I love these plaza and outdoor cafe scenes. Here's one from Spain and my watercolor version. Have fun! Enjoy

Swampy, I really like your watercolor. Is this from one of your tutorials?
Alan

No, Alan. If I can remember...

I worked kinda backwards on this trying some new things. Duped the background, ran find edges, desaturated and ran a buzz on the black and white. Put this on the top of the stack with blend mode set to Soft Light and Opacity at about 88%.

I then made another copy of the background, ran buzz again, set that as the history point and painted with a very splotchy brush in vital color areas. (See a pic of my paint layer below with the sketch layer turned on). Then I sandwiched a hue/sat adjustment layer between the black and white and the paint layer and ran the colors of the paint layer up.

I had a lot of white areas, so I duplicated the original again, placed it under the paint layer and reduced the opacity to about 25%. This filled in the otherwise white canvas with some color that gave a soft "underpainted" look.

Hope that helps. :-)

Photoshop.. If you don't have Buzz, you can probably use the Noise/dust&scratches filter to muck up and simplify the photo.

Here's another look at dining on a lazy afternoon.

Steve C.

Here's another look at dining on a lazy afternoon.

Steve C.

It's probably the thoughts of food that attract us to these outdoor cafe pics, Steve. LOL

Some buzz and fine edges followed by painting with a watercolor brush.
Alan

Interesting image and great artwork, everyone!
Dan

Simply beautiful!
Sylvia

After posting this in the wrong thread hopefully i have it right now ! ! ! ! !

Palms

thanks for posting this, dee dee and nice rendition.

here's a bit of an odd but fun one from filter forge. the filter is called 'crumpled'. i think you'll see why :)

Playing with Mathmap for the Mirror Globe. Click here (http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/5435/tessellationec5.jpg) for more globes. :)

Playing with Mathmap for the Mirror Globe. Click here (http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/5435/tessellationec5.jpg) for more globes. :)

They are cool lkroll

Palms

Thanks Palms; still can't quite get over my Tessellation stage. lol

Swampy, nice photo.

Photoshop, layer masks.

Pavel

Nice one Pavel. Also wanted to add that everytime I see your cat, it reminds me of my former three (was four, but one of the kittens passed on) Tuxedos that I had the priviledge to raise and take care of. Man I miss them; due to financial reasons, I had to give them away, but they are doing fine, living on a farm in northern Alabama (my sister, who actually found a home for them, gives me info once in a while on their state; just 3 weeks ago I had the latest which is cool). :)

Lyle, thank you.
Glad to hear that the cats are doing fine.
My cat passed away in 2006. He was a family member. For some time now we had discussions about getting another cat, so far we are undecided. We love animals and probably would have quite a few at home given a chance, but ... the usual story, too complicated.
I used to cultivate relations with backyard animals (I have a few chipmunks, a groundhog, a rabbit and squirrels); my neighbors were not too happy and keep mentioning disappearing salad and other vegetables.:) So now I go easy on feeding wild life, just birds and squirrels in winter.

Oooo, Pavel, I like that painting. :-)

Swampy, thank you.

Pavel

Hi Swampy

I liked the watercolor effect you achieved.

I tried to replicate it (on a different picture) and found I was in my dense stage since I really don't use Photoshop that often.

If you could clarify a few things I'd appreciate it


“I worked kinda backwards on this trying some new things. Duped the background, ran find edges, desaturated and ran a buzz on the black and white. Put this on the top of the stack with blend mode set to Soft Light and Opacity at about 88%.”

? at this point did you have more than 2 layers ; background original and buzzed one?


“I then made another copy of the background, ran buzz again, set that as the history point and painted with a very splotchy brush in vital color areas.”

Here’s where I’m totally clueless – I’ve never used history or art history before. ?-What layer do you paint on?

Thanks for your help

Regards

Bob Mc

Hi Bob,

Duped background and ran "Find Edges"
Desaturated the line drawing (Find Edges) then buzzed this layer
Set this layer at Soft Light with Opacity at 88%

Duplicated the background again and ran buzz again.

You should now have 3 layers stacked from top down

1. Sketch Layer
2. Copy of background buzzed - This is going to be your "history" layer.
3. Original Background

Now to paint with the history brush, Select the buzzed copy (layer 2) go to the history palette and click on the "snapshot" icon at the bottom of the palette (see sample below). If you scroll up to the top of the history palette you will see two history "states" the first is the original file as you opened it, the second is the snapshot you just took.

Now, With layer 2 selected Select ALL and delete everything on that layer. Yes, delete it, and rename the layer "history" because this is where you are going to paint with the History brush.

Click on the "eyeball" of the second history state. Get the History Brush (it's below the regular brush in the tool box). Here you can go to your brushes palette and select a water color brush (or chalk or any other "effect" brush you want). Paint away on the History Layer in the layers palette.

While painting, I lowered the opacity of the Original Background layer to about 28% so that it would "fill in" areas that weren't painted. That layer just filled in some soft color since the transparency was so low.

Two tips about the "History" layer. I usually put a layer below filled with white so I can get a good feel for what I'm painting. I did this on the Mallorca Cafe image, but liked the effect of the low opacity #3 layer and deleted it. Also, You can paint on the history layer then select all and "jump" your painted history to a new layer, delete everything on the "history" layer and start painting with a different brush. I sometimes have 3 or 4 layers "jumped" to their own layer.

Hope this helps. And I hope it opens a whole new world of Photoshop "painting" for you.

Many thanks for the detailed explanation. I'll try it tommorrow and let you know how it's working for me.

You're right - a new world... but what will I do with the old bumbling one ??

Regards

Bob