Modifying Art

A friend asked me if I could help her with a piece of artwork for her genealogy research. She wanted to do some digital copies for her family reunion. She found a ship picture that she liked that was a became a bit grainy when the size was increased.

I increased the size to fit on an 8.5 x 11 cover sheet. I made a copy of the file in photoshop and then ran the rough pastel filter on it. This pretty much destroys all of the details. I next took the original image, placed it over the rough pastel image and reduced the opacity to 58%. This helps bring back the detail of the people on the boat and still allows the artistic image to show through. I do this trick with portraits that I want to apply an artistic filter to and still maintain detail. I added a contrasting color for the background and text for the cover page.

Composite Photography

Photography shops love to sell parents and grandparents combined photographs. This was very popular while I was growing up and very easy to achieve with a little effort. I took the following 4 photgraphs and combined them in a classic style.

After selecting the portions of the images I wanted and copy and pasting them into a new file I began playing with the composition. I increased the size of some and decreased others. After getting the arangement I found pleasing I used the high key filter and then selectively applied the vignette blur, painting it in around each headshot. I finally used the vignette blur, placing the center on the largest picture and allowing the remainder of shots to be slightly blurred.

Sun Glasses

In one of my many photoshop books it explained how to make a high contrast black and white photo. This is one of my favorites and sits on my desk at work. I started with this photo taken on vacation.

I cropped it from horizontal to vertical and zoomed in on his face. I removed all of the background noise and substituted a black background. Working in layers, I switched the mode to black and white and increased the contrast on one layer decreased it on another. After erasing from one layer to show the one underneath I ended up with this photo.

Back to the Beach

I have always liked the image created by the beach chairs lined up in the sand first thing in the morning awaiting on customers. The beach attendents take such care to line them all up neatly and the umbrellas add a splash of color to the order.

Just for fun I took the photo and applied the posterize filter to it. After playing with the color balalnce on it I grabbed the eraser and roughed up the edges.

50th Anniversary

Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2006. I took this last photo of them together and it desperately needed help.

My camera settings were way off, mom and dad were too far apart because of his wheelchair and I wanted to be able to flatter them both with this photo. After adjusting the color and contrast I removed mom from where she was sitting and moved her over closer to dad. At the time I did not have the Nik Efexs filters so I softened her face by copying into another layer her entire face, adding gausian blur and reducing the opacity. I removed marks from where dad had bumped his head and softened him a bit too. With them cuddled up closer together I was able to crop the photo into a vertical instead of horizontal. The wallpaper in the background was darkened and blurred to help it become less distracting. The background behind mom needed to be repaiered and blended once she was moved.

Pop Art

Once I purchased my own photo printer things got interesting. I created a dozen different 8 x 10 pop art prints of family members for a graduates new apartment. I started with just a few and then the request came in so that she could fill a wall. One of my favorites was taken from this photo taken on a trip to the zoo.

I removed the background and used the Photoshop posterize filter. From a copy of the original I used the find edges filter and dropped it in on the top to give the image a bit of definition. I created a "mod" background and dropped it in behind.

I framed all of the photos in 8 x 10 plain black metal frames.

Beach Wedding

When you have a wedding at the beach the world tends to get invited to share it all. Three years ago this couple tied the knot in front of large crashing waves. I had a viewpoint from the roadside above them. All of their photographers were on the beach level below me, so I took some shots that I am pretty sure they didn't have the vantage point to get. This shot was directly after the wedding, the young couple embraced, they had made it through it all and were husband and wife.


The photo begged to be made into an oval, which I did with softened edges. The Nik darken/lighten center filter helped finish off the effect.