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An internet mystery has people searching for an unknown person on a fabric.

I try to understand the following:

  1. What workflow did the designer use to transform the images?
  2. Can we tell from the before and after images if the designer used the same process for all photos, or even different designers might have been involved?
  3. Can this workflow be replicated to achieve similar results (excluding cleanup) for comparison with suspected source images of the unknown person?
  4. Were there any well-known workflows in Illustrator, Photoshop, or other tools used for this effect? (around 2008)

enter image description here

I believe understanding the fabric designer's workflow might help identify this person.

Here is what I tried:

I experimented with GIMP's "color -> threshold" function. I can achieve partial results for specific areas, like reproducing the lost eyelid folds and half the upper lip in the first image (Adriana Lima). However, other features are significantly affected, like a missing nose and overly darkened neck.

Thank you for your support!

Six other celebrities and (likely) source images have been identified:

Adriana Lima source and final image Josh Holloway source and final image Adriana Lima source and final image Jessica Alba source and final image Travis Fimmel source and final image Ian Somerhalder source and final image Orlando Bloom source and final image

Credit for the info and images: https://lostmediawiki.com/Celebrity_Number_Six_(lost_original_photo_of_unidentified_celebrity;_date_unknown)

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  • @oneprivate thanks, but difficult to understand for me. But I'll install Krita and try it out 😊
    – steros
    Commented Jul 5 at 8:39
  • don't expect a workflow that creates the result automatically. threshold on a greyscale image, in combination with blur will give you some result, but that has to be refined by manual retouching. for example if you look at the shiny, zigzaggy parts of the hair, that is always painted in afterwards. Also the eye details.
    – AAGD
    Commented Jul 5 at 8:58
  • Some of the found images won't fit exactly on top of the graphics. Like Jessica Alba who has her head turned slightly different. So either it's not the right images or the process involved some amount of manual drawing. Perhaps the images were traced by hand and vectorized afterwards. I don't think it's just a filter.
    – Wolff
    Commented Jul 5 at 9:30
  • @wolff you are right, some of the photos might not be the exact photos. Some also think they might be skewed .Also sorry but I didn't mean to restrict by Gimp only.
    – steros
    Commented Jul 5 at 10:01
  • Main process.. copyright infringement :).. These were most likely hand traced. Or Posterized, then auto-traced (which would account for some discrepancies.) Or a mix of the two. Some areas would somewhat have to be manually created due to the "similar surrounding tones" and minute details- like hair, facial and other wise.
    – Scott
    Commented Jul 5 at 11:11

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