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Purists may lament the popularity of image-editing software, but the record-setting number of entries in our fifth annual Digital Wizard contest proves one thing: In the right hands, it can take you anywhere your imagination leads.
More than 700 entrants followed their muses, spinning 12 ho-hum photos into everything from dark scenes of destruction to lands of whimsy and wonder. Humor abounded. And many creations simply defied definition.
The winners here proved their creativity, technical dexterity, and commitment. But they're just the leaders of the pack. To see the rest of the winners, along with the finalists and semifinalists, click on one of the Digital Wizard Photo Gallery links.
$1,000 Grand Prize Winner
This year's top honors go to Patrick Rolands, an automotive assembler from Wentzville, MO, who took our photos on a journey to Oz. This 41-year-old self-taught digital wizard labored for more than 20 hours in Adobe Photoshop CS2 to recreate an iconic image from the classic movie.
In a stroke of irony, he used the same portrait to make both Dorothy and the Wicked Witch. He turned the woman green with the Color Replacement tool, and stretched her features with the Liquify filter. For Dorothy, he used Free Transform and Eraser to merge her features with those of the young girl. With the same techniques, the little boy and the cat in the family portrait joined forces to become the Cowardly Lion. The Tin Man was assembled from car parts with the help of the Transform Warp command. Rolands built the Scarecrow from the tablecloth and the girl's blouse and hair; a car door doubled for his hat. Emerald City? The Bavarian palace.
Finally, our man behind the curtain used the Gaussian Blur filter to blend the background layers and add a sense of depth to the picture.
$300 1st Prize Winner
Maybe it's all that time spent in front of a computer, but doomsday was a popular theme among our contestants. Twenty-six-year-old community planner Edwin Lunandy, of Orlando, FL, says he was thinking of "an Armageddon-type thing" when he created this image. And his castle would make a beautiful place to watch it all end.
Surrounding it with trees from Central Park, Lunandy built his fortress in Adobe Photoshop CS3 by copying the palace in rows, one on top of the next, then adjusted the building with the Transform Perspective tool. He layered the shrub and asphalt from the photo of the family, then switched the Blend Mode to Multiply to make the building look decayed.
After using the Paintbrush to draw some ominous birds, all he needed was a color-balance adjustment to give it an End-of-Days feeling.
Start to finish: 8 hours.
$200 2nd Prize Winner
In making "Close Encounters," industrial designer Don Kingman, 57, of Danville, CA, was inspired by "a time when people believed that the world was flat and sea monsters inhabited the oceans, yet they still ventured into the unknown," he says.
You can spot the originals in the ship's zebra-striped sails, palatial hull, and feminine prow. It's harder to tell that the leviathan is crafted from a woman, a goldfish, and some fried chicken.
Kingman spent 80 hours in Adobe Photoshop CS3, and hours just hunting the originals for textures and shapes. "I was at a restaurant staring at one of the images upside down for the longest time," he says, "when I realized that people were starting to notice."
$150 3rd Prize Winner
Tony Hoffart, 49, a Commercial Artist from Houston, TX found his inspiration for this creation in circus sideshows. In his quest to make his bizarre characters, Hoffart spent about 24 hours in Adobe Photoshop CS3 creating over 50 different layers that took the goldfish from its bowl and onto the image of the little girl, gave the pig zebra stripes. As for the elements not found in the original photos (such as the fish hook, lamps, and carousel pole), the artist painstakingly drew them in himself.
$100 Honorable Mention
David Noll, a 54-year-old elementary school employee from Malaga, WA has only been using Adobe Photoshop CS3 for a few months. He learned all of his
techniques from online tutorials, and completed his masterpiece in a mere 8 hours. The couple on an evening walk was enlarged from the Central Park photo, and several masks and shading effects were used to perfect the light direction and texture. Noll found the building, car, and bushes from our photos, but the moon and moody lighting were his own creations.
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