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New functionality in Metabrush makes it so easy to create beautiful brushwork for portraits. Here I show how I prepped an image in iColorama and Elasticam, painted it in Metabrush, and added dramatic color and toning in iColorama.
I started with this photo from Pixabay, a source of copyright-free images.
I like to distort an image to make it my own, creating a completely different expression and mood. I opened the image in iColorama. I used Form/Warp and Form/Deforms preset 5 to change the shape of her head. I used the Elasticam app to change the size and shape of her eyes and mouth.
Even the best photos can be muddy. So, back in iColorama, I used Adjust/EQ preset 2, then Adjust/EQ2 preset 1 in Multiply mode, for tonal separation.
Once you start editing photos, the graininess and noise can become a problem. So I used Effect/Denoise Smooth preset, then Effect/Glow preset 4 at medium opacity, to smooth the image.
Now I need to work on the eyes. Where a strand of hair was obscuring part of one eye, I blended part of the white of the right eye onto the left eye by using Effect/Blend to blend the image with itself, using Flip X (so I could blend with the mirror image) and an inverted brush mask. Then I removed the mask. I used Adjust/Exposure and an inverted brush mask to lighten the whites of the eyes.
I used Adjust/Levels for overall lightness and contrast.
I used Adjust/Exposure and an inverted brush mask to lighten the irises of the eyes. Then I used Brush/Paint and zoomed in with a very small brush to paint catchlights onto the eyes, with stroke opacity set to 50%. I blurred the catch lights using Effect/Blur and an inverted brush mask over just the catch lights. These steps make a huge difference in the overall feel of the image.
Now I opened the image in Metabrush. I painted with Brushes/Tex2 on the face, trying to paint aligned with the planes of the face.
I painted with Brushes/Art3 on the hair, trying to paint along the direction of the hair.
I painted with Brushes/Tex2 on the jacket, painting along the direction of the fabric.
I opened the image in iColorama and used Adjust/Levels for lightness and contrast. I used Effect/Raise to bring out the strokes.
I used Tone/Tint. Call this Image A.
I used Effect/Light and and did not apply, but saved this version for blending. Call this Image B.
Using Effect/Blend, I blended Image B onto Image A. I used one of the negative blending modes (Difference, Negation, Exclusion) and experimented with all the sliders, including the Lightness and Gray sliders under Set. With the negative blending modes, I generally move the Lightness slider all the way to the left, and then experiment with both ends of the Gray slider, and reduce Opacity and often the Feature slider as well.
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