I recently made a Photomanipulation thumbnail for practice and i want to get feedback on it!
Underwater by FlaxGFX on DeviantArt here is the high quality one
11 Likes
Very nice, but in all honesty; the turtle and the dolphin IMO donāt really fit in with the lighting of the image.
They way they are lit is distracting me away from the main point of the render; the character itself.
Just my opinion, you donāt have to listen.
3 Likes
It looks really good, Iām no GFX artist but I think it needs only some more shadows and like more darkness in a way, the sea isnāt that light up, so it looks a bit weird, but not counting that, it looks great.
1 Like
Looks pretty good overall
I recommend you to edit the character underwater to be more āwatery blue and wetā, if that makes sense of the thumbnail
What I meant is the character looks pretty dry, so yea
1 Like
Hey there! I love this!
If you want feedback and critiques, the only things I notice about it that may need to be adjusted is some of the compositional elements.
If the avatar floating in the center is the focal point of the image, it should be the eye-catching and stand out from the piece, when at the moment it really doesnātā¦ The plants, fish, rocks, etc. are all just as detailed as the character and they draw your eye away from the intended focal point of the image.
To fix this, I would suggest maybe using a āGaussian Blurā effect on the plants and other graphic elements that you donāt want the person viewing to be looking at. A background and foreground should compliment the character, but right now it seems like the character is complimenting the background and foreground.
Blurring the plants and animals a bit and maybe darkening them will help with this. The other main issue is that the water in the background seems to be at a different angle/perspective than the rest of the image. The water in the background is off-putting because the image seems to be taken from underwater looking downwards or almost sideways at it, hence the slope, when the camera is facing upwards from behind the rocks. (Being able to see the reflections as if itās the top of the ocean at the bottom of the image, under the avatar, when there are fish swimming there, etc.)
I made a very quick edit of this image in my art program to demonstrate what I mean. Obviously, itās messy because I worked with only one layer and anything you do will look wayy better haha.
What I did was focus on the composition of the piece. I blurred the foreground (a bit too much) and sized the avatar up so that anyone viewing will look at it first. When I first looked at the image you posted, my eyes moved immediately to the plants in the foreground, then to the animals, and then finally to the avatar, which I donāt think was your intention.
I also adjusted the water a bit. I squeezed it in a way, to make it less tall and match the perspective of the rest of the image a bit. It didnt work too well, though, because the avatar is in the middle of the photo, so I had to work around it a bit.
After adjusting the water, I added some more little blobs in the top left and bottom right. The image looks very busy in places, with the dolphins and plants and turtle and the school of yellow fish, and I really like that. It looks alive and colorful and itās beautiful! ^.^ But the top left corner seemed to be lacking any animals at all, which made it feel unbalanced. The last thing I did was add a color dodge layer and use some various colors to enhance the colors of the piece. For example, I used an airbrush with a deep magenta color on the pink ferns, and purple on the blue ones. Then a deep blue on the lower parts of the water to push them back further and a light cyan up top to exaggerate the light source. Then I added some more rim light manually to the edges of the ferns, grass, rocks, fish, and avatar to really push that light sourceās extravagency. None of this is really an error in the original drawing, but if youād like to, they may give your art an extra pop of color! 
I would suggest looking up āThe Rule Of Thirds in Art Compositionā ā It details how to use particles and other elements in a drawing in 3rds to make it look random. I would also recommend looking up āThe Golden Ratioā and āCompositional Balanceā. All of these things are very helpful for any artist!!
I think thatās all Iāve got! Like I said, itās a beautiful piece!! I hope me adjusting it wasnāt overstepping, Iām just bad at explaining critiques without a visual of what they could look like if implemented. Youāre very talented at photo manipulation!
5 Likes
CREATORS please watermark your stuff, the community is full of people trying to get free credit.
also,
- make the sea darker at the bottom, in my opinion use another image.
- add shading to the components (the animals) so that it blends well.
- make the render a with blue lights so it blends better you can just recolor it in photoshop but like actual lights give dark colored shadow hence more realistic.
- the yellow school of fishes is just not there, really badly blended literally looks like you just used soft round eraser at the corners of that png.
- the front (sea grass and stuff) is missing shading.
when you donāt render stuff but photoshop them you have to make all the shadows and stuff so that it feels like it there, rn your gfx looks really scattered. i can see all the different layers you used cause thereās near to no shading at all, the render is going dark at the bottom but the environment doesnāt so it looks bad/weird/ less realistic and really out of place.
it take time to figure out where to put shadows so that it feels realistic, i had trouble figuring that out when i just started GFX but youāll learn with time dw.
refer - @StaredSystemized heās really good at photomanipulation and related stuff try observing how he shades his stuff, you will know what i mean.
4 Likes
thanks for the feedback i will try to work on it in my next artwork!
thanks
i didnt go with a realistic look
but kinda of a magical look tbh
1 Like
i mean i kinda understand but looking at it i think it looks as you said āwatery blue and wetā
but i will work on it!
1 Like
i did put a watermark
also in blender i did make it a bit blue because i planned to make it much more blue in photoshop and make the lighting too in photoshop
i read your reply and thank you alot for the detailed stuff!
thank you alot!
and next time i will try to add some blur or as i say depth of field to make it even better
2 Likes
you can never go wrong with depth!!
2 Likes
I love this piece! Very creative.
As someone who works with photomanipulation on Roblox, I think this is a great start.
However, I do have some feedback to give.
-
The subject (or character) matches the background quite well; however, the other objects look more vibrant and donāt match that well within the background. I suggest using a hue/saturation layer and (depending on which program you use, I currently use Photoshop) clip it to the objects and select āColorizeā and find a color that matches with the background. Lowering the saturation helps, as well.
-
I suggest adding shadows and highlights to the animals in the background, as well. I suggest using 2 exposure layers (one light for highlights and one dark for shadows), clipping them on to the animals, and painting on shadows and highlights. Currently, they look a bit flat. You could also do this effect on the plants, as well.
-
Adding some post-processing effects would be nice. For example, depth of field, camera RAW filter (if you have Photoshop), vignette, or any other filters. For the given scene, adding small bubbles around would be nice, as well.
-
I also suggest making your watermark more visible; as of now, itās hard to see. Lowering the transparency to around 75 or 50 should be good.
Keep up the good work. 
1 Like
thanks alot for the tips of shadows and stuff and yes i do use photoshop
and just letting you know that i did use camera raw filter and i did the shadows and highlights using a brush and making the layer multiply or overlay
I feel like the personās overall color should be influenced by a lot of blue hues. Right now, it just looks like someone just slapped on some pointlights in blender and called it a day.
1 Like
Looking great! Oh hey, Iām not very good at Photo manipulation, but there are some things I want to say to your photo manipulation to make it even better. (Maybe xD)
First, if itās under the sea, that personās clothes will get wet, right? Try to fix it if you can. 
Second, shadows and blooms in animals. I am interpreting that there are some animals and some underwater objects that do not match the direction of the sunās shadow. Maybe you can fix it too. You can watch Benny Productions videos on YouTube. He is very good at photo manipulation. Maybe you can be like him too!
Finally, add your final result with color correction. Because with a touch of color correction, anything will look good as one of my works which I made as an example below!
Thatās all from me. I love your work! Keep trying, donāt give up! 
Peace out,
Vanzier. 
2 Likes
By the way, Iām new to this DevForum. If something goes wrong please understand, because Iām still a little unfamiliar with this website. And also Iām sorry I canāt like your post because I got the post like limit. 
i mean i didnt do much in blender bcuz i was willing to do more in photoshop
thanks you alot for how much detail you gave me about it!
1 Like