PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #04

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category.

Unlike “official challenges” for this forum posted here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/art/index.html), this one will be self-contained within this thread. It is intended as a souce of amusement until the next official challenge is posted.

The rules are more-or-less the same:
* It’s a challenge, not a contest -- intended to provide opportunities to experiment, share methods and/or techniques..
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

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#4 – Butterfly

This image is courtesy of member FreeImages.com (http://www.FreeImages.com). It is posted as a "promotion" and cannot be used for commercial purposes without complying with the usage agreement / conditions spelled out in excruciating legal detail at their site.

Guidelines:
1. Use any method, application(s), filters, plug-ins, style, whatever you like to convert this photo to “art.” Watercolor, oil, pastel, Art History Brush, sketch, van Gogh (eek!), convert to black and white, add a frame, hand-paint it, superimpose an image of Michael Jordan over it, etc. – Makes no difference. Whatever floats your boat as long as you follow guideline #4 in the process.

2. When done, reply to this thread and attach your work (don’t forget the 100K size limit). Note: Multiple entries OK if you’re so inspired.

3. Since this mini-challenge, don’t feel like a detailed step-by-step description on how you achieved your results is required, but at least share what applications and/or plugins you used… More detail is welcome if you’re so inclined.

4. Have fun

OK. Playtime! :)

~DannyR~

A quick and sloppy usage of the extract tool to isolate the butterfly, then hue/sat to change colors. Imported a little friend in yellow, ran a SPLAT! pattern for texture and a couple of Flaming Pear freebie filters, some curves and sharpen tool and a frame. Lunchtime at the popular plant!
:wavey:

What a deal: Photo art during lunch! Great way to relax and have a few minutes of fun + exercise the creativity muscles.

Like the more vibrant colors and your addition of "friends," who decided to drop by for a little chit-chat! You have the knack even when your time is short.

~Danny~

This has nothing to do with the Art Mini-Challenge, I just thought it was interesting. When I first saw the butterfly pic, my first thought was that it had been way oversharpened via USM, so I wondered how to lessen that effect.

I ran 'minimize' on it at the lowest setting, then faded that another 13%. Not perfect, but it's a tip I'd never heard of before :)

I painted the logo back in with the history brush.

Ok, this IS having to do with the mini-Challenge, but it's purely accidental. I took my un-usm version, laid it over the orig, and applied difference blend mode. Then I flattened, inverted, and applied a tiny gaussian blur.

I knew that if I oversharpened that butterfly before I posted it, somebody would call me on it!

Facinating technique, Doug. I've been mucking with it the past hour or so...

A couple clarification questions:

RE: faded that another 13%...
...does this translate to Fade/Normal/13% or 87%?

RE: I ran 'minimize' on it at the lowest setting
You meant to write "Minimum," right?

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The first time I tried your recipe, there wasn't enough "difference" between the top and bottom layers. I got a completely black screen.

I then I tried moving the lower layer to offset the pixels a smidge using the MOVE tool and clicking the DOWN and RIGHT arrows twice each. This yielded a very interesting - (for me) a very detailed outline, more detailed than Find Edges or (inverted) Glowing Edges.

Also trying various combinations of...
* Background copy, Blend=Difference, apply Gaussian Blur to taste
* Background

Finally, a potential use for that goofy Difference blend mode Looks like this has the the possiblity of becoming another "photo-art" basic technique. .

Thanks for sharing your findings and results. Nice to have that 'how to undo some oversharpening' wizardry in the bag of tricks.

Did I mention your accidental-art butterfly is very cool? I didn't? OK. It definitely is. :)

~Danny~

Hey, I like the goofy difference mode :)

Yeah, 87% and -mum's the word.

Danny - where are the attachments? I wanna see... :)
Jeanie

Original posts deleted and replaced by this and the following one. For some reason the attachments didn't "attach" on the first go around. Probably "Operator Error." :) DannyR

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Sometimes Jasc's Virtual Painter can generate a pretty decent outcome. I especially like how the Color Pencil effect really seems to bring out colors.

==========
Layer stack:
==========
C. Copy of B; applied Angled strokes; blend=overlay
B. Copy of Background; applied Virtual Painter "color pencil" effect; blend=overlay
A. Background (original image less logo)

Keep having FUN! :)

~DannyR~

This one was a result of trying various combinations of the Minimum, Maximum and Smart Blur filters...

Wow - you aren't kidding that it brings out the colors, Danny! I need to find my sunglasses! :)

All kidding aside... These are both very colorful images - and I like color! :) If you want people to focus on the butterfly though, you might want to tone down the bright green a bit, since it seems to overpower the image.

I like your experiment with minimum and maximum - I have yet to really understand those two filters, so it's interesting to see them used. Thanks!

Jeanie

Doug, I love the subtle effect you got on your image - very "light" just like a butterfly.

Also - interesting tip on "unsharpening". Thanks.

Jeanie

:)

Ok, this is just for fun, here's my donation. I first selected the butterfly and duplicated. Color balance -100 for cyan, mag, + 100 blue. Effects, pattern, darken mode, 90% opacity. The pattern was somewhat like lattice, not quite, but I liked it. I found out you learn a lot trying out different filters, and combination of filters
Sorry, guys, I did it in Deluxe. Not for long, I'm going to widen my horizons:)

Wanda

Wanda:

"Oh, yeah!"

Very creative. Lattice-work is inspired. Thanks for playing along. Your contributions are always welcome and appreciated.

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Jeanie:

Yer right about the gr-eeeen. It is pretty bright! :) Good call.

~Danny~

:)

Danny, thanks, and you're welcome:) Thanks for this forum, it's a lot of fun, and not so stressful:)

Wanda

Wanda - I love it! :) Especially how you darkened the butterflies to give a feeling of depth. Very, very cool!

Jeanie

:)

Jeanie, thanks:) This is really enjoyabe, believe it or not it's very educational, I've tried things I've never tried before:) I'm really glad you like it;)

Wanda

:)

Doug, I REALLY like your butterfly:) It would make very pretty stationery. But, who uses stationery anymore, it makes me want to though:)

Wanda

I couldn't resist this one... here's what I came up with:

http://paragoneffect.com/portfolio/retouchpro/digital_watercolor.jpg

I'll save ya from my usual description of 5000 words-- basically I used a combination of the art history brushes to create a "watercolor" effect. Then I created the "paper" on a new layer with good ol' Render> Clouds and Render> Difference Clouds... embossed it slightly for texture and set the layer mode to hard light. I duplicated the paper layer and set it to multiply, erased some of the areas around the butterfly and called it a night. (:

These are fun and I hope to get around to trying some more!

Brandee:

When I first saw your pic the three words I said out loud in a breathy exhale were: "Whoa! How cool!" The dreamy butterfly on the delicate paper is just a wonderful combination.

What a great way to start my day at 4:30 a.m. :)

After you get a couple hours of shuteye, would you do me two little favors: :)
* Add another post to this thread and attach a copy of your image. That way your creation will be preserved here at RetouchPRO "forever" for folks to enjoy (hopefully) years in the future.
* And while you're at it, do tell us more about the technique you used to get such a great watercolor effect via Art History Brush. I've not seen anything this good watercolor-wise from AHB before.

Really look forward to seeing more of your magic. Glad you're having fun. Have as much as you like!

~DannyR~

:)

Brandee, this is awesome, just beautiful:) As my son would say it ROCKS!!! I also would like to know a little more about this technique. Thanks, for sharing this wonderful piece of art with us:)

Wanda

Thank you VERY much for the kind words... glad ya liked it. (: As for the art history brush, here's a bit more detail on how I went about doing it (mostly from my memory, so sorry if I forget anything!):

Before I started, I cropped the image and changed the canvas size so I had a big white border around it. I wanted to have room for a soft, blended edge around the border of the photograph later.

1. Duplicated original layer and go to Filter> Noise> Median. This gave the image a slight blur-- comes in handy later on.

2. Duplicated the original layer and place it above the Median layer. Select the art history brush and used a light touch to "paint" areas of the butterfly and flowers. I chose the "chalk" brush (should be located in Photoshop's default brush set). I left the brush's blending mode to normal and changed the opacity to 12%, then I switched to "dab" style with 100% fidelity and an area of 2px. A tablet came in handy for varying the pressure a bit, but honestly it could have been done the same way with some patience and a mouse.

3. Copied the painted layer for safe keeping and hid it. On the painted layer that wasn't hidden, I used the eraser with a natural brush ("chalk" again) to erase and bring back some of the detail... especially around the wings and body of the butterfly. This is where the layer with the median blur came into play... it kept the exposed areas from my erasing from looking too photographic.

4. Pretty happy with the results now, I went back to the layer with the art history brush strokes. I wanted to soften the border around the image, so I selected the art history brush again and changed the opacity to 30%. Still using "dab" with the chalk brush, I "painted" around the border of the photo to give it a nice soft and uneven edge.

The paper was created as I said in my previous post, and there ya have it... a digital watercolor with the art history brush. (: I only really started to use the history brushes recently, but they are a lot of fun and give you a lot more control than the standard filters.

Brandee:

A+ Sellar image. Stellar writeup. To add to what Wanda's a-lot-hipper-than-me son would say, "This Rocks - BIG TIME!"

Many thanks not only for today, but for years to come!

~DannyR~

checked out all the butterflies and all great images...


Danny i know the object here is to create a picture effect from a photo..

hope you dont mind moving pictures

Just chopped up thebutterflys wings...transformed...and made 4 frames...had to make it smaller because of d/l time.
tom

Tom:

Nobody ever said "Photo Art" had to be static! This is GR-EAT!

My compliments for venturing (make that, FLYING) outside the sandbox. Well done!

You get a big A+ for maxing out the FUN METER on this one!

~Danny~

Basically, I just selected the butterfly, duped
it 4 times, transformed horizinally fliped 2, and
resized 2. Placed the butterflys on the scene,
then gausian blurred the background using
a 2.5 pixel setting. Flatten to .jpg.

That's a nice mob scene :tongue:
Wonder what they call a bunch of butterflys...A flock???
tom
:oldman:

Well, after looking at everone elses work, I
decided to play around with Paint Shop Pro 7's Artistic
Effects and here's what I came up with. It
sort of reminds me of a blacklight scene :)
Settings for Colored Edges effect:
Luminance -98
Blur 9
Intensity 12
Color Aqua

I suppose a group of butterfly's would be
called a herd Tom, after all they are "butter"
flys :)

Oh that's a nice effect....sorta like evening ....pretty
tom
:oldman:

Okay a quick delay to avoid my yard work....

Photoshop 7.0
Selected the butterfly onto its own layer, converted photo to grayscale, made the Polaroid frame on a separate layer, added drop shadows...and had lots of fun!


-T

Very nice effect! I like the extension beyond the frame and the dual colors :)

Thanks Woody. I played around with different filters (stain glass, and various paint filters), but I just didn't get any results I liked. Then I thought about having the butterfly just leave the image and to really make the butterfly stand out I decided to make the image a black & white photo.

-T

tom c - You sir are trully 'GIF'ted.

LOL....good one!

-T :lol:

WOODY:

I've gotten to the point where I REALLY look forward to opening your creations. Each is so unique expression-wise.

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T PAUL:

The world is a better place because you avoided some yardwork for awhile to have a little more fun. Butterfly extracted & "lifting off" from Polaroid pic. Just an ingenius concept... and the color / grayscale combo really works here.

Very nicely done.

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Hope everyone who contributes to these threads realizes how much FUN I have checking these out!

~DannyR~

I agree with Danny. Really cool stuff Woody. Keep them coming.
DJ

Brandee...love your watercolor butterfly!

Phyllis :)

this thread piqued my minutia-minded curiosity and I couldn't resist a google search. the results were too vast to print here, but you might find a term to your liking at........

http://www.naba.org/sightings/Multitudesofbutterflies.htm

Love all the variations of what i like to refer to as FLUTTERBYS! Makes more sense to me than flying butter!

I named that cute yellow butterfly Waldo and have snatched him off his pink flowers and hidden him in a swarm of other butterflies that I squirted out the "hose" in my new Painter 7.0 (the "hose" sprays repeats of little pictures all over the place...you can add your own, but it comes with butterflies already!).

Ever since I learned here how to do the impasto style texturing, I have been experimenting with it, so we have "lumpy" butterflies today! It's a bit on the bright side, but then "Where's Waldo" books are for kids so the colors are always bright, right?

After you look at this multi-colored one, take a look below to see it in gold metal, which was too large a file to be allowable. I have always loved making "gold" and "copper" and "silver" things with photoshop, and now I can make them even more easily thanks to tips I got here. :)

The gold metal butterflies are here: www.innographx.com/photoart.html

Phyllis

The muliti-colored Waldo puzzle is attached below:

Decided to take a quick break a experiment with KPT filters. I used a bit of twirl, and a bit of drip to make it look like the colors are being pulled off the butterfly by the vortex beneath it. I also fine tuned the image a bit with liquify.

Just For Fun
~T

Very well done. Bravo !

Thanks! I didn't even have a plan on what I was going to do. I just started playing with some KPT filters and as I played I came up with the concept for the image.

~T

Very creative use of KPT effects and Liquify...The swirl + butterfly combo works very well here.

Thanks for giving this thread a bump, T.

~Danny~

Wish I could remember what I did to edit the photo itself, but spent so long making that mask I forgot it all! oh well, was having fun

Chester

You guys (and gals) were having too much fun! I had to jump in on this one. I wanted to try out some of Photoshop CS2's warp tricks, like turning a page.

You guys (and gals) were having too much fun! I had to jump in on this one. I wanted to try out some of Photoshop CS2's warp tricks, like turning a page.That's pretty warpped, all right! :lmao: Well done.

garazon,

that's gorgeous. well done!

craig

Swampy had to drop a quick note this is excellent, the thought and excecution is top notch

Palms

Lovely Swampy...oooo i wanna do it too...love the bright colors and the design... :bigthmb:

Kind regards Patricia Kay