Bram Turismo's Gallery - Tournament Round 1 before/after -

[MinoltaMan89]

lol Luis

Awesome edit 440, a great improvement over Bram's original (which was amazing to begin with, may I add). I look forward to your GT5 work.

 

[Swiss Legend]

Bram! It's great to see you up and running again my friend. With some great works as of late. Hoping to get back into the swing of things on my end as well. Its been tough with no copy of GT4 and no photoshop. I lost my key after I had my harddrive fail.
Your stang and the RX-7 bring me back to great times. 👍

 

[speedemon08]

Sweet! nice work mate!

 

[Bram Turismo]

Here's a little something, nothing special. Loving MOPARS lately! Originally I was going to add a Charger and a red Viper but I'm not getting to it I'm afraid. Might do that Viper later on. I've got holidays next week and exams are coming shortly after so I'm afraid I'll have to cancel my tournament plans. The images themselves are kind of rushed, and the originals weren't anything impressive. Especially the RAM was a mess. Click on the halves for the full view!



​

 

[SVX]

Wow, that's amazing!

 

[Watchman]

I like both shots. Just be careful with the sharpening. The door lines seem to be very rough on that Neon. 👍

 

[440 CHARGER]

They don't look too bad Bram. I think the Ram is the better of the two though. That's a good place to take shots. You can get some nice reflections under those bridges at Tokyo. But like InvincibleGT said, I still think they are a tad over sharpened. I think you just need to run the blur tool over a few edges and that would help out quite a bit. But all in all, not a bad update at all.

And I like seeing those Mopars! What you need to do with the Ram is put the bling wheels on it and enlarge them in Photoshop. That would make a world of difference!

Later Bram

 

[Nicknamealguem]

The RAM is my favourite of the two. Very HI-Tech tones you got with that one.

Wooot? No Bram Turismo in the Final Tournament? I was looking forward to a battle between us...

 

[Bram Turismo]

Wooot? No Bram Turismo in the Final Tournament? I was looking forward to a battle between us...

I know, I have been looking forward to our battle for months now. If it wouldn't be so much later then the PMC I would've joined in. I can probably join the first round or two if I get through, but if the semi finals (assuming I get that far) are at the end of April, I'll have to give a free ticket to my opponent.

Some edges are indeed sharp now that I've looked over them. Funny how I always seem to miss some stuff when I think I'm done! Rims on the RAM have been enlarged to a maximum already, any bigger would've made them look ridiculous I think. I think I may need to do some other MOPARS should I get some time for it

 

[MinoltaMan89]

Luis wants revenge Come on Bram, surely you could squeeze in a little time for the tournament?

Great shots as always Bram, even though there are a few rough edges on the Neon. The Ram's lighting is impressive considering Tokyo is terrible when it comes to light. I agree with Nenad that they are a little oversharpened. 440 is right too, where are the bling rims?

 

[Bram Turismo]

If you can promise me the tournament will end before May and that the qualifying round starts next weekend or after it, I'm in Any later and I will have exams coming up, and this semester is really hard and I'd like to take summer holidays with some respectable grades

Yeah, no bling rims, who'd have thought that huh?

 

[MinoltaMan89]

Of course. It'll definitely end before May, remember the polls only last for 3 days. The qualifying round will be up as soon as jacoja gives me the nameless bracketed names banner.

 

[Bram Turismo]

Some new stuff I tried out. I gave the road texture before I blurred with a texturize layer and some noise. I also saved the shadow form onto its own layer to keep it from being blurred away into the background as usually happens with my images. I also tried to keep the blur more realistic by changing the opacity of the background and blurring out the farthest objects to create some depth, and last but not least I tried some shading and highlighting on the car to give it also some more depth. Lots of new stuff, so that also means lots of new stuff to improve on. Especially he highlighting and shading part is stupidly hard so any tips on that is immensely appreciated. (Although I expect more than the simple "Look where the light comes from" )​

 

[Watchman]

First of all, nice car & track combination. Everything looks clean and sharp. I like the angle quite a lot and the car stands out pretty well. I like how the shadow is not blurred away; it makes it look more realistic. The lighting is just great - nothing to criticise right here. The road blur is fantastic, though.

 

[franz]

This looks familiar, just can't recall who did a similar photo

Keeping the shadow on its own is a good start. You may want to work on shadow a bit more, because I see HDR like halo over the shadow part. When you look at the preview, do you feel the road at the bottom slower than far left and far right? This is why you need multiple blur layers for the road, not just the background. The original texture of the road is also killing the effect even noise has been added.

I can't really give any constructive comment over the highlighting and shading improvement, but I see you have worked on the edge of the intercooler, looks good to me. I would recommend to add a piece of shadow over the left of the front lip, because there is a spoiler on top of it.

 

[Bram Turismo]

This looks familiar, just can't recall who did a similar photo

It might remind you of Alexwrc's V12 LMR, his Mazda 787b, or even his TT-R at Tokyo. It's those shots that inspired me to do one of my own.

You're right about the shadow though. I just need to figure out how I can remove it, or to keep the darkness uniform throughout the whole shadow. I might have a solution to it, but I have to test it before I definitely know whether it'll work. The shadow could've been darker, and indeed I could've added a shadow on the lip under the spoiler.

Noted 👍

 

[MinoltaMan89]

Nice, Bram. I think the car could be a little cleaner, plus the tire guy thing (what's his name? Michelin man or something) and the sign look like crap (stronger blur might help, then again it might be too strong and make it worse), but it's still good. I like your tournament entry better though

 

[Bram Turismo]

That's why I posted this one in here Although I'm not sure which one I like best...

Those vinyls on the car are to blame though, I think I can't manage to make them look anything better than they are. They are so delicate they are easy to mess up.

 

[SVX]

Very nice work! I like the "speed" of the picture.

 

[440 CHARGER]

That's why I posted this one in here Although I'm not sure which one I like best...

Those vinyls on the car are to blame though, I think I can't manage to make them look anything better than they are. They are so delicate they are easy to mess up.

You know what the easiest solution to the vinyl problem is? Use a car that doesn't have any!!! I agree, it's a real bear to try and clean them up. I tried once on the Falken Skyline, but it didn't turn out that great. So I always just tried to use road cars that had a minimal amount of vinyls on them, because they are near impossible to clean up.

On the other hand, this shot is pretty good all around. You already limited yourself though when you started out with the Audi TT race car. Not that it's an ugly car, but it's just not a good subject for the style of shot you were attempting. I don't think it's too attractive in the front end department. But the execution of your methods looks pretty good. Your shadow does look a little funky around the edges, but I really like the texture! And I like the fact that you kept that texture to just the road as opposed to everything in the background. Sometimes it looks good with it all over the background, and other times just on the road. It looks good here. I like the varying blurriness around the car and around the edges, although I think it needs more blur. The road is definitely going faster than the background. But it gives a good focal point in the center of the image.

I'd like to see more color, but the lighting looks pretty good. I don't know what these various shading tones are you speak of. Are you just talking about the panel gaps and things like that? I think they look good. But I think your biggest shortcoming is the choice of car. It's just not a good car for the shot. But the shot looks good Bram! 👍

 

[Bram Turismo]

You really think it's that ugly? I chose it because I think it looks fantastic when using a wide angle on the front end. Also partly because it's the only race car I have that was suited for the job, the Toyota 7 or R89C would not look at all I think.

What I mean with highlighting and shading is to work more around light sources. You know how all the cars look like a flat piece of cardboard on stock shots? I tried to fix that by trying to give the car more depth with the dodge and burn tool, not only on the panel gaps but on the whole body. It's pretty much a trademark of Alexwrc, and for longer I've wanted to try it myself. The first time I successfully tried it was with the Delta Rally car some pages back, but this time I wanted it to give more impact.

Here's the original, it looked really nasty and the car looked like a flat piece of cardboard glued to the background:

 

[Nicknamealguem]

I think it looks great. The background could use a little more blur, but it is quite amazing.

 

[440 CHARGER]

You really think it's that ugly? I chose it because I think it looks fantastic when using a wide angle on the front end. Also partly because it's the only race car I have that was suited for the job, the Toyota 7 or R89C would not look at all I think.

What I mean with highlighting and shading is to work more around light sources. You know how all the cars look like a flat piece of cardboard on stock shots? I tried to fix that by trying to give the car more depth with the dodge and burn tool, not only on the panel gaps but on the whole body. It's pretty much a trademark of Alexwrc, and for longer I've wanted to try it myself. The first time I successfully tried it was with the Delta Rally car some pages back, but this time I wanted it to give more impact.

Here's the original, it looked really nasty and the car looked like a flat piece of cardboard glued to the background:

It's not that the car is ugly, it's just the style of shot. It's hard to pull off effectively and give that awesome sense of speed. Your shot does give a good sense of speed, but it's just a mediocre shot. And the fact that it's a race car and all of the decals and such kind of "muddy it up". It's just kind of busy on the car and you're eye can't really relax when you look at it. I don't know, it's hard to put to words what I am trying to say. To me I think this shot for you is a step back. I think one of the key things that brings this shot down for me is the composition. Maybe I'm just not a fan of the front end "tunnel" style of shot.

I'm not trying to bring the shot down, but you have definitely done better. Maybe you should have taken a few more shots similar to this angle with variants on the zoom and contrast. But keep at it, I know you can do better!

Later Bram... 👍

BTW, I tried to work an edit on this shot and just couldn't really make anything good out of it.

 

[Eric Demory]

You really think it's that ugly? I chose it because I think it looks fantastic when using a wide angle on the front end. Also partly because it's the only race car I have that was suited for the job, the Toyota 7 or R89C would not look at all I think.

What I mean with highlighting and shading is to work more around light sources. You know how all the cars look like a flat piece of cardboard on stock shots? I tried to fix that by trying to give the car more depth with the dodge and burn tool, not only on the panel gaps but on the whole body. It's pretty much a trademark of Alexwrc, and for longer I've wanted to try it myself. The first time I successfully tried it was with the Delta Rally car some pages back, but this time I wanted it to give more impact.

Here's the original, it looked really nasty and the car looked like a flat piece of cardboard glued to the background:

I do love the tunnel part, and how it colours out from the rest of the scenery.

 

[Bram Turismo]

Originally my round 1 entry of the tournament, but I didn't feel I quite followed the theme so I swapped it out 👍​

 

[franz]

Great 👍 Actually I was hoping your entry will be like your new avatar. I like those 2 white stripes being so bright, otherwise the picture as a whole will be very boring. The Z looks clean without too many reflection details taken away. I found the shadow seems to be oversized based on the light direction. Lightly dodge some fake reflections on the road would be a good idea for its epicness. By the way, why did you put watermark on the preview?

 

[Bram Turismo]

Great 👍 Actually I was hoping your entry will be like your new avatar. I like those 2 white stripes being so bright, otherwise the picture as a whole will be very boring. The Z looks clean without too many reflection details taken away. I found the shadow seems to be oversized based on the light direction. Lightly dodge some fake reflections on the road would be a good idea for its epicness. By the way, why did you put watermark on the preview?

Thanks franz 👍

As for the watermark; I'm just trying to get a hold of a trademark for myself. Something on the previews so that people recognize it's me. You and Alex always have those fantastic looking fonts, but I never seem to find anything good enough.

As for my avatar, there actually may be some similarities Although I'd never pull that angle off since it's near impossible to get in-game wheel blurs from that angle I wish I learned the curve blur in the past though. I never learned it, and I probably never will since there are few to no sources on a strong approach to it. So that's why I'm distancing myself from it and keeping it to straight blurs 👍

 

[franz]

I like Alex's signature, simple and elegant. I change mine all the times to fit the style of the entry. For that Porsche avatar angle, you just need a set of deep dish wheel and good polygon killing skills. Forget both in-game and PS blur. I remember Alex even use smudge tool to blur his wheels in some occasions. I don't know I should laugh or be amazed by his creativity.

 

[Nicknamealguem]

I don't have more to say than a simple amazing :tup:

 

[Watchman]

I've seen your yellow RUF RGT shot in the 'Final GT4 Photomode Tournament - 2.0 Round 1'-Thread and decided to look around for more pictures from you. What I have to say is that I'm very impressed by your work and that I can't wait to see your future works. 👍