I'm rarely pleased with shots of myself these days...who is when you're 40?! And although I'm gettin' back into better shape (that always helps with portraits), I still look at images from my 20s and think that same ol' thing, "hey, I was thin and wasn't bad looking back then!".
But every so often when I get a nice shot, I like to take it into Photoshop CS3 and trick it out a bit for fun, using Adobe's artist filter tools like "Cut Out", "Palette Knife" and "Dry Brush". I know what you're thinkin', "hey Sean, you should be using the Blur tool with the radius on 100 dude!"
(By the way, Adobe Photoshop CS4 is on the way and I'm sure it's only going to get better- CS3 advancements with exposure, ACR, and HDR were amazing, so I'm eager to see what they've added and improved!).
But when you go into the filters, there's a variety of options in each giving you tons of different outcomes depending on the shot itself, the lighting, the contrast, the detail and the color. It's a blast to mess around with, and the results can be cool lookin'.
Here's one to check out - a recent shot of me in Vegas, digitally altered in Photoshop using the Cut Out artistic filter to give me a "Reservoir Dog" feel....I'm Mr. Brown.
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