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Chatting with the Ladies on the Bridge

Image of a turtle in Graham Swamp
This was a fairly large sized turtle that was hanging around the bridge platform where I was talking with a few other ladies – he seemed totally enthralled with our conversation. Something tells me he was looking for a hand-out. Lucis Pro was added to sharpen him up a little first. Then Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Studio Texture Effects filter (started with Earthy Cat and Window Gaze preset – only used these adjustments: Blurs, Basic Adjustment, Texture and set the Opacity to 0.30 – used as it gave a natural looking interest in the water; added Dehaze Adj – 0.72 opacity and Strength 0.91 and Suppress Artifacts 0.73 – gave water a darker richer color; next added Radiance Adj – 0.97 opacity, Overlay bm, Radiance Type Light, Strength 0.53, Width 0.16, Length -0.28, Curl 0, Suppress Weak 0.01, Effect Coverage 1.00, Fade 0.13, and Sat 0.63 – in mask painted around turtle with small brush which lightened it up around turtle, then used the Adjust settings and set the Density and Contrast to blend the color into the water color – gave a very soft edge around the turtle; the Glow filter was added last – Opacity 0.58, Overlay bm, Primary Glow Type 0.10, Primary Effect Sharpness 0.74, Primary Electrify 0.23, Primary Simplify Details 0.87, Primary Edge Color 0.17, Primary Detail Strength -0.40, Primary Detail Size 0.20, Primary Brightness 0.37, Primary Contrast 0.98, Primary Sat 0.23, Primary Line Rotation 0, Primary Glow Spread 0.08, Coverage Transition 0.31 and Sharp Radius 0.10). In Photoshop a Vignette was created using Matt K’s technique (see my How to Create a Subtle Vignette blog). The font is called Style Casual, one of my favorites. ….. Digital Lady Syd

Emily the Pig

Image of Emily, one of the pigs at a celebration in the Town of Bath
This little pig has the same story as another pig image I took way back in 2008 when the Town of Bath in England was having a public art event to celebrate Bath’s origins and artists. (See my King Bladud’s Pig blog.) King Bladud’s (cc 863 BC) pig, named Emily and painted by Charlotte Moore, is one of 106 pigs that were on display all over the city (I only saw a few) and they were sold at auction to raise money for the benefit of Bath’s Two Tunnels Project.  Not a lot was done with this image. The pig was selected and a texture was placed behind her and set to Difference blend mode – that is why you can see the people behind her but not real clearly. Then Luminar was opened and one of my favorite presets by Joel Grimes was applied (Soft and Desaturated) – these preset can still be downloaded from Luminar for free from inside the program. Back in Photoshop a New Layer was opened and just a bit of black was added to darken the bright areas a little more. Last step used Nik Viveza 2 to emphasis the focal point a little more. That was it!…..Digital Lady Syd

Oahu Landscape

Image of hotels and buildings along the beach in Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii
Had some fun with this image of some of the hotels and buildings along the beach of Waikiki. This image actually has a big pool of water in front with a large sandy beach and people swimming. Instead I added the Flaming Pear’s Flood Filter to create a beautiful reflection of the palm trees along the edge of the original water. A Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer was added to brighten up the colors – ran a free action by Sparklestock called Ultimate Vibrance. In a black layer mask the buildings and trees were painted back. On a stamped layer Nik Viveza 2 was applied to sharpen up the hotel fronts and add a subtle vignette around the edges. The last step involved going into the PS Camera Raw and applying a favorite preset from David duChemin’s older “Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom” book (all his books are great) named Classic India Split Tone (here are the very simple settings: use Split Toning section either in Lightroom or Camera Raw and set Highlights Hue to 50, Sat 60, Balance 0, Shadows Hue 266, and Sat 35). That was it. I loved the pinkish tones which this preset brings out…..Digital Lady Syd

Leaf Waterfall in a Rain Forest

Image of leaves fall down a tree trunk at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden
Image was taken at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden on the Big Island near Hilo. This is a wonderful place to visit if you get on the island. Everything grows in giant size here including these philodendrons on a vine around the tree trunk – it really did look like a waterfall made of leaves. I created the image as a black and white and decided I liked having the dark green blue color in the image as it looked more natural to me. To change the color, Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReStyle was used by applying the Midnight on Swan Lake preset. A Matt K vignette was created (see my How to Create a Subtle Vignette blog) and that that was about it.

Introducing the Beautiful Fox

Digital Art painting of a fox
Enjoyed painting this beautiful fox – used Unsplash image by Linnea Sandbakk as a base for the painting. This follows pretty much the same painting process as used in my Wolf image except the body was not sketched first. This image contains 64 layers, so it took quite a bit of effort to get this result. Three textures were used to get the result and numerous brushes. I would go into more detail, but it is basically just finding a workflow and some brushes that work, and then painting. This is really so relaxing and fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd

Girl Playing Erhu

Image of a girl playing an Erhu in Scotland
This is an image of a girl playing an Erhu, a traditional Chinese musical instrument from the Song Dynasty dating back to 1104 AD. She was playing along the Royal Mile, the main road through the historic district of Edinburgh, Scotland. This instrument has a very lovely sound and I actually bought a CD from her called Erhu by Yan Shi (unable to find a link for it as it is written mainly in Chinese). This image just seemed to need a black and white treatment so in Lightroom, one of Sergi Ramelli’s presets in his B&W pack called AA Drama Radial Circle Dark was applied and adjusted to fit. Then in Photoshop, Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Lens Effects was applied using the Streak Filter. I have never used this before, but I love the way it gave just a little light effect and added a motion feel to the bow. On a stamped layer, Nik Viveza 2 was applied to adjust the focus on her face and hand. That was basically all that was done. I wish had more images like this one. …..Digital Lady Syd

A Miniature Horse

Digital Painting of a Miniature Horse
Doing a little more drawing and painting practice. This was a little miniature horse whose image was taken outside Minsk in Belarus. He was totally adorable. I decided he would make a good subject to paint. This time I did cheat a little on the rough drawing – used Topaz Simplify to create a very loose outline of the image and then removed the white using Select -> Color Range using the Shadows in the drop down. Then the Refined Drawing was done from this. After that the Local Color was added, Shadows and Highlights, and finally the texture was added to the horse, fence and gate. It is essentially the same workflow as was used in my Wolf drawing – see my Learning to Draw a Wolf! blog. Follow the links in my wolf blog for the great video by Aaron Blaise on how to do this. The background is one I created in Corel Painter a while ago and just seemed to fit this wonderful little guy. I am really enjoying trying out this new painting style in Photoshop. …..Digital Lady Syd

Trafalgar Square Fun!

Image of the Traflagar Square Festival
I am not sure why I did this image except that it was just fun to put together some older images I liked but were not that great to post as is. This is a composite using some of the girls that were in a nighttime show called Fashion Bus on the Square Show (a comedy fashion and dance show) at Trafalgar Square in London where it was pretty dark and crowded. The lettering was a banner at Trafalgar Square and the fireworks were added separately from my own sources. It ended up being a high-key image that looks pretty much how it did at the time of the event. The girl image was taken into Luminar 2018 (see sidebar for website link) where Joel Grimes Portrait Pop the Blues preset was applied (check to see if they are still available as a free preset from Luminar when in the software). Then it was mainly just a major clean up effort using clone stamps and mixer brushes. It was fun to try something kind of different. …..Digital Lady Syd

Double Rainbow

Image of a Double Rainbow
Totally enjoyed watching a regular rainbow turn into this gorgeous double rainbow as the clouds rolled in and the sun went down (image shot just before 8:00 PM). I do not think I have ever seen one here in Florida before. Very little post-processing was done other than the Adaptive Wide Angle filter was used to straighten the lines a little since I shot at 10 mm using my Nikor 10-24 mm lens to get the whole rainbow in the image. (Other settings were F/8.0, 1/15 sec, ISO 200, and -1/2 EV.) The clouds also were lit with the same beautiful sunset light. Hope I get to see some more of these in the future! …..Digital Lady Syd

Tiny Bubbles

The fish at Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island in Hawaii
Been thinking about Hawaii’s Big Island getting hit by a hurricane and knowing how awful that is. Decided to post an image taken at the Hilton Waikoloa Village a while back at the Waters Edge Breakfast Buffet. These bubble blowers may not be grouper fish, but they are pretty close. It was a lot of fun to a do something with a little humor in it. This image was post processed using On1 (see sidebar for website link) Photo Raw 2018 Effects using the Dynamic Contrast, Sharpening, HDR Look, and Color Enhancer filters – I can really see improvements with this program. Some bubbles were created using a Lisa Cagney trick. Nik Viveza 2 was used so all the bubbles would show up. PS Color Lookup Table using the Foggy Night preset at 33% layer opacity was applied. Then a Gradient Fill Adjustment Layer beige to tan gradient at 36% layer opacity was applied. A couple Spotlight Effect layers were used to apply a little lightening and darkening effect. The text is Soak Up the Sun Script Bold. That was it. These guys always made me smile when we went to breakfast!…..Digital Lady Syd