People at work think I am some kind of design guru because I know stuff about Photoshop. (I've tried to pick up more about design because we haven't had a graphic artist for 2 years now.)
That being said, I thought this cover turned out decent. It's for our annual high school football section. I didn't want the story running on the front (kind of ruins the effect), but that decision was out of my hands.
Considering how the "best of summer" cover I did a few months ago was a bit of an atrocity (but people here were too polite to say as much -- where's jnicklo when I needed him?) because I spent _way_ too much time working on it, I feel a bit redeemed with this one.



-z

I think it looks very good. What did you do to the quarterback to make it look 3-dish, or whatever that effect is?

I call it the illustrated look Scott..
I'd like to know too.

Looks great to me...

I used the LucisArt Photoshop plugin.
I was going for that illustrated look, trying it by hand and not getting there. But within 10 minutes, I had what I wanted with LucisArt. It gives images a nice pop by drawing out details from shadows and then enhancing those details a bit more. Like an HDR effect on steroids.
It's already a bit of a cliched look if you frequent any Photoshop retouching forums, but to the general public, it'll still be fairly fresh. It gives several different looks AND it works with Photoshop 5.5.
I used a bit of the Sculpture and Exposure settings to get what I wanted. I may also have denoised the image first, as people have said that will generally give more pleasing results.
This gallery opened my eyes a bit when I saw what was possible with the plugin.
-z

That looks like a cool little plugin. You have the big dog version, or the little dog?

I thought it had that LucisArt look to it. Very nice but a little too pricey for me. Some folks in other forums have come up with Photoshop substitutes requiring a lot more work but none of them look as good as LucisArt.

Thanks for the information Z...

Scott: "Little dog" version.
VOG: Yes, it is a bit pricey. I've been hunting for tutorials to give that Jim Fiscus look. I've found a few that get you pretty close. I'll dig them out and upload them if you're interested.

-z

Z....I'm interested too.

Nice work Z...

I would be interested in the 'tutes' as well.

Buy, that does look very cool. Yea, the price does look a bit high foro my taste.

I'm interested....

Quite a few of the tutorials I've archived for the Jim Fiscus-Matt Hoyle-Jill Greenberg-Scott Dorman look are still active, so I'm just going to post the URLs.
Bechbox
PamR's illustrated look No. 1
PamR's illustrated look No. 2
The Lazlo Effect
-z

Thanks z. I've got them bookmarked..

Bookmarked here, thanks Z...

FYI: I copy these tutorials either by saving the page in my browser or pasting them into a Word document in case the images disappear.
But that's just the way I roll.
-z

Thanks for the links.... and zebob.. I do the same especially for tut's...

The football player almost looks Dave Hill-esque (http://www.davehillphoto.com/).

I like it. =]