While I hope that this appears to be a painted portrait, it was actually crafted in Photoshop. Since people/faces have rarely been a subject of my digital efforts, it required quite a bit of learning and experimentation and careful attention to detail.
I began with this model shot by faestock from Deviant Art. She already has quite lovely skin, but I refined it even more by using several skin retouching techniques from a video by digital artist and photographer Caroline Julia Moore in one of the Photoshop Artistry courses that I have been taking. I extended the background above her head by cloning and also into the areas where I masked out her hair below her ears.
Next, I “dressed” her in this Irish lace collar from the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum. There are many, many images of all types of garments from different eras which can be copied and used under the Met's Open Access policy. I first extracted the lace from the background and then shaped it to the neck and shoulders of my figure using the Liquify filter.
The hair proved to be one of the biggest challenges. After watching a YouTube video on how to paint braids in Photoshop, I searched for images of braided hair to copy and was rewarded by a photo of an actual braid in Pexels. I extracted parts of the braid, then shaped them using the Puppet Warp tool. A lot of color toning and overpainting was needed to make them look as if they actually were part of her hair. I found this simple YouTube video on painting hair to be very helpful.
Her pearl earrings and the pearls in her hair were easily painted with just the circular marquee tool and a soft round brush.
The background consists of several textures plus my photos of the vine with the violet flowers (wish I knew what they were!), all in different blend modes. The figure was masked out of all of these because I didn't want any textures on her. There was also toning on the figure and additional shading on both the right side of the background and on the lace.
The final step was to use Topaz Impressions to achieve that painterly look.
I spent a tremendous amount of time on it, I added to my digital skills, and I'm pleased with the result. Time to begin on the next one!
