Anything Photoshop or Photography

Archive for January, 2017

Window Flowers

Flowers at the Ormond Beach Art Museum and Gardens
These pretty flowers were snuggling up against the window and enjoying a nice sunny January morning at the Ormond Beach Memorial Art Museum and Gardens. Just having some fun here with Topaz (see sidebar for website link)K Impression and Topaz Texture Effects. Lots of masking and painting in areas with Regular brushes and Mixers. Could have worked on this image for hours! Love the colors!…..Digital Lady Syd


High Tide at the Sand Dunes

Painting of Sand Dunes
Back into my painting mode with what I envision the Sand Dunes in Indiana would look with a high tide. This image was completely painted in Photoshop using a basic white Canvas Texture as the background above my Background layer and set to the creamy cloud color using a Color Fill Adjustment. Layer. Next the ground areas were painted in using the various flower brushes, including several I created. On a layer below the flowers, the water was painted in. A bird from Obsidian Dawn was added – actually 4 birds were in the group but 3 were masked out. It looked pretty good at this point. Then Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Restyle Lavender gray preset was applied on a stamped layer on top (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) to create a little bit different color palette. Duplicated the layer opened Topaz Texture Effects 2 – just added Diffusion section and used a mask to only apply the effect to the background plants; and Texture section using one of my own textures and removed effect from water with a mask. On layer above filled in a few more plants and added some color the the sky with a fog brush. To add a little warmth to the water, used a Sunbeam brush set to a low opacity. On another stamped layer, Topaz Lens Effects Fog 1 Filter was applied to soften the middle ground of image just a little. Last step was to add Kyle T. Webster’s Gentle Glaze layer style with Fill set to 0 and painted over the water areas to give a really nice painted effect in the water and sky areas. Painting in Photoshop is really fun!…..Digital Lady Syd


Colorful Leaves

Digitally painted image of colorful leaves
These colorful leaves were taken a year ago at the Jacksonville Zoo – near the entry way. I could not believe how colorful they were in January! Cropped in close to really emphasize the colors and not so much the details. In Photoshop Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Detail 3 was opened – used one of my presets (SJ Ldsp Underpaint2 preset:  Detail Overall Small Details -1.00, Medium Details -1.00, and Large Details -1.00: Tone – Exposure 0.10, Contrast 0.24, Highlights 0.76, Blacks 0.31, Cyan-Red -0.61, Magenta-Green 0.11, and Yellow-Blue -0.16; Color – Temperature 0.16, Tint 0.21, Sat -0.27, and Sat Boost 0.19.) Instead of adding detail, the edges are all softened and the colors dominate the image for painting. Topaz Impression 2 was opened and a preset called Abstract Settings-Blake Rudis was applied as is. Back in PS the layer was set to Overlay blend mode and 50% layer opacity. The original background layer was duplicated and placed on top.  A black layer mask was added (hold down ALT and click icon to add mask at bottom of Layer Panel to make black) and some of the leave’s details were painted back in. Both the Regular brushes and Mixer brushes were used to paint over all the leaves on lots of different layers – paint colors were sampled from the image. I like to use individual layers for each brush and color. Nik Viveza 2 was opened and control points were placed on  the two main leaves where the focal points are. Still a few more clean up layers and that was it. I loved the abstract feel and bright colors of these leaves!…..Digital Lady Syd

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The Waters Edge in Florida

Digitally image of The Waters Edge in Florida
This image was painted completely in Photoshop. Lots of different brushes here. My SJ Playing with Grut’s Inky Leaks FX brushes texture gave a lot of the pretty background colors. (Click here to see original texture.) I drew in the basic image before painting in the foreground trees. Then painted in the background trees, water and flowers with several brushes. Nik Viveza 2 was used to adjust the emphasis in the image. John Derry’s Impasto Smooth Heavy layer style was used to add some painterly effects. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReStyle’s Zambezi Zest was used to give the image a better color scheme. On layer above, some light yellow sunbeams were painted in and the foreground was masked out with the overall layer set to 29% layer opacity. A Red Channel Luminosity Curves Adjustment Layer (see my How to Use a Red Channel to Create a Nice Blended Image Effect blog) was added as a last step. Just a lot of painting and fun!…..Digital Lady Syd


A Fish Playground

Image of fish in a snow globe
Recently Photobacks Photo and Design Resources sent out this free beautiful snow globe template for the Holidays. The actual template had Christmas text but since it is a little past the season, I used the globe to place some pretty crazy looking plants created in Paintstorm Studio in the place of the photo. I love to doodle around in Paintstorm! The top layer of the template explains how to position your objects in the image. The image was clipped to the Photo Mask layer and adjusted using the Free Transform Tool (CTRL+T). Then I added my orange fish brush from Summer Sails Brush Pack by pixelsandicecream. Had to paint the fish details as it is just a black silhouette as a brush. Also on another layer added Fish Brush 2 by loswl for the little fish in top of globe. A Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer was clipped (ALT+click between layers) to the fish using a yellow-gold watercolor pattern. Next my text layer was added using a font called Henny Penny. The last step added a layer style using the Inner Shadow set to Screen Blend Mode and White color and to a Distance of 7, Choke 12, and Size 68; and an Inner Shadow set to Saturation Blend Mode, white color, Opacity 100, and Size 250. All the layers in this template can be adjusted to add or removed items or change the color. That’s it! It does look like a party going on!…..Digital Lady Syd


Contemplating Life

Vintage image of a beautiful woman from Shorpy's from cc1912
This was a black and white image from one of my favorite websites, Shorpy’s Historic Picture Archive (click on link to see original image). This image just sort of struck me as one I would really like to colorize. The first step was to sharpen up the image using the now free Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 to add some natural contrast to the overall image. Next I used two different methods in this image, although I probably should have stayed with just one, but here are links to my blogs on these techniques: How To Hand Tint a Vintage Image and Create a Brush To Do This blog and How To Colorize an Old Photo blog. A Red Channel Luminosity Curves Adjustment Layer was used to add in more contrast. (See my How To Use a Red Channel To Create a Nice Blended Image Effect blog.) On a stamped layer above (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E), opened Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Texture Effects 2. My Crisp Morning Run preset was run (this used the original Topaz Crisp Morning Run preset and switched out the Texture to a bright turquoise one half-way down the list and the Opacity was set to 0.29; also changed Vignette Strength set to 0.60 and Size 0.53.) Then in Light Leaks section, the Enable Masking was turned on. Brush tab was selected, and the woman was painted out with a brush around the head area (brush settings: Radius 0.50, Strength 0.59, and Hardness 0.30). In the Split Tone section, used the Enable Masking feature with the Spot tab to just hide the face area – set sliders to Transition 0.84 and Color Aware 0.86. Nik Viveza 2 (also free) was used to sharpen up the texture on her dress using a Control Point and the Structure slider. Added a Black and White Adjustment Layer set to Luminosity blend mode to balance the contrast. (See my How To Use a Black & White Adjustment Layer To See Contrast in an Image blog.) I just did not like the way her arm and hand on the chair looked too large so the Liquify Filter was used to adjust. Frooze the dress sleeve and chair behind and under the arm, then reduced the size and straightened the arm with Forward Warp Tool set to Size 300, Density 50, Pressure 100, and Rate 0 – just moved a little. Next PS’s Liquify Pucker Tool was set to Size 200, Density 50, Pressure 1 and Rate 80 – dabbed on hand a couple times. To enlarge the eyes just slightly, used the Bloat Tool set to Size 70, Density 50, Pressure 1, and lowered Rate to 32. Clicked once on each eye to just gently enlarge. Now all I could see was the red moire in the shadows of her arm skin and around eyes. Used Topaz DeNoise 6 set to overall Strength of 0.14, adjust Shadow 0.37, and adjust Color Red 0.69 to remove – set this layers opacity to 87%. I could paint these old vintage images all day long – really relaxing to do!…..Digital Lady Syd


On a Mission

Image of a Flying Hornbill
Felt like doing a bird painting – have not done one in a while. I felt a connection with this guy at the Jackonsville Zoo a while back. This Hornbill was showing off by flying back and forth in his cage for me. I think he would rather be flying free as I visualized in my painting, but he and his buddies seemed to be very happy and healthy at the Zoo. It always amazes me that a chained fence and shadows can be removed from a photo when it is painted. The bird was selected using the Select and Mask filter in Photoshop – it did a really good job. It did not hurt to have a beautiful texture to put behind him – this was a free texture from Jai Johnson called Captured Light at Sea 4 and just suited the lighting on the bird and his coloring. Some textures just did not blend well so several had to be tried. Then basically lots of blending and painting with the Mixers and the Regular Photoshop brushes. Just do a search on my blogs to find my favorite brushes. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Lens Effects Reflector filter was added to give a more pronounced lighting effect on the right side of the image and Nik Viveza 2 was added to smooth out the whole effect. This basically was just a lot of fun to paint and very relaxing!…..Digital Lady Syd


Sunny Winter Trees

Painted winter trees
Just having some fun painting trees, my favorite thing to paint. This image was painted for starters in Corel Painter with a solid color light gray color for the background and using several different brushes. Then Photoshop was used and mainly Aaron Blaise’s Photoshop Canvas Texture brushes were used to add more leaves and color into the image. Then I decided I did not like the image but did not know why so I walked away for a couple of weeks. Today I decided to try again and decided the overall color was not what correct. A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was used to change the background to a bluish color which I prefer. A Red Channel Adjustment Layer (see my How to Use a Red Channel to Create a Nice Blended Image Effect Fun Photoshop blog) was used to pop the original tree luminosity and it turned out much better. I am really enjoying getting back into Painter again, but I still have to have my PS brushes to help out!…..Digital Lady Syd


Hello from a Queen

Image of a Queen Emma Lily
I was updating all my Topaz (see sidebar for website link) plug-ins this morning (many were updated in December 2016) and ended up experimenting with a few. I was using this beautiful Queen Emma Lily bloom, which was a difficult image to remove the distracting green background from the bloom. So I just started applying filters as I was checking update info. Topaz Black and White Effects was used to create an image with some color in it. Then on a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) Topaz Clean’s Cartoon Desaturated preset was used to get a more detailed effect. On a duplicate layer Topaz ReStyle’s Zombie Ziggurat preset was applied. On another duplicate layer Topaz Glow was used. Lots of clean up layers were created to make sure it looks right. I finally found a fabulous Photoshop Pencil – Grut’s P Tin Softy – a new one he recently included in a great collection of 43 pencils. This brush was used to fill in black lines which were missing and adding a little color in little areas. Last step was adding Nik Viveza 2 to even out the background. That was all that was done!…..Digital Lady Syd