Looking for advice

Since this is my first post looking for advice let me give you a quick rundown on who I am too. I'm a Computer tech with an English degree so personality and interest wise I'm pretty scitzophrenic. As well as playing in photoshop, and a bunch of other stuff you guys wouldnt care about, in my freetime I do some creative writing. I take criticism very well. Honestly I like to get some suggestions on what to change and something you like about any of my pieces as part of your posts. I concider praise without critique to be next to worthless and critique without compliment to be somewhat suspect. Just my personal point of view I hope you guys dont mind.

That having been said this is an older piece. I originally used an image from a book that I think worked better with the piece but didnt have the persons permission so I've been looking for alternatives. The tree branches are the current alternative. I'm very much inspired (although this piece doesnt reflect it) by William Gibsons novels and am working on making pieces with a more dark and sinister technological feel.

Bah as is always the risk with an english major I'm rambling on. Sorry. Here's the image let me know what you think.

http://s03.imagehost.org/0573/xeroxedmatt3cPoss_copy.jpg

hey not bad, what you need is to add more contrast, give it more depth.. you can do that by applying some curvers. layer>new adjustment layer>curves.. play with the settings..

Thx gazel. I'll give that a shot.

An english major?
Your grammar and spelling could use some work.

As for the piece...it scares the **** out of me. It's as though an angry muppet came to life and take revenge on the children who stopped playing w/ it.

(I don't read books so I'm not sure if that's what you were going for.)

ROFL! Aye. I'm aweful at spelling and grammer. Thank God for word processors. I'm good at putting together ideas and then getting them down on paper as well as ripping apart books. Syntax is definantly my weekness.

Thanks for the viewpoint too. Made me laugh. I wanted something creapy but perhaps a bit less overstated than alot of what I see in the Macabree genre I tend to see out there. I actually tittled it Big Brother is Watching on my machine at home. Incidently the face is a xerox copy of my little brothers face. No I was not the one who did that to him ;)

WHOA! O_O the is that fire in the guy's eyes? a little creepy, but overall, it's cool

I do like where you are going with this...

I do agree with the person who suggested tweaking the curves. I would also play around with the alpha channels and I think that you might want to play around with pespective. The only thing that is really 'missing' to me is depth of field.

IMHO, with out knowing your intent...

I think, if the eyes are your focal point then you need to add more work to them, to justify why they are the focal point.

Also, I think since there are only 2 items that are in color and the rest of the image is b/w if might be a better idea to have only the eyes in color...

I might also turn the merge the hair and the branches into one visual item...

Hope it helps...

b

[QUOTE=Lesser Lumpkin]ROFL! Aye. I'm aweful at spelling and grammer. [/QUOTE]

Hey man, your not the only one... ;)

Sorry about the late return post. My wife and I spent some time in the hospital (complications with pregnancy) she is fine. Plus general holiday crazyness but I'm back now.

I gave the curves a try and loved it. I'm gunna try the stuff you were suggesting bluediva and I'll let you know how it comes out. If I keep the changes I'll repost it so you all can see how it is coming. As to what I was going for... I dont have any art training so I tend to do this as self expression. Makes it difficult to say even for me what the intended outcome was. What I know is that this line was working for me. I tend to just grab the images I have that interest me and play until the outcome "feels" right. Wish I had the training that would allow me to be more constructive with it but we all play the hands we are delt.

Sorry about the late return post. My wife and I spent some time in the hospital (complications with pregnancy) she is fine. Plus general holiday crazyness but I'm back now.

I gave the curves a try and loved it. I'm gunna try the stuff you were suggesting bluediva and I'll let you know how it comes out. If I keep the changes I'll repost it so you all can see how it is coming. As to what I was going for... I dont have any art training so I tend to do this as self expression. Makes it difficult to say even for me what the intended outcome was. What I know is that this line was working for me. I tend to just grab the images I have that interest me and play until the outcome "feels" right. Wish I had the training that would allow me to be more constructive with it but we all play the hands we are delt.

O btw Puhlina. Nope not fire for the eyes. Cats eyes with some carefull tweaking of the color balances and cut out from their original image but with the original image at about a 90-98% fade out or seethrough (I'm not at my home machine where I can give the real terms) inorder to help integrate the eyes into the whole and make the transition less jaring. Feathering still seams to leave cut out images too seperated from the image that they are being integrated into IMHO. Maybe I just havent played with my edges enough though... hmmm...