Looking North

Another photo of my favourite beach, taken on a warmer and sunnier day than the previous photo of it I posted here.  I was lucky that I managed to catch a passing gull when I snapped this.
Onto the  processing...
Beau Linge Paysage @ Soft Light 13% masked from the lower portion of the photo
Evening Veil @ Soft Light 100%
Oxford Parchment @ Soft light 100% masked from the upper portion of the photo
Nik pro contrast (though you could use curves) to increase the contrast of the sea. I masked this from the lower portion.
Villa Adriana @ Overlay 92% masked from the central portion)
Beau Linge Paysage and Villa Adriana are from the SpringPainterly pack, Oxford Parchment and Evening Veil are from the Summer Painterly Pack

See it larger on Flickr

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The King and I

Over in Thailand they are now suffering badly from flooding,
when we were there at this famous Unesco protected site we learned that this area of ruins was the original setting for Rogers and Hammerstein's - The King and I musical!
The blockbuster movie was about a widow who accepts a job as a live-in governess of the King of Siam's children.
Later, it was attacked by the Burmese and was ransacked, so the Royal family moved south to the impressive capital city it is today, Bangkok!
This abandoned site was always prone to flooding, being on an island on a monsoon river, so unsurprisingly this stupa is today standing in floodwater, and ironically Bangkok is also suffering as the rainfall has been unprecedented.

Back here in sunnier times as illustrated, its nice to be able to share dramatic before and after transformations here on the blog.
That tree, I ummed and ahhed about, should it stay or should it go?
I even started processing with it in place but then thought;
"When I add textures its going to get too cluttered",
so thats when it had to go.
Firstly as the image was a little bit soft I used Photoshop Water colour filter effect, very lightly with a Normal layer @ 50% for the painterly effect.
I started with Nik colour filters, I chose their Bi Color Filter, its a lovely blue on one side and yellow on the other, you can easily spin it around so I made the sky on the right bluer and darker and the Stupa lighter and sunnier. I was very happy with this but it need something else, something more than cheerful colours? Of course, it needed our flypaper textures!
I pulled Pantheon Stone out of the Summer textures pack and popped it on top of the whole picture, this lightened the stupa even more, I always think stone textures look good on architecture!
Next, I wanted to balance the sky and add depth so out came our famous Pans Sky from the Summer textures pack and I pulled it over the image pulling it to the bottom, not worrying about distortion. It worked beautifully, it was like the sun coming out and highlighting the stupa where it needed it most! I removed some of the sky texture from the stupa but left about 50% in the middle, but more like 80% at the top and bottom.

recipe
Duplicate of Base - Photoshop Water colour filter effect Normal @ 50%
Nik Bi Color Filter Normal @ 75%
Pantheon Stone Overlay @ 34%
Pans Sky Overly @ 100% 50% softly removed from mid stupa

Spring Painterly Pack

40 Large Textures (38 square and two huge rectangles) for only

$40

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Complete Flypaper Package

 Texboxes 1&2, Fly edges, Spring, Summer and Autumn painterly

$220

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

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Pumpkin seat son!

Summers strong clear light is great but Textures and Autumn were made for each other!
Less than 2 weeks ago we were bathing in the sea and basking in 90F here in the south of France, now the heaters are on low as there is a chilly north wind a-blowing. With it comes the Mediterraneans smoky evenings as many people burn old Vine stumps in their kitchens and cook in their ashes. The downside is that those Vines are steeped in years of sulfur applications against mildew, and I'm quite allergic to this in the air. Still it has its upside, the seasonal celebrations are a fun distraction and give us an excuse to do a shot or two, with tongue firmly in cheek!

Shown here in front of my new chocolate colored wall, did I say chocolate? Because look how the lighting has changed it to green!
Shot very simply with reflected sunlight from the right and a cheap, 120w small halogen lamp's light is reflected from the left hand white wall.

Nothing was planned, I sat on the floor and snapped a couple of fast shots as I had an appointment to go to. I'm glad I did as we now have a week of low light and rain forecast!
Processing was fairly simple, I wanted our flypaper texture showing on that back wall, which has already been slightly enhanced in CS5 HDR, or with the Nik HDR Efex Pro I'd recommend number 26 Friendly scenery, and take down their effect with their sliders.
Before merging I removed around 50% of the HDR enhanced layer.
I also used Nik - darken lighten center moving the brightest part to the pumpkin and finally after the textures were fattened I gave a slight Glamor Glow from the Nik filters. Naturally, you can do all this with photoshop, but I like Nik these days for its speed and ease of processing.

Finally, I clicked auto tone in photoshop on a duplicated layer giving an effect like turning on a spotlight, however it was in the wrong place above the chair, so I brushed away most of this final layer leaving the brighter Pumpkin, nicely highlighted!

I chose Flypaper Summer Textures, as I didn't want the Spring paint brush effect, but I could have chosen any pack in reality, perhaps it was a hankering for those balmy summer days?
Anyhow, I opened Dawn Grunge, and it brightened up the chair a little too much so I removed a little from the chairs top fabric. Then opening up Sariel Leather, thinking it might enhance the autumn tones, and it worked a treat.
Sometimes the first textures you choose work perfectly and this was one of those spooky days!

Happy Halloween!

Dawn Grunge - Overlay @ 65% brushed from chairs highlights
Sariel Leather - Soft Light @ 48%

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Bluebells

It's been a while since we updated the blog, we've both been busy with other things.  I've been trying to get my garden organised amongst other things, I spent some of today planting my vegetable garden, I'm looking forward to heirloom rainbow carrots this season along with golden globe beetroot and celeriac, providing they grow that is.

In the flower garden the bluebells are still flowering, I love their elegant arched stems.
I gave these ones the Flypaper Texture treatment.

Eau de Nil @ Overlay 100% I  converted this layer to a smart object and blurred it using a gaussian blur and because I wanted some of the texture showing I removed the blur from the edges using the smart object layer mask.
Cobalt Cloud @ Soft Light 100%

Eau de Nil is from the Spring Painterly set and Cobalt Cloud from the Summer Painterly.
See it larger on Flickr

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$40

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Complete Flypaper Package

Tex Box 1, Tex box 2, Fly Edges, Summer Painterly & Spring Painterly

$180

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

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Roses transformed

This is a photo that's been sitting in my archives for ages, I didn't like the dark wood I had shot against so it had been rejected. This afternoon I had a bit of time to play and managed, quite easily too,  to disguise the darkness. It's inspired me, so hope it might inspire you too!
So here's how I did it...

Oxford Parchment @ Hard Light 75%
Peach blush @ Screen 100% Masked as desired from the focus areas
Aquarius @ Hard light 52% masked as above
Brushed Rose @ overlay 8% this just added a little warmth
Curves and levels adjustments to tweak tone
And voila! An image transformed!
See it a little larger on Flickr

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Wilted

A few days ago I took delivery of a Lensbaby composer lens, it's something I have had my eyes on for ages but spurred on by Paul's photos taken using his, I decided to take the plunge. I've loved it so far and it's hardly been off the camera though I'm still coming to grips with finding the sweet spot if the lens is in anything other than centred.
Most of the shots I've taken so far have been landscapes so yesterday I decided to see if I could take some closer ones. The focusing distance is about 12 inches and although you can get a lensbaby macro filter for closer work, I don't have one of those, I do however, have a set of 52 mm close-up filters which screw onto the front of an ordinary lens, so I thought I'd  see how they'd work. Since I lack an adapter to attach the filter on the front of the "baby", I just held it in place in front of the lens and moved the camera in and out till I achieved focus and voila, this here is the result! The processing was relatively simple....

Fly Edges 3@ Soft light 100% removed from the flower using a radial graduated fill
Curves layer to add  a little contrast
Dawn Grunge@ Hard light 83% removed from the flower and  lighter parts of the image
Brushed rose @ Soft Light 100%

See it a little larger on Flickr

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Cone Flower

These cone flowers or echinacea are such beautiful photographic subjects with their bold spiky centres and pretty colours. This is a white form that grows at  my local Botanic Garden. I do have a plant of my own which I notice is just coming into flower for the first time, it's been slightly overshadowed by some taller growing plants next to it so I think I'll have to move it if I want it to thrive.

I could have easily left this one without textures but I wanted to show a slightly different processing using a Fly Edge.

Brushed Rose @ Soft light 100% Toned slightly orange using a hue saturation adjustment
Fly Edge 16 @ Subtract 59% This layer was inverted. Subtract is one of the new blending modes in CS5, if you don't have it and want the same effect you will  have to experiment, using colour burn without the inverting seems to give a similar effect.

See it slightly larger on Flickr

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

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