The Evolution of 'Zendage'

I am occasionally asked to explain how I create my images. The following, though not really a tutorial, is a breakdown of the development of my piece, Zendage, created as a cover image for Photoshop Whore.

Here is the finished image:

I began with the image below left, a self portrait by Nara Vieira da Silva Osga, downloaded from stock.xchng.

The original photo is decidedly asymmetric, and the woman's left thigh is cut off by the edge of the photo. Step 1 was to duplicate the left half of the photo and flip it horizontally, to produce the perfectly symmetrical image below right.

I used Photoshop's Replace Color command to change the red blindfold, sheet, ribbons, and etc., to white.

The woman's hands though symmetrical, were anatomically impossible. I replaced them with the un-mirrored hands from the original photo.

I wanted the final image to have a 'painted' look. I used Photoshop's Reduce Noise filter at its highest settings to create a soft, painterly appearance, seen below right.

I created a Dodge and Burn layer by filling a new layer with 50% gray and setting it in Soft Light mode. The gray itself has no effect on the underlying image but, by painting with shades of black and white, I selectively lightened and darkened part of the image.

The aim was to make the image less unnaturally symmetrical by varying the highlights and shadows from side to side. This is especially apparent in the shadow around the woman's waist, as seen below.

I also slid the woman further toward the bottom of the frame.

The highlights on the woman's skin were too yellow. I corrected them by creating a new layer, setting it in Hue mode, and filling it with skin tone sampled from the woman's arm.

I painted with bright red over her lips to give them more color.

Next I applied a little digital slimming.

To slim the waist, I used the Lasso tool to select each side of the woman's waist and ribs, then rotated them inward as seen below left.

I used Photoshop's Liquify filter to push the woman's thighs inward.

I also cloned the loop of rope around each wrist to create three loops on the right, and two on the left.

There were some strange and ugly blotches on the inside of her thighs, which I cleaned up with a combination of Blur, Smudge, Dodge, and Burn.

I used Render Lighting Effects to add more detail and wrinkles to the sheet.

The dark shadow beneath the woman was adding a distracting visual element, the only large area of black in the entire image. I began working to reduce it. I started by copying part of the sheet into the shadowed area, as seen below right.

I carefully lightened the new sheet, keeping it shadowed so as not to look unnatural, but not dark enough to draw the eye.

The mirroring process had widened the woman's head. I selected it and copied it to a new layer, then used Free Transform to squeeze it in a bit from the sides, and give a bit more taper to the jaw, as seen below right.

I created a single length of white rope, tying the two wrists together.

I also lightened the white sheets up a bit and used the Blur and Smudge tools to better blend the new sheet, beneath her hands, with the rest of the sheets.

I added some faint wrinkles to the blindfold and the breast strap to make them seem more realistic.

I also darkened her hair, with a new multiply layer.

Her skin tone was too orange, especially when printed. I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduced the saturation.

I also removed an extra 'fingertip.'

I tweaked the shadows on the sheets a bit, making them almost fade to white around the edges to better blend with the white background.

Finally, I used the Pen tool to outline the woman's body and cleaned up some blurry and ragged edges around her thighs and arms.

These are the before and after images:

That's Zendage, Baby. You can download desktop wallpaper of this image, here.