Comments on: Photo Manipulate an Exotic Snake Charming Scene

By: Tom Ross

Tom Ross — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 15:23:34 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Raj. I totally agree with you. This is one of our older tutorials, and the outcomes of our more recently lessons are frankly in a different league to this piece now. I hope you still got some good techniques from this tutorial though.

By: Raj

Raj — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 10:12:17 +0000

Nice effort but the lighting in this scene is way off. You still have highlights which immediately border the shadow on the rocks. The man’s shirt has highlights opposite the light source, as does the snake which makes it look less realistic. This would be solved by adding an additional light source.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:19:09 +0000

Thanks John. I’m always open to feedback and do I agree about the cobra. Always hard making a giant snake look natural, but it’s something I could have worked on.

By: John

John — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:20:20 +0000

The idea is great Tom, I like the colors a lot but you should have blended the cobra better with the rest of the image. Keep up the good work!

By: Brytech

Brytech — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 07:11:42 +0000

Thanks for your reply Tom and I do understand what you’re saying about premium images. What I like to do though is follow a tuturial through to completion so that I understand what the tutorial writer is trying to achieve without having to pay for any images. I then try the tutorial again substituting my own images and experimenting with the various settings.

Keep up the great work, your tutorials are amazing and the time you put into writing them is very much appreciated.

Cheers.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:35:12 +0000

Hi Mike,

If you’re referring to the background image you need to access the original image from the resources section for this tutorial. In this instance it’s a paid photo so you will either have to buy the image, or replace it with a free image of your choosing.

Cheers!

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:24:50 +0000

When I create new document 1000 x 1000, the pasted image is only half the size of the document. How do I get the image to fit.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:36:50 +0000

Thanks Brytech.

Let me try and give you a proper answer for your paid images question. Basically for years I only used free images, refusing to use images from any kind of paid website. However, after trying a few premium images I realized that they were far superior to 99% of the free images available. For tutorials I will always look for free images first, as I know this makes it easier for people. However, the range on free image sites is also smaller, so I often can’t find the right kind of image.

Especially with photo manipulations the quality of the final piece often depends heavily on the quality of the images you’re using. Since I’ve started using more premium images my work has in my opinion become a lot better, allowing me to produce better tutorials. I’d rather find the perfect image to use, than settle for an average image from a free site.

For the purpose of tutorials I hope that despite using paid images the techniques and workflows are still helpful to people. If people can’t afford or don’t want to buy the paid images used in the tutorial of course they can replicate the techniques using free images they might find.

I totally see your point though, and I hope this helps explain. Thanks for pointing out the rock link btw, I’ll just go fix that now.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:31:37 +0000

Thanks Nick! Glad you enjoyed this one.

By: Brytech

Brytech — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:36:47 +0000

This is a great tutorial Thanks Tom for sharing it with us. I do have to ask however, why do tutorial writers insist on using images that we the learners have to pay for? Surely there are enough free images out there that the tutorial writer can use without referring us to images that have to be bought?
I’m going to give this tutorial a try but I’ll be using free images. I won’t get the exact same result but it will be a challenge to see if I can get close and hence it will be another learning curve for me.
P.S. The link for the rock image is not working.