Puss 'N Boo !

for the base image I asked a friend of my daughter to flip her head up and triggered the flash at the moment her hair reached mid-flight!

In Photoshop I used the lasso tool to select portions of various cat photos, and paste them over areas of the original face that corresponded structurally. I used the luminosity blending mode so the basic color and topography of the original face showed through, but I still had the textured fur of the cat segments in tact.

Features like the mouth and the eyes were done with normal blend mode as these had to be unaffected by the original face. I knew it would be next to impossible to try and import the whiskers, so I drew them with thin white brush strokes, having cloned out areas where bits of the original whiskers were still present.

After lots of final tweaks using adjustment layers for adding shadows and increased light and contrast where necessary, I made several shots of the brass bell in different positions as well as the bowed ribbon, using the same studio flash as for the original portrait… this to make sure the quality and direction of the lighting was compatible. In Photoshop, I `tied’ the bells to the hair with the ribbon, adjusting the angles and scales to suit their positions in the composition. I placed lots of importance in the placement of the bells as this was a major compositional feature within the frame.

All editing done in Photoshop CS2
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