Yellow Dogface Butterfly in her Glory!
This Southern Dogface Butterflies (named for their heads that look like French poodles) visited my purple pentas this fall. They are very skiddish butterflies and are hard to photograph. I used my 60 mm Nikon Macro Lens to catch the shot at F/3.2, 1/2000, and ISO 200. The image was processed first in Lightroom 4 using the workflow from my How to Use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or Lightroom 4 Quickly blog. To create the soft effect, Nik Color Efex Pro 4 was applied with several filters stacked: Midnight using Neutral Color Set, Glamour Glow with Glow set to 90%, Vignette, and Film Efex Vintage set to Film Type 2 and an Overall Opacity of 40%. The Sharpen Tool was applied to the face. Nik Viveza 2 was applied to soften the bright tones in the background and to sharpen the head a little more. My Mid Size Double Edged Frame was added to the image to finish up. I really enjoyed working on this image – it has a different feel to what I normally do……Digital Lady Syd
Just Bloomin’ Beautiful!
This miniature mum was in bloom again for the fall season. Just beautiful! This image was taken with my Micro Nikkor 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens set to Manual mode, 1/90 sec, F/5.6 and ISO 200. Very little processing but did use Flypaper Texture Rainbow Trout Taster and my Double Edge Frame Layer Style sampling the Inner Shadow color from the image. Enjoy!…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
The Macro Shot
Beautiful Soft Flowers
Displacing an Overlay
Since I have been posting a lot on overlays recently, I wanted to show how you can get a really authentic look to overlays by displacing them onto a textured background. In this image the lettering looks like it has been on the wall in the background all the time. This is pretty neat trick Photoshop can accomplish but I personally find it hard to do. Corey Barker, of The Photoshop Guys fame, gave a nice quick tutorial on his Planet Photoshop website called Graphic Texture. The process involves creating a displacement map psd file that is applied to the overlay layer. The steps are as follows:
1. Open image and make sure it is in 8 bit mode. To find out, go to Image -> Mode -> 8-bit. At this point I created a Stamped Composite layer of all the work I have done to have a clean layer to start this process on – go to CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E.
2. Create duplicate copy of image by going to Image -> Duplicate Image and click OK. This will be your Displacement Map image. Convert this image to black and white image by going to Image -> Mode -> Grayscale. Save the Displacement Map as a psd on your desktop so you can get to it easily.
3. In your regular image, do corrections and add your overlay were you want it. Be sure to Rasterize (right click and select) your overlay if it is a Smart Object.
4. With overlay layer selected, go to Filter -> Distort -> Displace and in the dialog box, set Horizontal and Vertical to 5 for small displacement or 10 or larger – the image above used 5. You are then directed to find your grayscale image on your desktop. Once done, the overlay will distort by the amount of your settings.
5. CTRL+click on overlay layer thumbnail to select your graphic.
6. Highlight your layer underneath your overlay layer, and CTRL+J to copy to a New Layer. Turn off your old overlay layer. The lettering may totally disappear now. Desaturate the new displaced overlay layer by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+U. Go to Layer -> New Fill Layer -> Solid Color and check Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask and OK. Change to any color – try sampling in your image when you hover your mouse over it. You do not need to turn on the original displaced lettering layer.
7. Try changing the layer blend modes and opacity of your overlay layer. Add a Levels Adjustment Layer to increase contrast if needed.
That is it. It is not that difficult but does take a little manipulation to get to work. If you do get it right though, a beautiful result will occur…..Digital Lady Syd.
Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
How to Create Personal Overlays for Your Images
Spotlight on the Pink Spica!
Just another example of the wonderful Camera Raw sliders now updated with Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4. This beautiful pink spica was taken at the Hawaii Botanical Tropical Garden and was first processed in Lightroom 4 by following Scott Kelby’s workflow in my How to Use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or Lightroom 4 Quickly blog. The White Balance was left as shot, Exposure set to -0.10, Contrast +24, Highlights -100, Shadows +100, Whites +10, Black -6, and no Clarity or Vibrance were used. The Green slider was set to -30 in the HSL Saturation section to reduce the color just a little. Noise reduction Luminance was set to 22, the Lens Correction profile was set to my camera lens, and in Effects a Highlight Priority Style Post-Crop Vignetting Amount set to -41.
In Photoshop a lot of clean up was done on the leaves – they had spots everywhere but the Spot Healing Brush worked wonders on most of it – just set to Content Aware in the Options Bar and swipe away. Scott’s Highlight Effect was applied to spotlight the flower (duplicate the layer and set it to Multiply blend mode, then add a layer mask and paint back in your object with a big soft black brush). Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Simplify 4’s Watercolor II preset was applied to soften the flower a little. A black layer mask was added and the flower was painted back with a low opacity brush in white to give just a hint of the painterly look. My Thin Double Edge Frame layer style was applied with colors sampled from the image. Very quick and very easy. Love the final look…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
Spotlight Effect With the New Subtract Blend Mode
Artistic Daisy!
This yellow daisy has a very interesting texture by French Kiss Textures called Lakeside – she actually offers it for free at her website (she also has some great tutorials on how to use textures on her site). I was not that familiar with her textures until recently – she has some beautiful textures that have more of an artistic flair to them than most sites. This texture was actually placed behind my daisy. A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was placed above the texture and the colors were changed from the blue-yellow-green to the green-purple tones by setting Hue to -117, Saturation to -41 and Lightness to -8. The daisy had been cut out as an object using Select -> Color Range and selecting just the flower and stem. The flower was processed in Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Simplify 4 using the Oil Paint Toned V preset – the Tone and Edge Sections were turned off and the color space set to RGB. The layer was set to 75% opacity to tone it down a little. A pink textured border (see my SJ PNG Borders) was placed round the image and the color was changed to light brown using another Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer set to Hue +48, Saturation -3, and Lightness 0. A Curves Adjustment Layer was added to get the final contrast in the image. That was it. Try downloading her free texture package and see if you like them as much as I do!….Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd Related Posts:
Getting a Nice Painterly Landscape Effect with Topaz Simplify and Texture
A Little Hollywood for My Butterfly Model
Digital Lady Syd Reviews Topaz Simplify 4
Getting a Nice Painterly Landscape Effect with Topaz Simplify and Texture
An easy way to get a painterly look. This image is at the entrance to SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, and is a great place to take a shot – very Disneyland-like colors! This look was created by doing these things:
1. Applied Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Simplify 4 using the Painting V preset set to transparency to .28
2. Next French Kisses Artiste Fauve Rainbow texture was added – although any painted texture you like could be used. A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Level was clipped to the texture layer (by ALT+clicking between the layers) and Saturation was set to -100 to desaturate the texture so it can be layered on top of the image so the color in the texture does not show up on the image. The texture blend mode was then set to Hard Light at 34%. (Try different blend modes to see which looks best on your image.)
3. A Levels Adjustment Layer was added to brighten the image as the texture tends to darken the midtones.
4. Topaz Detail 2 was applied to sharpen the image using the Creative Detail Accent preset with some adjustments to the three color sliders and the saturation slider.
That was it and you get this nice painterly effect!…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd’s Related Blogs:
Topaz Simplify and Lens Effects Saves an Image!
Digital Lady Syd Reviews Topaz Simplify 4
Using Topaz Simplify for That Artistic Feel!