reflections that warped the subject being reflected. I made a tabletop studio where I would photograph kitchen objects and edibles from the garden against reflective paper that I could bend to warp the reflected images. In Photoshop, I frequently used tools like Liquify and Waves to warp my photographs. Now with iColorama's Warp tool, it is really easy to incorporate warp into an image.
Warp is great for changing the shape of a face or figure, in a way that alters the expression, or even just to drag distracting elements off the edge of the canvas. In this tutorial, I'll show you the detailed steps I took along the way to transform a stodgy classical portrait into a lively, humorous one.
I started with this photo from the Rijksmuseum website, which provides high-resolution images free to use and modify for any purpose, in their Rijksstudio.
First, I want to clean up the image. I used Adjust/Shadows with an inverted brush mask to darken the area outside the oval.
Now, so I can start with a good image, I want to edit for clarity, color and smoothness. I used a variety of iColorama tools for this, but this is not the subject of this tutorial.
Now to start warping. I use Form/Warp, and with my finger or stylus I stretch the hair to the right.
Still in Form/Warp, I use my finger to stretch the head to the top.
Still in Form/Warp, I use my finger to pull the nose to left.
Still in Form/Warp, I use my finger to stretch the left side of face to the left.
Still in Form/Warp, I continue shaping the head, pulling down, stretching left, repositioning the eyes, and so on.
You should feel free to Apply with each change. Then you can simply go back to Form/Warp and keep going.
At any time you can save an intermediate result, so that if you don't like a change, you can go back to a saved version.
Still in Form/Warp, I squeezed the neck by pushing in horizontally from the right.
Still in Form/Warp, I pulled down the lower corners to fill the black space with the image: simply put your finger on the edge of the oval painting at the bottom right, and drag your finger towards the bottom right corner of the canvas. Then do the same for the bottom left.
Still in Form/Warp, I thinned out the body by pushing in from the sides. I also pulled out the right shoulder to make it more angular.
Still in Form/Warp, I lowered the neckline.
Still in Form/Warp, I added some roundness on the left side of the face. I made a slightly receding chin by pulling the chin a little to the right. I corrected eye positions and their angles (pull up or down on a corner of an eye) as needed.
Still in Form/Warp, I finally decided to pull away the black in the top right and top left, just as we did for the lower corners, earlier. Then I readjusted the head shape as needed.
Now, I used various tools in iColorama to finish the image for exposure, color, saturation, and contrast. Using an inverted brush mask, I emphasized the Beauty spot near her mouth. Using Brush/Paint, I painted catch lights in her eyes. I flipped over the same image in Effect/Blend and painted in some hair on the right using a brush mask. From an earlier version of the image, I used Effect/Blend to blend in more stars in the tiara. Finally I added some Effect/Glow to minimize the background detail and smooth out some posterization in the face. This is the final image.
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