Photo Edit Some cigarette dangling and holding edits

[JSNY]

Hello all. Since I'm a huge admirer of cigarette smoking photography, particularly when the model(s) is female, a hobby of mine is attempting to edit cigarettes into the lips or hands of female celebrities. I know that there are a lot of people here who are much better and more skilled at this kind of photo editing than I am but I just wanted to share some examples of my own work in this thread. I hope this is allowed here and please go easy on me. Lol. I know my smoke effects, exhales and some other miscellaneous details can use a bit of work. That's why I want to keep practicing. Whatever it takes to make my edits/fakes look as real as possible. The model is 19 year old TV actress Riele Downs (all of these photos were taken after she turned 18), a real cutie who deserves to be a bigger star and who I definitely hope to see smoking for real in some random acting role or photoshoot someday. Enjoy lovely Riele and my efforts to make her smoke.

 

[IamSam]

Enjoy lovely Riele and my efforts to make her smoke.

Before doing so, are you open to critiques on your work here? Or at least questions?

 

[JSNY]

Yes. I'm open to fellow members here letting me know what they think of my efforts and/or to help let me know exactly what I can do to make any future smoking edits I create look even better. I just hope nobody gets too harsh since I'm still practicing or too judgemental since I know female smoking photography is a very niche interest/art form. Hopefully, my work is allowed here and that I'll be able to post more of it in the future.

 

[Rich54]

I like the idea of these, but I have a few suggestions for how to make them look better.

First, I think all of your cigarettes are too big. Compare the left vs. right in this image here:



Next, I think your images can be more convincing if you focus on understanding where the light source is coming from and then adding appropriate shadows to your objects. In the image above (left side), look at the shadow that the cigarette casts on her lower lip and, very subtly, between her fingers. Also notice on the left that the cigarette itself has a shadow on its underside to give it roundness and depth. Your images have no shadows, which makes everything look flat and like it's floating in air.

Continuing with shadows, look at the portion of your image below. Notice the shadows cast by the legs of the table and chair onto the floor. There needs to be an equivalent shadow on the cigarette lighter that you placed on the floor, similar to the new lighter that I made.

I hope you don't feel I'm being overly critical. Good luck.

 

[JSNY]

Thank you so much for your insight and observations, Rich54. It is all very helpful. Things like object size, perspective and shadow effects are pretty much exactly what I meant about "some other miscellaneous details" in my edits that I know could use some work and improvement. I use Lunapic for most of my photo editing work and since that's a free online program, some of its editing features are a bit limited. You did a very good job adding some shadowing around her dropped lighter. Just little details like that alone make a lot of difference. Since it's probably unlikely I'll ever see Riele smoke in real life (even if she actually does) or even in an acting role or modeling photoshoot due to both her squeaky clean image and how frowned upon cigarette smoking is in the media nowadays, that's why she remains a favorite editing subject of mine. If I or anyone else here ever makes her smoke in a photo edit, it should look real.

 

[Rich54]

I took your Image #5 and added shadows/highlights to the cigarette to give it some roundness. I also added shadow to her lips and chin and tried to open her mouth slightly to accommodate the cigarette. The cigarette is still too big, but I didn't have time to deal with that.

 

[JSNY]

Thanks again for all of your advice and help, Rich54. That dangle redo you made does look much more realistic than my own effort. She looks so beautiful. I'm still trying to find just the right balance with cigarette sizes and to be able to use that consistently. I don't want them to look so wide and fat that they look a bit more like cigars but I also don't want them to turn out so thin and skinny that they almost look like toothpicks. Just the simple visual illusion of a lovely girl smoking is better than nothing but it should still look as close to real as possible.

 

[IamSam]

I don't have much to add to what Rich stated but a few examples.

As has already been mentioned, your cigarettes are far too big.


Here is a more normal sized cigarette without shadow or shading.
I also use a layer mask on the cigarette layer to make it look like it was in her lips.


Add the above mentioned shadow and shading as well as a little smoke trail....

 

[JSNY]

Thank you so much for your contributions, IamSam. You did a great job there. To me, that pose especially called for a cigarette dangle. Just for the sake of referencing other details, in addition to all the cigarettes, smoke trails and lighters, I also enhanced her cleavage in images 6 and 7 and randomly put a fallen scarf on the ground near her in image 9. If I ever decide to create and share more edits here, I'll take notes to practice using shadow layer effects.