Grunge Hydrangea

I reprocessed this image for Mary's article over at the Digital Photography School,  to help illustrate how using different textures on the same image can  completely change the feel of a photo, it's one of the things textures are so useful for. The earlier version is much more soft, dreamy and subtle.
Anyway, here's what I did.....

Catacomb Frieze @ Overlay 100% masked from the jug
Lyme Fossil @ Overlay 100% masked carefully from the focus areas as desired
It looked okay like this but to give it more of a grunge feel I added a Fly Edge
Fly Edge 13 @ Overlay 100% this layer was inverted using the invert adjustment layer and masked from the central portion so the grunge didn't overwhelm the subject.
Catacomb Frieze and Lyme Fossil are from the Spring Painterly pack.
See it on Flickr 

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

at the watermark

Firstly, Jill and I would like to say a big Hi to the fans of the DPS site!
It was a pleasure to answer questions for Mary Andrade's feature on -
'Tips for Texturing Photographs' over on the DPS site.
For all newcomers to to Flypaper, simply mouse-over the images for a fast before/after effect!

Another dawn beach shot from Eastbourne on the English Channel coast. Taken with a Lensbaby Compositor with the aperture fully open.
The great thing about retro lens effects is the way they add a soft antique look when photographing subjects from another age,
in this case the ageless wave breakers. Without the lensbaby's softened edges this image would be quite different, almost abstract.
I could have left the image a darkly moody one, but chose instead to try and make it a little more painterly by using textures from the new flypaper spring painterly set.

Orange Blossom - Overlay @ 54%
Umbra Eclipse - Overly @ 100% brushed away from bottom half
Opal - Soft Light @ 100% brushed away from top half
Newt - Color @ 19%

Afterwords the flattened imaged was brightened with the CS5 Adjustments - Levels.
The end result, I think you'll agree, is like turning the light on! :-)

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

three girls running

Firstly, Jill and I would like to say a big Hi to the fans of the DPS site!
It was a pleasure to answer questions for Mary Andrade's feature on -
'Tips for Texturing Photographs' over on the DPS site.
For all newcomers to to Flypaper, simply mouse-over the images for a fast before/after effect!

Just back from England where I was lucky enough to have mostly fine weather over Easter. A couple of times I drove to the coast and stayed in a beach front hotel in Eastbourne, with its dramatic white chalk cliffs,
it made an ideal base.
Its also my first time with a Lensbaby Compositor to try-out in cooler climes with their more opalescent light are ideal for the soft retro look. However, you still need to take care in over-bright, flat light conditions. Thus, most of my pictures from this trip were taken during the golden hour in the morning or evening.

With Britain's real high and low tides, you get these lovely wide expanses of wet reflective sand, something we don't get in the almost tideless Mediterranean!
Armed with tall wellingtons, I paddled out, when these three girls ran past, facing the setting sun I quickly snapped a few silhouetted pictures of them, this one is the best, but perhaps sensing a camera, the final girl running did an amazing cartwheel! I hope to try and rescue this more blurry image later..

The processing was fairly simple, just two Spring Painterly textures. And btw, the Lensbaby had no apertures inside, as I like as much light as possible to reach the camera. The sweet spot being towards the top of this portrait orientated image.

The bottom of the image was fairly dark, so I lightened it to the base image shown, then added these two textures;
Opal - Overly @ 100%
Creme Anglaise - Overly @ 100%

See it larger on Flickr

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

Ode

Another photo of one of my favourite photographic subjects, I never get sick of the climbing hydrangea! The photo was taken with my wonderful new Pentax 50-135 f2.8 lens, it produces some lovely bokeh. I textured this on the laptop while I was at our country hut this past weekend  and since our hut isn't connected to the electricity grid, it was done by the light of a gas lantern with me hoping the laptop battery wouldn't run out before I got it finished. It was a quick one to process though, I think I used the first textures I tried which were....

Ovid Banished @ Soft Light 100%
Giverny @ Overlay 100 % (this was responsible for much of the green tone)
The  focus flower was using a curves layer masked from the rest of the image.

See it a little larger on Flickr

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

Powder Blue Hydrangea

I am enjoying playing with the new Spring Flypapers, although we trialled them extensively prior to release it's always fun coming up with new combinations and finding out what works with a certain style of photo.  Over in our Flypaper flickr group there's a thread where you can tell us which your favourites are from the new pack so far,  we'd love to hear from you.

In this first fairly simple recipe I used 3 Spring Textures
Peacock @Soft Light 100% masked from the jug
Paysage Linge @ hard light 43%
Apple Moss @Overlay 75 % toned blue using a hue saturation adjustment and gently  masked off jug and flowers.

See it on Flickr

Spring Painterly Pack

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

$40

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

See all our packs and deals on one Page