Sheep on the Hill

First of all, we'd like to thank you all for your support over the past year and to wish you a peaceful and happy Christmas.
I've just finished wrapping the presents, the baking is done and it's Christmas eve as I write this. I'm looking forward to a family BBQ followed by a relaxing holiday.
Now back to the photo, my woolly friends were in a paddock just up the river from our country hut/cottage and were watching me closely as I walked up the hill towards them.  I think these ones are used to being handled as they aren't as flighty as sheep usually are.

I processed the photo when were were still trialling the new autumn Flypapers, and at that stage they had names like "November 10 gold" and "messy" and as we've said before, it's when we finally come to give them their proper names that they take on personalities, so to speak.

Processing was fairly simple in this case, I only used two textures both from the new Autumn Painterly Pack.
Demi Jour @ soft light 100% blurred and masked from the sky using a graduated mask (this layer was more for the tone than the texture. )
Capability Brown @ Soft Light 100%
I then merged visible and to increase contrast used
Nik Efex Contrast colour range filter.
and it was done!
See it slightly larger on Flickr

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

Trio

Our country hut (or crib as they're called in southern New Zealand) is situated beside a river in the midst of farmland. We have sheep on one side and cows on the other so I have plenty of four legged models. These "models" were in a paddock up a hill just a short distance away, thankfully they weren't too scary when they spotted me and stood still long enough for me to snap a few shots.
The photo was taken just prior to  sunset so the light was lovely.

I started processing with a gentle levels adjustment to brighten the shot slightly.
Peach Blush @ Overlay 39%
Brushed Rose @ multiply 100% the colour of this layer was desaturated and toned more yellowish using a hue saturation adjustment. I also removed some of the texture from the sheep using a layer mask.
Necropolis @ overlay 22% desaturated  slightly and with its colour tweaked a little using a hue/saturation adjustment.
Next I did a little gentle dodging/burning to brighten the sheep.
To do this I made a new layer and filled it with 50% grey @ Overlay ,  then with a soft brush at a low opacity (about 8% or less), I painted with white to brighten selected areas, or black to darken.
I finished with a subtle HDR adjustment layer on the merged layers.

Peach Blush is from Tex Box 2, Brushed Rose from the Summer Painterly and Necropolis from Tex Box 1
See the photo a little 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

Gift Coupons

Click Here

See all our packs and deals on one Page

The Sheep and the Rock

This was taken when I was away on holiday almost a month ago. We decided to explore some of the countryside around the little town of Cheviot where we were staying for a day or so and we ended up on a road leading high into the hills. It started as an ordinary country (gravel) road but soon turned into a grassy farm track and at times we wondered if we were lost, but after an hour or so of back road driving and many gates we came out where we were supposed to, at a valley on the other side of the hills.
Canterbury sheep seem to be much better trained than Otago ones, they stand still beautifully for photos and are very cooperative when it comes to composition too :-)

Now the processing....to start with I used Paul's painterly effect (the before version has already had the effect applied. Then it was texture time
Chlorophyll @ multiply 61% desaturated and the texture removed from the lower portion
Apple Blush @ Soft Light 51%
Necropolis @ Overlay 85% with much of the texture removed from the sky
Necropolis @ Soft Light 34% with the some of the texture removed from the land
Then after a final tweak of tone and contrast using levels and curves adjustments I called it done.

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Both texture Packs!