Really need artwork help on this one...

[Griffin]

I have accepted a last minute job from a client and need some assistance on artwork. I'm not begging for a handout or a freebie.

I have to take a picture of the client and convert it into a clipart shadow figure (threshold?).

I am attaching a picture of my client as well as an example that I am hoping to achieve. The main goal is to make a one color image of the client that looks like the client. I have attempted several youtube tutorials as well as about 5 hours of blind attempts and have not been able to achieve a satisfactory result.

[screenxpress]

Something along this line?

[Griffin]

Yes, very much so along those lines!

[Gilligan]

I did a similar thing for a friend the other day.


I opened the filter gallery in PS and started going through each one till I found one that kind was close, then I started tweaking from there.  Also adjustment LAYERS will be your best friend as opposed to permanent adjustments.

I think I ended up liking posterized for my purposes as well.

[screenxpress]

Okay, I was just playing with it, but here's how I got the last one using what you may have or have access to.

Took your .png into PS and just removed the background
Sharpened it a touch
Converted to Greyscale
Saved as a .jpg

Opened Inkscape (remember this one guys?) and used the Trace several times to see what it did.
Took a screen shot of the output to .jpg and posted here
 
Inkscape is free to download -  https://inkscape.org/en/

You can play with the Trace settings in Inkscape and can be from dark to lighter (but lost some detail) and then just did a screen shot capture as a new .jpg,

Try out Inkscape.  Its open source and free.

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Gilly, the second pic did use the posterize and then to inkscape.

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I don't think I spent more than 10 mins on any one of them

[Griffin]

Screen,  I attempted to do the tracing in Illustrator but I can not get enough detail in his face.

[Flash Ink]

At this point in my career, things like that are too much of a headache and my customers have to understand that to get the right product they will have to pay. I would have sent that to artworksource.com and had them vector it. We are a vector based shop so PS is not going to cut it. They vector overnight and you can specify what the final artwork will be used for and how many colors you are after. Its just my 2¢.

[screenxpress]

Yea, only used PS to basically get rid of background and convert to grayscale. 

Sending out is one option. 

I used Inkscape for the trace because it's a bit more rustic which is what I was going for.  Like I said, it's free to download.


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I found these notes on Inkscape should you decide to install it:

Step 1) Import your image. Click File>Import, find your file and click OK.  Or you can just drag and drop your file on the desktop once open.

Step 2) Select the image, go to the top of the screen, click Path>Trace Bitmap.

Step 3) The Trace Bitmap menu will then open. Here you can select how you want your image vectorised and adjust the settings. You can also generate a preview. Once you are happy with the preview click OK and close the Trace Bitmap screen.

Step 4) Now you will have your new vector image and the old raster (bitmap, jpeg, gif etc) image stacked on top of each other. Seperate the two and delete the raster.

Step 5) Play around with your new vector image!

[Sbrem]

First things first, do you have a better image? A tiny 72 ppi jpeg is no place to start if you want that image to look like the other examples you provided...

Steve

[Griffin]

I agree that a basic manipulation will not render print ready results. Is anyone interested in drawing the art for me? Let me know what kind of cost I am looking at. I need this to be a vector format as I will also be digitizing this piece for future work.

[Griffin]

First things first, do you have a better image? A tiny 72 ppi jpeg is no place to start if you want that image to look like the other examples you provided...

Steve

I have not been able to get a high res image from anyone. He does not personally have any. I am looking on google (horrible I know) to find a larger image.

[mimosatexas]

The original image is fine for something like this.  The provided examples on the other hand are either straight up "drawn" using pen tool etc in PS/ILL, or have been filtered, traced, and had nodes adjusted by hand after the fact.  There really is no automatic way to get those kinds of clean lines based on a photograph that retain the right info in the right places and still look dynamic.

When I approach something like this, I typically do something like this:

*Always scale the image up to print size at 300 dpi/ppi first.
1. cut out the background
2. duplicate the layer a few times, retaining the original unedited.
3. mask out different areas or details you deem important from each layer, deleting the rest of the layer.  On something like this, I would probably have his head as it's own layer, his arms, and possibly his chest.  This image is actually pretty easy since it is relatively evenly lit and balanced.  That said, you are going to want to preserve facial detail differently than solid muscle areas.  His arm veins would be a nice touch and should be edited separately from the muscle shadows, and his chest has some of the darkest shadows and most contrast, so it will require it's own editing as well.
4. after you have your masked out layers, duplicate each a few times.
5. for each layer, grayscale, adjust curves/levels, then play with things like shadow/highlight and midtone contrast until the details you want are more or less clean and dynamic.  then you can adjust levels/contrast/threshold to make it black and white.  Repeat for all your layers and details until you have something that looks pretty close to what you want.
6. cleanup! you can do a fair amount of cleanup on edges by using tools like Gaussian blur then levels, but this will round off sharp details (which can be fixed in ILL after tracing and adjusting nodes).  I also will occasionally just use the poly lasso tool to delete or create detail where it looks "right".
7. flatten and save, then import to ILL and trace/expand.  You'll then be able to mess with nodes to clean it up as much as you want and bring out the details you want.  This step isn't always even necessary, but ideally for this image you would use it.

edit: The real key is going to be masking out and editing different areas individually them merging them all back together.  No filter will adjust the whole image in a way that works for his face, chest, arms, ect at the same time.  Parts will be too dark or light and detail will be missing.

[Griffin]

The original image is fine for something like this.  The provided examples on the other hand are either straight up "drawn" using pen tool etc in PS/ILL, or have been filtered, traced, and had nodes adjusted by hand after the fact.  There really is no automatic way to get those kinds of clean lines based on a photograph that retain the right info in the right places and still look dynamic.

When I approach something like this, I typically do something like this:

unfortunately these steps are a little above my capabilities.  I am pretty proficient in illustrator but photoshop is another language. Is anyone interested in creating the piece I am looking for? Cost and turnaround?

[mimosatexas]

I'm pretty sure I would be way too expensive.  There are services out there that will vectorize for dirt cheap though.  I think one was already linked above.

[Sbrem]

I just checked with our artist, she could draw that in an hour to an hour and a half, $60 - $90...

Steve

do you want the legs?