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A Vintage Butterfly Postcard Effect

My butterflies certainly get around. This lovely lady is checking out my yellow and pink lantanas in my front yard. I had fun creating this antique post card effect. Not sure why I did it but it was fun. Thought I would share how I got this final result as it involves using overlays, which add such an interesting look to an image. The original butterfly image was processed using Nik Color Efex Pro 4‘s Detail Extractor filter and then Film Efex Nostalgic Film Type 1 filter. This gave a very solid looking, almost illustrative look, butterfly and flowers to work with. I added a black layer mask and painted back the parts I wanted to use for the image. Underneath this layer ShadowHouse Creations PC8 (Post Card) texture was added and a Solid Color Adjustment Layer clipped to the texture (CTRL+Click between the layers) using a lighter color to brighten it up. Two layers were created and light blue and pink were painted around the butterfly and flowers. Three of French Kiss’s overlays were added:  1904 for the writing, Grungy Flourish for the upper left corner design, and Stamp 2 – all from the French Script No 1 brush collection, and Glorious Grunge Edging for the outside of the postcard (this is free on her website and a really nice overlay effect). Also on a New Layer a single brush stroke of Paper Scratch Brush in Paper Damages Brush Set on Adobe Exchange was used to get the folds. This just sort of developed and it was fun to do. Got to love Photoshop!…..Digital Lady Syd

Digital Lady Syd Related Posts:
Artistic Daisy!

11/08/2012 | Categories: Photoshop Filters, Textures | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

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

11/06/2012 | Categories: Photoshop Filters, Textures | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

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!

11/01/2012 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Feeling Butterflies!


Really liked the way this image turned out and it was a fairly simple process. After setting the Lens Correction panel and Cropping the image, a Blue Sky-Heavy Green preset created from Dave duChemin’s Lightroom 3 book  (the preset contains only Split Toning panel – Highlights Hue 220 and Saturation 25, Balance -15, and Shadows Hue 120 and Saturation 20) and Matt Kloskowski’s preset Focal Point (Portrait – Bottom Right) were applied. Since the first preset only affected the Split Toning panel and the Focal Point preset did not change this panel, both could be applied in Lightroom without a problem. The image was brought into Photoshop and first Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Detail was applied (Detail Setting used: Small Detail  .5, Medium Detail  .3, and Large Detail  .3; and Tone: Brightness  .03, Contrast   -.16, Cyan-Red  .26, Magenta-Green  -.37, and Yellow-Blue  .44) and Topaz DeNoise 5 (Noise Reduction slider .42 and Recover Detail slider .36).


Now the out-of-focus pink flowers looked bad, so a New Layer was created to paint in the over-exposed white spots to keep the eye from wandering to those areas. On another New Layer using a 15% opacity soft edge brush the straight green stem was painted darker sampling in the image to add a slightly darker green. Another Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was added and the Yellow Saturation set to +40. It took a while to settle on a final result but since the Adjustment Layers are all non-destructive, it was easy to try different effects. A Gaussian Blur was applied to a Composite Layer (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E) created on top and using a Radius of 6.6. On a layer mask, the butterfly and foreground flowers were painted back in black on the mask. A lower 30% opacity brush was used to slightly paint back the flowers in the mid-ground left side. Next my Soft Sparkle Overlay Frame was applied but since it is a deep reddish brown, a Solid Color Adjustment Layer (Clip it to the layer by clicking ALT+Click between the frame layer and the adjustment layer) set to an off-white was used. Finally a Curves Adjustment was added contrast. Just Fun!……Digital Lady Syd

Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
How To Make Frames or Borders
Getting Rid of Those Blown Out Areas in Your Image

10/30/2012 | Categories: Lightroom, Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

A Little OnOne Perfect Effects Vintage Look


This beautiful Scottish Church was taken from a train going from Edinburgh to St. Andrews. This is a wonderful way to capture some of the countryside. I am surprised how sharp this image was since the train was moving – my settings using a 18-200mm Nikon lens were F/13, 1/200 sec, ISO 400 using a 45 mm lens. For post-processing, the first thing done was to create three Virtual Copies in Lightroom and set them at different exposure settings – one to about -2, one using the original, and one set to +1.  This is a way to get an HDR look using a single image. The first two where then taken individually into Topaz DeNoise 5 (see sidebar for website link) and adjusted for noise issues. The +1 just used a little adjustment in Lightroom since the over-exposed image did not have a lot of noise. All three images were then selected in Lightroom and right-clicked to get menu – Open In -> Merge to HDR in Photoshop. That is how the bottom layer was created. Next by applying OnOne Perfect Effects (see sidebar for website link), the image took on a great look. This plug-in can do interesting things to images – usually when I just can’t put my finger on what I need for a photo, Perfect Effects has a solution. This image uses these filters presets stacked: Black and White->Warm Gray with colors swapped in Effects Options, Detail->Texture Booster, and Borders->Russell with Scale set to 4 in Effect Options. Back in Photoshop Nik’s Viveza 2 was applied to add a little soft color in the sky, sharpen the cupola, and add a little brightness to the front of the church. Then Topaz DeNoise 5 was applied one more time to get rid of some noise created by the plug-in application – this time it was targeted to the sky and water using an Overall Strength setting of .11, and for the lighter areas, Adjust Highlights set to .28. Recover Detail was set to .30 and Reduced Blur to .13. This sounds like it was a lot of effort, but it really was very quick to apply. The hardest part was adjusting the noise in the three virtual copies in Lightroom. …..Digital Lady Syd

Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
Can a Pseudo HDR Image be as Good as the Real Thing? (Part One)
Can a Pseudo HDR Image be as Good as the Real Thing? (Part Two)

10/25/2012 | Categories: Lightroom, Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Polly Parrot Simplified with Topaz!


Pretty basic application of Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Simplify 4 on this image. This adorable parrot image used a Simplify preset I previously applied to an ocean scene. (These are the preset settings: Simplify YCbCr; Size 0.15, Feature Boost 0, Details Strength 1.09, Details Boost 2.42 , Details Size 0.70, Remove Small 0.10, and Remove Weak 0.31; Adjustments tab: Brightness 0, Contrast 1.05, Saturation 1.70, Saturation Boost 1.20, Dynamics 0.31, Structure 0.95, and Structure Boost 1.00; No Edges; Curves Tool – Strong Contrast II; and Transparency – Overall Transparency 0.40.) ShadowHouse Creations beautiful Overlay Texture MO8-2012 was applied at Linear Dodge (Add) blend mode at 100% opacity. A Curves Adjustment Layer and a little clean up finished up the image. I love the results!…..Digital Lady Syd

10/23/2012 | Categories: Photoshop Filters, Textures | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

A Little Hollywood for My Butterfly Model



If you have ever tried Kelby Training, then you know how good it is. I just finished a short video class on Quick Composite From Photo to Finish by Calvin Hollywood, a wonderful Photoshop guru from Germany. He was shooting a lovely model but I like my lovely model above more. She spent quite a long time flitting around me and my bright pink penta flowers posing along the way. (She is using her proboscis to feed by sucking out the fluid of the flower, not unlike the trunk of an elephant.) I did a previous blog called Butterfly Beauty! a while back, where several different textures were applied. Also Mike Hardisty Photography recently posted a pretty white butterfly in his blog.

Calvin’s sharpening technique was used to sharpen the butterfly and it did do an amazing job! See Scott Kelby’s Guest Blog featuring Calvin with a short video on creating Freaky Amazing Details. An action for this can be downloaded here. His vignette technique was also used to spotlight my model and a couple of his color manipulation tricks were used to add some artistic flair. Overall, Calvin had a very good tutorial. The textures used in this image were ShadowHouse Creations Mixed Bag 2 set to Darker Color blend mode and Scratch Box 4 set to Overlay blend mode. The beautiful French writing in the background is French Kiss’s Script brushes that are for sale very inexpensively. ….Digital Lady Syd

Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
Spotlight Effect With the New Subtract Blend Mode

10/18/2012 | Categories: Textures | Tags: , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Loving SeaWorld!


Just a great start to a fun day at SeaWorld-Orlando. This is what you see right after entering the theme park. The lovely red flowers are red Bougainvilleas. In Lightroom three images were used in PhotoMatix’s Merge to 32-bit HDR program. Then the resulting TIFF image also was processed in Lightroom 4.2 before it was opened up in Photoshop CS6.  Nik Color Efex Pro 4 plug-in was applied stacking these filters: Film Efex: Vintage using Film Type 4, Glamour Glow, Midnight using an overall Opacity of 40%, and Image Border Type 4. A Curves Adjustment Layer was added to adjust contrast and the Sharpen Tool was used on the blooms. I really love the lighthouse with the whale image……Digital Lady Syd

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Digital Lady Syd Reviews Topaz DeNoise 5

10/16/2012 | Categories: HDR, Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Orange Flower Fun!


Just felt like posting a pretty autumn looking flower – these are called Orange Spark Symphony (Osteospermum hybrid) which are also called Mimosa Sunset – very confusing and very unusual! Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Adjust 5 was used with the Retro IV preset applied. ShadowHouse Creations OldPhoto2 texture was used and set to Soft Light Blend Mode. That is it! I love these daisies!…..Digital Lady Syd

Digital Lady Syd’s Related Blogs:
Digital Lady Syd’s Review of Topaz Adjust 5!
Cafe Alcazar and Vintage Topaz Adjust

10/11/2012 | Categories: Photoshop Filters, Textures | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

Trying Out Some New Techniques!



Just thought I would try out a couple new tricks. The image was a JPG shot with my little point-and-shoot Kodak camera at Flagler Beach on a beautiful early evening. A short Lightroom video called True Grit by Michael Rather was followed to create a nice gritty effect preset. I tried it on this landscape image (he used an image of a boy’s face) and really liked the effect. Next Topaz released Simplify 4 (see sidebar for website link) so I applied this plug-in to the photo in Photoshop. This is a free upgrade for anyone that has the bundle or has bought the Simpify plug-in previously. Lots of fun here. This was basically just playing around with the settings to get to know the program and getting a nice look. In Photoshop a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was added where the Red Hue slider was moved so it was not so bright. I also added a layer mask to the Simplify layer and painted back in just a little of the white wave detail using a soft, low opacity black brush in the mask. The last step is my Black and White Layer Style. …..Digital Lady Syd

Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:
Using Topaz Simplify for That Artistic Feel!
Blue Flowers and Layer Style Frame
I Didn’t Know That! Converting Lightroom Preset to Adobe Camera Raw Preset

10/09/2012 | Categories: Lightroom, Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

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