Trees Through the Mist

As its abnormally freezing cold outside, here in the French Mediterranean,
I thought I'd go through the old pictures that never reached the blog, mostly this happens because the tutorial is either too complicated, lost layers or was produced with pre-released textures. We then forget about them and they tend to get passed over..

Taken last winter, in the early morning mist, the first image has already been treated with Nik Bi Color Filters, number 1, the first yellow brown on top of the list, opacity @ 50%.Before this, and now I'm guessing, I believe it was put through something like brilliance/warmth, also in the Nik Color Filters. I also believe its had lighten/darken center applied. Special care should be taken in not allowing the whole thing to become too muddy, and because of this I brightened the horizon line through the trees. The final effect has a French impressionistic painterly feel!
Textures were quite simple after the basic colour correction. Just two were used, firstly the famous Orange Blossom, from our Spring Painterly set, and then apple Blush from the classic grunge texture Box 1.

Orange Blossom - Normal @ 73%
Apple Blush - Soft Light @ 68% - Flipped vertically, slightly smoothed in PS.

Autumn Painterly Pack

40 rectangular (4000 by 5000 px) Textures

$40

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

Only $40

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Roman bridge into mist

Welcome to the Autumn seasons textured images! Here's another from my misty morning set, our local ancient Roman bridge into our little old Beziers! Of our several crossings Its my favorite bridge, its both narrow and winding and takes just one lane of light traffic.
Its also historic as its the bridge that the medieval army of crusaders crossed to slaughter most of the Cities inhabitants kicking off the start of the bloody Albigensian Crusade, all of which was chronicled in Kate Mosse's recent blockbuster mystery novel, Labyrinth which was recently filmed in our area for a big UK based studio TV mini series, due out next year!

The image was shot in portrait format, the excess sky being cropped off the top, which might be very useful negative space if used as say, a book cover for Getty, but for its pure drama, I felt this was the right crop.

There are two post processed versions, this is the final darker one, the other is much paler and more ethereal but also stands on its own.
In this new rectangular Autumnal set we used many French names to enhance its seasonal perfumed motif, here I used just two, Quelques Fleurs - meaning, some flowers. And Contre Jour, meaning fittingly, against the light!

Quelques Fleurs - Soft Light @ 45%

Contre Jour - Overlay @ 100%

I then flattened the image and was happy with it, but decided to push the processing by doubling up the image and used Multiply to beef up the image and bring out the blue tones in the sky.

Autumn Painterly Pack

40 rectangular (4000 by 5000 px) Textures 

$40

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

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page

Chasing the wind

Its always nice to wake up and find another one of your babies gracing
a published book cover! Here's today's, an American thriller,
heavily textured with our flypaper painterly textures.
Its just a preview copy as its not yet out, so I expect their colours will hopefully not be as muddled as this one with its quick run though our preferred Nik Color Bi Filters.
I'm reprinting the original recipe from this summer but we'll have a brand new image and recipe shortly!
Book synopsis and pre-sales Amazon

I'm no stalker, but when I see a great silhouette, and I'm armed with a camera, I will sometimes move just a few tiny paces to try to get a secret shot!

Our narrow medieval streets are perfect for this type of shot, though for the same reason our streets are often too shaded and thus too dark, and don't even get me started on my pet hate, parked cars! Here I used the trusty Lensbaby once more, lens wide open, at F1; no aperture. It was around 5pm, before the sun wasn't too low but also not directly overhead.

As we've been asked, Ive tried to recreate how I processed, step by step, and why I chose the textures used.

To the base image, to add more definition, I first slightly cross processed it and used a slight vignette darkening the edges. You can do this simply with free photoshop actions

To start with texturing I wanted to add more light. For my recent lensbaby shots I like to use the new Opal texture, here I used it twice, then I wanted to add a more beefy texture and darken the sky, I chose Tempest Sea, flipped vertically.
I loved the painterly/scratchy effect on the blue scaffolding covers brought by this texture, but found the overall blue a little too bright/fruity. So another favorite texture was pulled out, Newt to help tone down, which was okay but still not quite there, so I clicked it off. Finally I tried Swans Way for the first time, as I liked the look of that billowing canvas like movement this texture suggests, and Wow, happy days! It toned down the blue perfectly and pulled it all together and added a dramatic cracked grunge!

It was almost finished but decided there was now just a bit too much street clutter which the textures had highlighted.
So I clone tooled out a red road sign on the right, and a pale board on the left under the scaffolding, both clearly visible on the raw base image.

Opal - Overlay @ 74 % softly brushed from bottom edge and tot of sky
Opal - Overlay @ 100 % softly brushed from bottom edge and all of sky and right building
Tempest Sea - Overlay @ 45% Flipped vertically
Swans Way - Soft Light @ 100%

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

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page

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%

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

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

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page

Tower Bridge

During a recent summer stay in London, I visited some old friends who have moved to the now very fashionable South Bank of the Thames. As it was my first trip to this area I was amazed to see such regeneration and life in this ancient, and once shabby area! We did a several mile loop of both sides of the Thames with the black pug - you can see him in the first image, edited out with a clone tool as he looked, well, too blobby!
Also edited out was the company name on the left-hand building. I almost removed the lady in red but thought she added a bit of interest, and anyhow, it would have taken me ages to match up those floor tiles!

This is a modern day London Canyon view of the old Tower Bridge, recently shown in all its close-up glory in the recent sherlock holmes
movie. Unfortunately it was a very gloomy and overcast day, thus my pictures were a tad on the dark side. However, by running the image through Nik - HDR I was able to bring out the colours.

For a final tweak I used just one Flypaper texture, mostly over the over-bright sky area and also to rebalance the picture.

Orange Blossom - Multiply @ 50% over bright sky areas only.

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

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

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

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Thom Cross - Standing on the Edge of the World

Yet another Flypaper product to share, this time an indie pop CD/EP!
Several months ago I was contacted by Thom, originally a New Zealander, and now a London based musician who wanted to use one or two of my images, naturally I was delighted to help, and sorted him out with this and another image, as yet unused.

The Graphics were designed by Dublin based Steve Avrill, who many might recall designed the most famous U2 albums!
The original square format was left intact, - always a good sign!
We leave a music link here, kindly supplied by Thom, who is said to sound a little like David Bowie spliced with U2, but I can also detect a smattering of Suede!
Have a listen yourselves and let us know what you think, Im sure Thom would love to hear feedback, as for us here at fly, we love it!:-)

The recipe was shown some time ago, but I'll republish it here, using Flypaper Summer Textures.

Back in Brighton where I took many photographs on my late afternoon
visit, walking from one pier to the ruined West Pier. I remembered seeing it before I left England in the 1990's, It was being renovated into a huge restaurant/night club but had mysteriously caught fire.
Today this is all that remains of this Victorian iron construction, impossibly expensive to repair and left to rot gracefully like a whales skeleton.
For now this wreck is the perfect roosting place for thousands of migratory starlings!

The first landscape version had already been brightened and had Matmos Lake added,flipped vertically and desaturated. Jill suggested it would also be nice cropped square and re-textured. This is the result!

Simple, light processing was called for as there was already quite a lot going on texturally already.

From Summer Painterly I used:
Aquarius - Soft Light @ 100% desaturated to a pale blue tone
Brushed Rose - Soft Light @ 100%

A final tweak of the merged image to pull the sky tones together.

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

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

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page