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I started with a beautiful photo of an infant, which I simplified through deforming, cropping, and smoothing. I turned it into an abstract image by emphasizing the lines and somewhat flattening the tones, and adding unnatural soft colors and a texture to the shadows. I created two more abstract versions as well.
I started with this photo from the Sktchy app.
In iColorama, I used Form/Deforms preset 5 several times, each time slightly magnifying a different part of the face.
I smoothed the face, using Effect/Denoise preset 3 and Style/Coherence preset 1, both at full opacity, and Effect/Glow at low to medium opacity.
I applied Style/Flat preset 15 at medium opacity, experimenting with the Feature slider.
I opened the black and white version again in iColorama, and this time used Style/Flat preset 18 at medium opacity, experimenting with all the sliders. I used Effect/Denoise preset 4 to smooth the edges, and then applied Effect/Raise.
In Effect/Blend, I blended the Flat 15 image onto the Flat 18 image, trying several blending modes and slider settings.
I cropped in Form/Crop. I applied a thin border in Preset/Border. Then, using a brush mask, I smoothed the dark side of the face using Effect/Denoise preset 3, Style/Coherence, and Effect/Blur. Keeping the mask in place, I lightened the dark side of the face in Adjust/Levels.
Inverting the brush mask, I applied a metal texture to the bright side of the face, using Texture/Metal at medium opacity.
But I decided I liked it better with the texture applied to the dark side of the face, because the tones are so much more beautiful on the bright side. Putting the texture on the dark side also helps to obscure the noise that degrades the dark shadowy areas.
I continued to make another, more abstract version, using Style/Flat preset 15 for color, Style/Water preset 8 or 9, with the texture and distortion sliders at zero, for a smooth texture, and Adjust/Channels for color.
I felt that the above abstract image would be more recognizably a face if I created a left eye. So I used Effect/Blend to blend the image with itself, flipping the top image on its x axis and rotating it to get an eye-like shape where the left eye should go, and then using an inverted brush mask to paint in the left eye. While positioning the top image, I put the opacity down to 50% so I could see what I was doing, then I put opacity back to 100% before applying and saving.
I wanted to complete the nice border that surrounds the image on three sides. So in Effect/Blend, I blended the image with itself, flipped it on its x axis, and used an inverted brush mask with a very small brush to paint in the border on the left edge of the canvas.
The same, but with a different Channels preset in the color step.
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