Bacardi

Envoy:

I can well understand that this is a lot of information to swallow in one time. I meant to give it to you in smaller daily doses for about a week or so, but fate chose otherwise.

If you get stuck somewhere (also in the "aha" experience) feel free to ask.

extra question: ok, but that turban...that material does not have pores, now does it?
No. You can also use other methods to add the effect. One is to open another file, apply grain to it,then depending on the size of what you want enlarge to, say 250% and use prtscr to paste it in yet another file in PS, take a square or so and make that seamless tile. Then save as a pattern.
Go back to your original with turban, open a new layer and apply, indeed: that pattern.
That's why the size of the grain (enlargement) is so important.
The rest is etcetera.

Dodo

Thanks Erik. I must say it was interesting to see how you analysed the whole image in "Photoshop" terms by breaking the things down into method one learns as Photoshopper - also the stuff on the histogram and use of the channels - never thought of it before really - actually getting your image from there and also making selections from there.

Very nice detail in that enlarged portion you showed. Overall he looks like a coal miner now!

Oh, and you shouldn't mistake eagerness for impatience you know.

neolite

Well, the good news is I do have a wacom tablet so your lesson wasn't wasted on me.

I've been unable to do any work on this project the entire week. I plan on spending a few hours today (Saturday) and going through all of your lessons above.

I like the way you spread it out over a course of a few different postings. That gives me time to work on each technique individually. As much as I like the instant gratification of "Step A, do this, Step B, do this" I also like the challenge of trying to figure out how something is done by learning the general concept.

Looking at all of the posts, I think it's interesting how different each person's interpretation of the original work looks. Erik, yours is very dark and "charcoally", Dodo's has a 3D effect to it and MsOz's is complimented and softened by the halo around the subject. As soon as I am finished with mine - I'll share it with the group.

Thanks again everyone for working on this with me. 8))