Portrait Advice.....

[lpj1019]

I have attached a photo of a young man that has taken his own life a couple years ago, his mother is a old high school friend and I want to make her something special for her.

Anyway, I also attached a pic of the cut out I did and I'm really not happy with the results....this is my first attempt to do a portrait and to be honest I'm not sure what else to do.....can some please help me, this would mean so much to me.

Thanks
Paul

[SteveEJ]

Looks like it would make a good litho. That would be a nice gift too.
Just a thought.

[DocWheeler]

Paul,

As Steve pointed out, a lithopane (lithophane) works well with that type of photo. The picture is composed of different shades of gray (and white) that the machine simply understands as different levels of carve depth. Teeth, eyes, white shirt, and white sail in the background would all be carved at the same depth, something you would not want.

[AskBud]

I have attached a photo of a young man that has taken his own life a couple years ago, his mother is a old high school friend and I want to make her something special for her.

Anyway, I also attached a pic of the cut out I did and I'm really not happy with the results....this is my first attempt to do a portrait and to be honest I'm not sure what else to do.....can some please help me, this would mean so much to me.

Thanks
Paul
As stated by others, photos are one of the hardest things to master, due to the contrast complexity.

I don't know if you have Adobe PE8. However, the concepts I show in my two Adobe lessons may work with some of the other Photo Editing programs as well.
Go to my "Download" section, below, and toward the bottom of the entire list is a section on "other Links". You will find Adobe there.
AskBud

[Frederick_P]

One of the main problems with this image is the busy background. I suggest that you would get better results if the portrait was isolated from the background and then turned into a line drawing to avoid the depth issues caused by the different shades of grey. Attached is a rough and dirty sample of what I am talking about. Certainly much better detail could be obtained with a high resolution image that is scanned properly to give a better tonal range to the image. Also the branch in front of the arm should be removed.

If you don't have the ability to do this and would like some help, I would be happy to help out if you can send me a decent file. You can send it to info@editionsbyfrederick.com.

But if you want a real 3D relief portrait, I would approach some of the pattern makers on this site and ask what it would cost to have a proper pattern made.

[bjbethke]

I have attached a photo of a young man that has taken his own life a couple years ago, his mother is a old high school friend and I want to make her something special for her.

Anyway, I also attached a pic of the cut out I did and I'm really not happy with the results....this is my first attempt to do a portrait and to be honest I'm not sure what else to do.....can some please help me, this would mean so much to me.

Thanks
Paul
The image is small and not real clear. It's hard to blend in the colors right. You need to remove the background and start with a better photo.