Just a leetle something I made. Hope the colors don't distract you. It's painfully red, I know. :sweatface:

It's located HERE.

I really like it, it's some great conventional photomanip work. But before I dig in to it with a more detailed commentary; apparently I've made people cry before, so I'm compelled to ask beforehand if you'd like me to critique this? :sweatface:

I've got a few suggestions with respect to the composition, but I'd feel like an ass if I ripped in to something you weren't looking for strong crit on. :)

Hey, I love getting critiqued. :) I really do need to work more on Photoshop, so I'd welcome anything. What do you suggest? :biggrin:

Mmmkay! :biggrin:

Please note that I'm legally intoxicated right now, so if I need to explain something a little bit more coherently, let me know.

- Dimensions: This may be DeviantART being quirky, but I see the image as 740px by 555px. While that's a proper 4:3 aspect ratio, it's a very unorthodox resolution for use as a wallpaper. My resolution is 1280px by 960px, so the wallpaper gets stretched to almost four times it's original size. I would strongly suggest working in at least 800x600, but even that may be small-ish by current standards. And again, if dA is just being a bitch, disregard that.

At first I really didn't 'get' the blue denim jacket multiplied in to a hard red background, but it really grew on me. It was a really bold decision, a lot of 'novice' photoshoppers would have desaturated him completely. Your use of blendmodes is really great here. But I felt that the two smaller portraits of his face detract from the image. The bright, sharp images steal focus from the hazy, subdued 'main' image. I'd either put them lower 'in the mix' by drastically reducing the opacity, or remove them completely - a couple of strong layers are better than a ton of weak ones, and the two main layers here (the 'denim jacker' portrait and the 'facing away' portrait) are HELLA strong on their own.

Your brushwork is subtle and very effective, it adds that grunge touch without screaming, "I downloaded eighty brushes today". The top left corner seems a little smudgy though compared with the rest of the image. I could do without the grid too, it's SO 1998... trendy pinstripes are all the rage now. ;)

So yeah, that's what I've got. One of these days my critiques are going to start requiring more time than the pieces I critique take to make. :sweatface:

Yeah, I was a bit thrown off by the pictures... it kinda looked empty to me when I started out with it. :sweatface: Actually, I don't really know how the desaturation thing works for these pics, I just sort of went with my guts... the blue couldn't really be removed and though I was hesitant, after a while I started to like it myself. :laugh:

And the brushes! Hahaha! I actualy hate brushes with a vengeance but sometimes they're useful for touching things up. I just don't like looking at pictures that have too many brushes that distract you. IMHO, I think making a wallpaper entirely out of brushes would be better that having one picture and overusing brushes. :sweatface:

I don't know how the resolution went screwy, but I did work with an 800x600 when I started out. Hrm... Maybe I can add a sort of border, do you think that would make it better? :sweatface:

*wonders if anyone can make him something of Nanase Aikawa or Tomiko Van* :nuts:

I'm cool with the effects and experimentation (especially that script part on the left right) but I wish some areas had more light to them :sweatface:

Eesh! it was too dark, huh? :sweatface: I had some problems with the left side of the wallpaper... :sweatface:

well, the red really is kinda annoying...a cooler color perhaps? anyway, there's not much to comment on since you've got a nice long one up there...

I'm sorry about that one. I tried making it in blue and it just looked rather dull. I really wanted to play with color contrasts for this one and the red worked rather well because of the contrast to the blue jacket. :sweatface:

Overall, I'd give it a 7.8/10. I think that the colors are somewhat bland, but not too shabby. It's looking good, but I think you could change it up a bit. Nice try though. :smile: