Photo-Heart Connection

I posted this pic a few days ago, but I'm linking it up to kateyestudio's photo-heart connection meme.  I wanted to write a bit about it as I linked up.

  Linkup to Photo-Heart Connection

I just processed the picture in this particular way a week or so ago, but it's a picture I took in April of 2007, about 4 months into my photographic journey.  I remember the day vividly -- I often, at that time, got out early to see dawn at Lake Merced in San Francisco, wandering around to see the birds and rowing teams and sunshine through the trees and so on.  Several docks thrust out into the lake, and one had a little seating area at the end, so I headed out there.  Once at the seating area, I turned around to look at the bank, and there, right next to it, was this beautiful heron.  I started taking pictures, and with each couple of shots, I moved a step closer, until I was quite close to him.  He let me take pics of him for a long time, and then finally flew away.  Here's the original pic:

I was so thrilled when I looked at the pictures!  At the time, I had a high-end point-and-shoot camera, and it took great pics.  I processed several and posted them on my flickr page, and then went back last week -- over five years later -- to work with it some more.

To me, this photo is about growth.  It makes me think how far I've come in ability (though some of those p&s pics were pretty darned good), in equipment (from there went to Rebel, 40D, and now 7D), and artistic ability -- at this point I use textures and various other manipulations to create what is, really, digital art.  In five years, I've gone from being an utter noob to taking part in Santa Cruz's Open Studios this year.  

I'm very fond of this heron, because he makes me realize where this photography journey has taken me. 

A Texture Tutorial

Please join the giveaway!

A number of people have asked how I achieve my effects with textures, so I thought I'd do a little tutorial.  It's pretty much the same way as everyone else does them, but it's always interesting how everyone's comes out differently, depending on their style.  Here's the original picture, of some Mother's Day flowers I got:

[Linkup with Flowers on Saturday]

It's an okay picture, but I knew I could make it better.  The first thing I do is clone out any areas of color or brightness that I think will detract from the final image.  In this case, I cloned out the small pink area on the right, and the white lines in the lower right corner; I also cloned out the bud at the top that was going across the iris petal.  The cloning doesn't have to be perfect, because the texturing will cover it.

Next I crop, and in this case, I cropped out some of the areas I'd cloned, so I could have saved myself the trouble :)   (Just thought I'd share my little slip-up, in the interest of full disclosure.)

c

I liked it better pulled in a little closer to the flowers.  Next, I choose my first texture.  I want to minimize the bright area on the lower left, so I chose a Flypaper Texture called "Tempest Sea," from their Spring Painterly set.  As you can see, it's darker on the bottom, particularly in the left corner:

I float the texture in its own window, and then use the move tool to slide it over the photo, and use the grabbers to resize it.  (In Photoshop, make sure the "Show transform controls" box is checked at the top of the move tool bar).  Once the texture is on its layer over the photo, I click the check mark at the top and then find the blend mode I like -- in this case, I like Hard Light at 74%.  At this point, the flowers don't look great, but that's okay because I'm only looking at the background, and I like the way the bright spot on the lower left is toned down.

Next, I use a layer mask and the brush tool to brush most of the texture off the main subject.  In Photoshop, you create a layer mask by clicking the little square with a circle in it at the bottom of the Layers panel, and then with the mask square selected, I used a soft brush and a setting of about 80% to take the texture off the orange flowers, and a setting of about 48% to take the texture off the blue background flowers. Make sure that black is selected as the foreground color -- black adds the mask, white takes it off (if you make a mistake in the brushing part, just switch to white and you can take it off).  You can see what you're doing more easily by hitting "\", which will show you the mask in orange, as you can see here:

Now I choose my next texture -- "Spring Equinox," again from Flypaper's Spring Painterly set -- I like this one because it will green up the background more, and begin to darken the edges a bit.  Here's the texture, followed by the effect.

The blend mode I used was Overlay, at 100%, and I again used the brush and a layer mask to brush away the texture on the flowers, but not so much this time because I liked the way the texture brightened the flowers.  I decided I wanted to see if I could darken the background even further -- I'm liking the way the orange flowers are really beginning to come forward --  so I chose "Cyprus Haze," from the Tex Box Two set at Flypaper; it's a really dark green, again with darker edges. 

I used Overlay at 84% here, and brushed away maybe 70% of the texture, with this result:

 

I'm happy with the picture now, but I wanted to try one more thing.  I duplicated the original (bottom) layer, leaving it right above the bottom layer, changed the Image mode to 8 bits (I don't know if you have to do this in every version, but you do in CS5), and then go to "Filters - Artistic - Paint Daubs."  I like the effect that this filter gives -- this is the brush type "Sparkle,"  with the brush size at 10 and the sharpness at 11.  

  

I really like the final effect, so I'm done.  As a last bit of housekeeping, I do the following:  1) change the names of the layers to the names of the textures, so I know which ones I used; 2) save as a PSD file, which maintains the layers (so I can go back and work with it more, if I want to); 3)   Go "Layer - Flatten Image," and save that for web and devices at around 600 pixels on the long side.  (If I'm not using it in the blog, I'll save as a regular .jpg.)  And I'm done!  Here's the final product:

 

[Linkup with Little Somethings Photo Challenge]

What do you think?  I hope I've explained things well -- if I haven't, just ask and I'll answer.  And please sign up for the giveaway!  You could win this picture, if you like it!

 

Fun with Photography

Here's a before-and-after kind of thing.  This is a tiny Tequila Sunrise rose (the plant is no more than 6" high at this point) in my garden.  The blossom is beautiful, but the background is not great, so I've used some textures on it to make the background more harmonious.  Here's the original, SOOC (straight-out-of-the-camera):

 

And here's the one with textures on it:  

I wanted to enhance green in the background, so I used the following Flypaper Textures (and blend modes):  1)  Grosgrain (hard light), 2) Verdegris Mist (soft light), and 3) Florek Ice (color burn). 

I think the result does justice to my little flower . . . 

[Visit The Daily Wyatt to enter your textured pic]

Just for Fun --

 [Thanks to Flypaper Textures]

There are many sites/blogs on the web where you can have fun with photography, and I will feature them from time to time so that you can join in the fun, too (you all do photography these days, don't you? :)  Today I introduce you to Kristy's Life-n-Reflection, a rich site where you can do all kinds of things -- enter photography challenges, learn about different kinds of processing, and get lots of tips on how to make your photographs great.  Today, among other things, you can enter the "Texture Twist."  If you like to use textures, as I do, you can enter the challenge by posting a picture on your blog and leaving a link to it on Kristy's Texture Twist page.  Whether you win or not, challenges are always fun, and they really help you grow as a photographer -- I owe much of my initial development to a couple of great challenge groups on flickr (more about those another day).  So pick up your camera, fire up PS or PSE or GIMP or whatever you use, and have fun.  That's what it's about.


Here's my entry, from a recent trip to Cabo San Lucas -- this beautiful Madonna and angels are in the church in El Triunfo, an old silver mining town between Cabo and La Paz.


And here's a link to Kristy's page:

Just Jump In . . .

Welcome to my journal! I have been an educator for most of my adult life, a teacher of teachers, a writer and teacher of writers, but in the past few years, I have become a learner again and am in the process of reinventing myself. So with some confidence, at this point I can say: I am a photographer and digital artist living on the Central Coast of California. I am inspired by nature in its many forms, by the sea and its environs, by the beautiful agricultural world that encircles us in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.

Having long contemplated beginning a blog, I've decided to just jump in. I'll be finding my way for a bit, but I want to start out by linking to some of my favorite places on the web, to people and places that have played an important role in the reinvention of this one woman:

Flypaper Textures: Jill and Paul create some of the most beautiful textures on the web, and they are very generous with their "recipes" for the pictures they create.

Cambridge in Colour: An amazing community of photographers, populated with incredibly helpful, generous and often irreverent people; includes excellent tutorials for doing the various things we do with pictures.

Kim Klassen Cafe: Kim is another very generous web resident who offers free textures to fans and who has created a number of short courses on Photoshop and textures that she offers at a very reasonable cost. Thanks, Kim!

WoodSong Nature Photography: Cindy Mead is a wonderful nature photographer and artist. Her blog is lovely, as is her website. A fierce advocate for nature in all her forms, Cindy captures its beauty in her images.