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Photo To Pastel Sketch Conversion
Using Virtual Painter 5
One of the advantages of applying such a destructive effect to an image is that a boring background can become much less of a detraction because the effect causes the image to become more abstract. So, rather than a disparate assortment of elements competing for our attention, the image becomes more of an integrated tonal and colour arrangement that we can think of as a whole.
The alternative to the boring background would be to mask it and replace it with something more suitable, but this would involve the tedious and soul-destroying task of selecting the subjects before any new backdrop could be utilised.
If time is a commodity that you hold in abundance, or your soul is already destroyed then you will get more desirable results by masking, but if it's a quick fix that you want, and it works, then applying one of these 'photo to art' effects can do the work for you in a matter of minutes.
The only mask used in the creation of this image, was an ellipse that was applied within VP5 that ensured that the faces of the subjects were not subjected to the same degree of rendering as the rest of the image thus ensuring that the subjects remained recognisable
Pre-Processing
The original image needed no pre-processing other than some tweaks to the area and detail contrast. All that it took to enliven the original flat camera capture was a couple of applications of the unsharp mask; one at a high radius for the area contrast and one at a low radius for detail contrast (sharpening). Using the KPT plugin 'Equalizer' you can apply several sharpening tweaks at fixed intervals of radii at once. The interface resembles that of an audio graphic equalizer and functions in parallel fashion.
The removal of a couple of distracting hairs was necessary as one of them contrasted starkly with the background and the other fell over one of the subject's eyes.
The eyes are always the prime focus of attention when we look at another person or view a portrait image. Any artifact that interrupts this natural instinct will usurp the prominent position that the subject's eyes command in our perception and will cause us to irrationally focus on that element instead.
Points of high contrast command more of our attention than low contrast areas hence the removal of the background strand of hair.
