Sweet Peas

Don't sweet peas have the most wonderful fragrance? I wish I could share the scent with you all -as someone on flickr said at times like this we need a scratch and sniff computer screen! I have one of my neighbours to thank for these beauties, they grow in profusion over her fence beside the footpath so I stole a few blooms on my way past.

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Okay the processing.
Balthamos Blue @ Soft light 25%
Tarte Tatin @ Overlay 61% toned blue with a hue saturation adjustment and removed from the focus flowers.
Stamp visible by pressing Ctrl-Alt -Shft -E on a PC (on a Mac it will be similar)
Change the opacity of that layer to Soft light @ 18%
Luminescent @ Screen 18% removed from the focus flowers with a layer mask.
Luminescent @ Hard light 25%

And it was done! The change is fairly subtle but it's all you need sometimes. See it  on Flickr

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English golf course

Back in England, I was held up by gales and so missed the leaf-peak by a few days, but rushed out on the first early morning after the wind had ripped away half of the golden leaves I'd gone over to capture. The golfers were only too happy to inform me I'd just missed the best of the leaf peak!
This is one of the best of a bunch, taken on a hilltop golf course in Surrey. The dark corners are from the polarizer, I've still not worked out how to automatically remove them from my new Canon D5 mark II camera, any suggestions would be most welcome!

Processing was very easy, first I chose Matmos Lake to darken the sky, flipped vertically and desaturated then blurred, twice.
I then used Rose Blush painterly effect, desaturated and a second layer in full colour to finish.

Matmos Lake - Soft Light @ 100% flipped vertically and desaturated
Matmos Lake - Soft Light @ 100% flipped vertically and desaturated
Rose Blush - Soft Light @ 100% desaturated, bottom edge lightly brushed away.
Rose Blush - Overlay @ 100%
See it bigger on Flickr
See it even bigger on black on Flickr

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Hoody that caused a rumpus!

I'm delighted to be able to share my latest image which caused one sad individual on Flickr to accuse me of copying his work! Its also in answer to Bobs question showing how we create fake mist with just our flypaper textures. My original goal was just to achieve a nice image of an English woodland walk, you'll remember I had the PL filter stuck-on so the original image was a little dark.
To counter this I added Apple blush and Raw Linen in soft light @ 100% both from Pack one. I then used Matmos Lake, flipped vertically and desaturated, and blurred to darken the blown-out sky a little.
Here I could have stopped, but it was as they say, a beautifully polished turd! It was OK but uninteresting.

So, after a coffee break an idea came, I'd not liked the end of the avenue, as those two trees ruined it and I also wanted to hide the houses.
This mist idea came about just to obscure the end, so I chose Iorek Ice, blurred it slightly @ 100% and rubbed out everything but a cone shape to fill the end, I blurred more and it spread out, I doubled it up, again and again, adding more and more layers. I then remembered I had a Man Ray contest I should close back on Flickr, and the final idea came to me, the Wolf of the woods! I added the hoody figure I'd previously donated and Voila!
To ground him I added two blurred shadows as the light wasn't really defined in the mist and buried these layers under more layers of mist. Here I could have stopped, it was again ok, but looked kinda flat and gray. So I tried the old Crossed-Processing look I'd used for another couple of pictures. First I flattened the image and saved, then doubled the base, and to the top layer I moved the color sliders until it looked a bright green/blue.

Here's the science bit!
Iorek Ice Screen @ 34% middle of image only edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Iorek Ice Screen @ 52% middle of image only more edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Iorek Ice Screen @ 34% tunnel cone shape opening only, edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Iorek Ice Screen @ 52% tunnel cone shape opening only, edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Iorek Ice Screen @ 52% tunnel cone shape opening only, edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Hooded figure cut-out Luminosity @ 100%
Iorek Ice Screen @ 52% tunnel cone shape opening only, edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Hooded figure copy, flipped upside down and pulled under the first figure to create a shadow, distort shadow with perspective filter.
Shadow, Multiply @ 40%
Shadow Copy pull out of shape and blur slightly Multiply @ 49%
Dorian Gray - Hard light @ 42%
Iorek Ice - Color @ 70% This blanches all the colour from the image.
Iorek Ice Screen @ 32% from top of trees to bottom, but edges brushed away and blurred 100%
Flatten all and save.

Final version after part 2..

Part Two.
Base image in finished state.
Base image copy, Hard Light bright blue colour altered version @ 17%
Balthamos Blue - Soft Light @ 100% Dark edges brushed away from images dark bottom corners
Base image in finished state copied - Soft Light @ 27% just to tone down the bright blue and add more earthy green tones.

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My first cover!

My first book cover, or at least the first one I've managed to find. Although my image (the bird and branches) only makes up a small portion of the cover I'm thrilled! And yes I'll be buying the book and will even read it, might have to read the previous books in the series first though.
Here's the book on Amazon
And here's my original photo on Flickr

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Off-Season becomes her

On my recent trip to England I drove to Eastbourne, which is about a 30 min drive east along the coast from Brighton, or as the locals call,
'London-on-Sea' as so many ex-Londoners have moved there over the past 20 years.
Eastbourne is the poorer, more sedate neighbor, boasting superb unspoiled white cliffs and the most popular suicide jump in the UK!
Its pier is by far the better of the two famous piers, Eastbourne's pier also retains its Victorian Camera Obscura, which was closed for many years after a fire. However, I read this is now open again, though sadly not on the day I visited! Its the big dome on the right.
My afternoon visit was gloomy one, thick Stygian cloud-cover hung ominously over a becalmed green sea. The piers lights were mostly off, which was a shame as I think the few lights that were on really added something.

The above picture was shot with a circular polarizer, as have all my UK trips pictures had because the dratted thing was stuck on! On my return to France I took it back to the camera shop and they managed to release it by simply wrapping doubled up elastic bands around the edge of the PL for a better grip, Its a great tip I wish I had known back in England!

For the processing, I wanted to enhance the gloomy feel, so I started with the soft grunge from Flypaper pack 2, moving on to Summer Painterly for the Stygian tin edges and finishing with Nuriel clouds, to give the sky a bit of oomph!

Burnished Clay - Overlay @ 100%
Lime Plaster - Multiply @ 73% flipped vertically
Labyrinth - Overlay @ 100% Desaturated
Stygian tin - Soft Light @ 100% Desaturated with bottom brushed away.
Lime Plaster - Multiplied @ 55% flipped vertically
Nuriel Clouds - Soft Light @ 100% Desaturated
Nuriel Clouds - color @ 21% Desaturated

Some grunge was gently brushed away from the pier and its legs, to allow more light through.

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A new dawn

During the midsummer, having just lost my Internet connection,
I discovered I had much more time to get out there and take actual pictures! This was one very early pre-dawn rising, I drove towards the local beach and decided this wheat-field with it's ruined stone barn might be a good spot for a sunrise.
The actual image was much darker but with the help of the new CS5 fake HDR facility I was able to boost the dark base of the image.
The base image above has already been lightened, but it was much too saturated so I used the original darker raw base image on top to tone it down.
This and the rest of the recipe is as listed, if its not too clear, please feel free to ask below!
When I had almost finished I decided it needed more 'elements', so I added the birds on the horizon and a mist to soften the horizon line and add, as the local French say, Je nes sais quoi? or in English - I don't know? - a little bit of atmosphere that was lacking!
Please note, all textures used here were blurred, except the Pans Sky texture.

Base image HDR over-saturated
Raw base image - Colour - @ 100%
Matmos Lake - Overlay @ 100% Desaturated to an Aubergine colour, flipped vertically to darken the sky.
Rose Blush - Overlay @ 100%
Aquarius - Overlay @ 27% Desaturated to a pink/green tone with the sliders
Sky layer; Pans Sky - Multiply @ 21% - warped, compressed 50% upwards.
Birds layer; Darken @ 48%
Horizon mist; a fingers-width of Lavender Skies - blurred - Screen 70% slightly brushed from front of barn.

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French farmhouse

This is one of those lucky shots that came about from shooting a blood red poppy field. Its just the horizon, with the foregrounds over-bright poppy field removed. That cloud is as it was, where it was, and I just left it hanging pensively in the corner!
From Summer Painterly;
Verdigris Overlay @ 44%
Copy of base image, desaturated with more contrast.
Iridescent Brush desaturated, Soft Light @ 100%
Matmos Lake - flipped vertically, desaturated and blurred, Soft Light @ 100%
Labyrinth-desaturated, from flypaper set 2, Overlay @ 100%

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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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Another Flypaper publication!

Before I start blogging again I thought I'd share this new French book cover publication of mine! Its interesting to show here because the texture I used was one of the first prototype Flypaper Textures!
Its now included in the very first Texture pack and is called 'necropolis'
Unfortunately I cant share this recipe as in those pre-Flypaper days, I didn't save all my layer info.
However, I do remember achieving this effect by applying Necropolis, desaturated and doubling up the base image with a B/W copy.
Photoshop Poster edge filters were also used to give that graphic hard edge.

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Sweetheart

A recipe for this one was requested by Debbie over at flickr so I thought I'd do a quick blog entry for anyone else interested.
The roses are Cecile Brunner commonly known as sweetheart roses, I love their tiny perfect buds and blooms. I took many photos of them yesterday but this one was my favourite of the bunch.

Archival Canvas @ Soft light 68%
Mulberry Silk @ Screen 25% removed slightly from the focus flower
Peach Blush@ hard light 36% desaturated and lightened slightly using a hue saturation adjustment
Peach Blush @ Soft light 24%

Archival canvas and Peach blush are from Tex Box 2, Mulberry silk from the painterly set.
See it bigger 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

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