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I made several versions of this image, starting from the same Rijksmuseum image. I like them for different reasons. Version 3 gets its texture and atmosphere from one of those infrequently used presets lower down the list in Adjust/High in iColorama. I like the softness of the finish, it sort of glows but keeps its detail, and the tone feels like urban turn-of-the-19th-century. The other versions have a peeling plaster feel tha I can get from Denoise/Smooth-Flat 18-Raise 1-Denoise4 in iColorama. Those feel like Southern European 19th century rural laborer. I added Version 4 because my husband really doesn't like the ones with one eye or three eyes!
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. I love the tortured expressions on the faces.
In iColorama, I applied Adjust/Tonelab preset 4 and Effect/Light. I cropped using Form/Crop.
This is a blur of one of my photos of Venice. Actually it is a blend of several blurs. If you experiments with the presets under Effect/Blur in iColorama, you will find some that preserve just a hint of horizontal and vertical detail, such as you see in this image. We will use this image for the background.
In Effect/Blend, I painted in a brush mask and blended the background onto the image.
I painted in catchlights in the eyes using Brush/Paint and a small hard round brush.
With the image open in iColorama, I used Adjust/Exposure to increase the brightness to the maximum value to create a blank white canvas the same size as the image. Then I painted the purple areas onto the canvas in Brush/Paint using a hard triangular brush. It doesn't matter what color you use for the strokes because we will be distorting over them in Normal mode.
Using Effect/Distort, I distorted the image over the pattern in Normal mode. I tried different slider settings for the sliders in Set as well as the distortion slider, and I used my fingers to resize the top image and move it around over the purple strokes until I got something I was happy with. It's worth noting that before I arrived at these purple strokes, I had earlier tried many other brushes and sizes and spacing of the strokes before I found this one, which had the distort effect I was looking for.
I used Form/Warp to enlarge the man's head, particularly the eyes and top of the head. It gives much more expression to him, quite an alarmed look, and allows him to occupy more of the canvas. Then I applied Effect/Light or Adjust/High preset 1 at low opacity to emphasize the highlights.
Style/Flat preset 18 gives and interesting peeling-plaster-like texture to the faces.
I used Effect/Raise preset 1 to lend a more 3D effect to the facial texture. This is Version 1.
I decided to make another version. Here is another output from the Distort step, above.
I blended in a different version and used an inverted brush mask to paint away the figure on the left edge.
I made some color adjustments in Tone.
I used Denoise/Smooth to smoothen the surfaces in preparation for Flat and Raise. The I applied Style/Flat preset 18, trying all the sliders, then Effect/Raise preset 1, for a 3D surface effect. Then I used Effect/Denoise preset 4 to smooth some jagged lines that resulted from all the processing. This is Version 2.
Here is yet another version. This was the result of applying one of the Adjust/High presets (one that is low in the list of presets) to the output of the Distort step. after color modifications. This is Version 3.
Here is a version where I pasted in the other eye, using Effect/Blend and an inverted brush mask. This is Version 4.
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