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.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Modifying Art
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Composite Photography
Friday, March 28, 2008
Sun Glasses
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
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.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
50th Anniversary
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
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.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Beach Wedding
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.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
All Sunny
As much as I liked the resulting photo I wanted to enhance the color of her skin and increase the drama against his dark shirt. The low key filter helped bring out the color in her skin. I then applied the darken/lighten filter to fade his dark shirt into the background. I next applied the vignette blur, making sure that the center point was on her nose.
Another one for her baby book.Saturday, March 22, 2008
Cropped Creation
I cropped the photo down to one person. I removed the shine from her face, added a skin softener and glamour glow and darkened the edges. Keeping her face sharp and bluring the background edges draws the eyes to the center of the photo and her pretty face. Just for fun I added an artistic filter to give the image a painterly quality.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Busy to Beautiful
She was studying her great-grandmother's face intently. I started by removing the background noise and softening the edges so that she didn't look like she had been cut out. The glamour glow filter enhanced her coloring and the high key filter dropped out some of the color. Soft focus enhanced the sweetness of her face. I added a very soft pink to the background to keep it from contrasting to starkly and then used a vignette blur.
I did not have to enhance the color of her clear blue eyes, that color came directly from her grandfather. Placed in simple silver frames, the resulting image will make a nice Easter gift to both her mother and her great-grandmother.
Before and After
I decided to play a bit with this photo with my newly purchased Nik Efex program. I added several different filters to come up with this version.
The sunlight filter gives the image a nice glow and the polorization filter pumps up the darks, adds a hit of lavender randomly and decorates the edges. I liked the dreamy quality that it created.