PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #08

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

Unlike “official challenges” for this forum which can be found here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/index.html), this one will be self-contained within this thread. It is intended as an opportunity to engage in this artform 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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#8 – Red Rock Caynon, Nevada

This image was taken by RetouchPro contributor, Brandee, who recently returned from a trip to Las Vegaswith her husband Jim.

As Brandee described it, "This natural beauty was located only 20 minutes from the craziness of The (Las Vegas) Strip. It was over 100 degrees on the day we visited."

I say, "Where's the ice chest? I need a cold one!"

Looks like a great photo-art opportunity to me. Thanks, Brandee, for sharing this one.

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Guidelines:
1. Use any method, application(s), style(s) you like:
. * Convert to sketch, grayscale, abstract, watercolor, oil painting, pen-and-ink, Conte crayon, impasto, van Gogh or any style of your choosing
. * Add elements from other images (collage)
. * Wanna add animation? Go for it. (cactus growing before your eyes? Wile E. Coyote running past?)
. * Hand painting? Tracing? Freehand? You bet. Always appreciate entries of this nature.
. * Apply filters from your favorite application(s)
. * Tweek it with 3rd party plug-ins

Bottom line:
How you create this masterpiece 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 100kb size limit).

Note: Multiple entries OK if you’re so inspired.

3. By all means include some verbiage on how you achieved your masterpiece so others will benefit from your skills and experience. Make it as descriptive as you like. Grammar and spelling will not be graded. Priority given to content, not how it is written.

4. Have fun.

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The funny farm is ticketoffice open for business...

Buy your ticket now and jump on the FUN train.

~DannyR~

Whenever I look at clouds, or rock formations (or woodgrain, or practically anything with some sort of non-linear texture) I seem to see shapes, or faces. How many are there in this picture? The more you look, the more you see.
:wavey:

Watch out for flying rocks, and careful where you step!
:wavey:

Not a fan of the second one Blacknight, but your first entry is mighty impressive. Great concept and execution. Love first one:)

That's quite remarkable. I couldn't figure out the one in the cactus though.

Black knight
like them both
#1 saw two wild thing fighting .... two heads lopped off...and a big dour looking face on the cliffside... :oldman:
#2 brilliant color scheme
tom c

Opened photo in Photoimpact v6
painted out Nevada ....painted in Arizona...right over the photo.
tom c

:oldman:

Phil:
"Sculpture among the rocks" is just awesome. That's just a wonderful interpretation.

#2 is such a diversion from #1. The depth and width of your creatively truly inspires me.

Tom:
I have to confess when I opened yours I waited a couple seconds for the cactus to explode or Road Runner to streak across the rock or something of that nature. I'm glad (now) "none of the above" happened. Animation would have detracted from this inspiring version. Very, very nice.

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I'm REALLY GLAD you two especially grace these mini-challenges with your works.

~Danny~

tom c -Very inspired. I will learn to do that.
Blacknight - how can you come up with such diverse ideas? you're a genius
Here's a quickie.
Darkened the picture. Shifted color to blue.
Added reflections (Action).
Added the Lady on the lake (from Waterhouse).

This is how Red Rock Canyon might look after wandering the desert and drinking nothing but mescal from a gourd picked up
in Tijuana. Maybe that's why the 60's were such a fun time, there was nothing to cloud the eyes.

Applied several filters and pumped up the saturation considerably on the foreground. Also applied brush strokes in varying degress to the different layers. Have another experiment that I will try tonight.

It's really fun to let the mind wonder and then create what it sees.

Earl

Wow! Some really awesome stuff in here! We had so much fun at Red Rock, and it was impossible NOT to get a great picture anywhere I pointed my camera... I actually went to Vegas to get married at a little chapel (something I've always wanted to do), but I think our day at Red Rock was almost as great as our wedding day.

Anyway, I love looking at everything you guys do-- very inspiring wonderful to see all of the different takes. (:

Look forward to seeing more!

Red Rock island.

Gland - great idea! This is Q&D version using Flaming Pear FLOOD filter. Looks like a good spot to go fishing!
:wavey:

I like the mirrored look of the water with the reflection of the red rock. Nice work.

Earl

Blk kgt
That water scene turned out a beaut.

Angue...great looking image.
tom c

Blacknight the water reflection is really nice. :)

The beautiful part for me is also the ease with which it is accomplished. Just adjust the horizon line for the water and it does all the hard work. Beats hauling it into Bryce and waiting for a render, then retouching in Photoshop (which is what I used to do). You can also vary the waviness and put in a little "fish splash" set of ring ripples if you want. A nice filter for making anything instant "poolside".
:wavey:

Photoshop 7: I used difference cloud and emboss to get this strange Carlos Castenida effect.

:)

what beautiful entries on this one:) An absolutely wonderful Photo, I've never been that far west:( These are the filters I used, Blur, Cut Out, Emboss, Note Paper, Smudge Stick, High Pass, blendmode, color Dodge, I ran Rough Pastels twice. One, direction bottom, and direction top right. I can't remember the blend modes for each filter or the opacity, sorry. The frame, PhotoImpact. Thank you everyone for your wonderful entries, and Danny for this forum:)

wanda

Great photo and some awesome submissions.

Danny thanks again for sharing your test process--I like the results.

Wow Don--that was certainly worth the effort. It looks great.

Nice version Cheryl.

I decided to crop into a panorama and then do a watercolor.

Catia

Sorry, I forgot the "tell" part. Done in PSP8. First cropped. Then an edge preserving smooth (setting = 30) followed by a brush strokes filter. Settings in the filter were Angle = 311, Bristles = 256, Color = black, Density = 26, Length = 15, Opacity = 0, Softness = 1, Width = 6.

This one is screen applied in painter then express texture (faded).
Airbrushed the sky blue and added a lens flare in Photoshop.
Back in painter added a a cloud with the image hose on 50%opacity then frame, text in Photoshop.

...Gary

Catia and MoonFizz's postings brought this to my attention. These are all beautiful!!!!

Mine was done using Edge-Preserving Smooth, Microsoft Impressionist, followed by Dry-Brush. Had to treat the sky different from the mountains and fore-ground to get the right effect.

-Jeff

Didn't think I'd like working this, but it was cool. I brightened it up and did a quick VP gouache. Then I applied PSP8 effect Rough Leather Custom #1 with a dark teal green as the leather color and softened the entire image. I like the effect in the foreground.

Amy

Well done, Amy. A nice blend of detail with rough shapes.

~Danny~

Living in the Ozarks of Arkansas offers rich, lush vegetation, lots of water, and a myriad of other things. One thing it does not offer is a view that only stops when your eyes fall off the edge of the world while looking for the horizon in the blurred haze of the desert's warmth. These red rocks and harsh environment offer their own beauty. I thought it was about time to revive an old thread and offer it another place of honor in our artistic quests.

Since I'm an old desert rat, I punched the colors to reflect a more true representation of reds, yellows, and oranges. Other than that, this is just a desert painting...Done in Painter and tweaked in Photoshop.

Janet

Wonderful Janet. What brush(es) did you use on this? It turned out super.

I like how the sky looks in this one. The dirt and a few of the shrubs turned out ok too. The rest needs help, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Mostly hand painted :ogre: so that's likely the source of the ills. Done with a mix of Painter8 sumi-e brushes. These are tricky to work with. I cut way back on the brush opacity settings & added color variability in most cases.

-Mark

One layer of impressionist (modified) setting, others using layer masks and default paintbrush in ps7. Selective color adj.

Mark, I'm late to the party and just noticed your desert scene. I really like the Van Gogh feel to your piece. It is bold and harsh, just like the desert itself. Good going.

You are right when you say the red hills were difficult to paint. I think I did them three times before I got one I liked. I also added a cactus in the corner to help balance the picture.

You asked what brushes I used...I almost always use either regular pastels or oil pastels. They seem to deliver the look I'm trying for the best.

Jaykita, yours rocks as usual. Your real time painting talent stands you in good stead as your paint in the virtual world.

Your comments about people not appreciating what you do on the computer is heard in my corner as well. At the very least, we all band together in this forum for a pat on the back or two and learn from each other in the bargain. I think that is wonderful in and of itself. I couldn't find a "smilie" for patting; so I'll settle for the humble little :bow: :bow: :bow:

Janet

I bought a great old book on "creative darkroom" techniques by Eastman Kodak(not the digital kind), and found out about The Sabattier Effect or solarizaton. Both a positive and negative image are produced on the same film. I loved the look of it so did some reading up on digital ways of doing this. The canyon photo seemed like a good candidate and I used the V curve method. It was very interesting, the way many physical darkroom techniques are carried over into photoshop. Of course - duh! However, I was not familiar with darkroom techniques.
Margaret M (aka mlgates99)

i love the solarizaton style....it was man rays photographs done in this style which got me into photography many yrs ago..
he was way ahead of his time...

I agree - way ahead. I read a little bit about him last night and was surprised to see he was born in 1890. His work is so contemporary. a true genius.

I bought a great old book on "creative darkroom" techniques by Eastman Kodak(not the digital kind), and found out about The Sabattier Effect or solarizaton. Both a positive and negative image are produced on the same film. I loved the look of it so did some reading up on digital ways of doing this. The canyon photo seemed like a good candidate and I used the V curve method. It was very interesting, the way many physical darkroom techniques are carried over into photoshop. Of course - duh! However, I was not familiar with darkroom techniques.
Margaret M (aka mlgates99)

A very unique approach, Margaret. It's amazing (but shouldn't be, I guess) how some traditional techniques (a) still apply today and (b) with the right skills one can digitally mimic them.

Well done.

Lanscape from another planet?

Mars!!! :happy:

Welcome to RetouchPRO agentpict.

Mars!!! :happy:

Welcome to RetouchPRO agentpict.

Great to be here.

Cheers!

I thought that I would give this one a try.

Cathy :)

I thought that I would give this one a try.

Cathy :)An expecially nice job on the brush strokes, Cathy.

Did you by chance use one of the Impasto texture files from a Wow book?

Regardless, this looks very painted. Well done.

Thanks Danny. I used Photoshop 7 One Click pattens for the texture. There ane some natural media textures (thick paint on canvas etc.) and after I load them I use the differnt blending modes to get the result that I want. I used Painter to paint the picture, and then collaged it onto a background that I created. The texture is the final touch.

Cathy

OK, I know I'm a nerd, :blush: but I couldn't help myself. Having done a lot of hiking on redrock, looking at this photo I was reminded how sandy it is. Hence my crazy idea. You said to have fun Danny.

My first photo art.

Annabel

I think that it looks great, and is humorous too.

Cathy :bigthmb:

OK, I know I'm a nerd, :blush: but I couldn't help myself. Having done a lot of hiking on redrock, looking at this photo I was reminded how sandy it is. Hence my crazy idea. You said to have fun Danny.

My first photo art.

Annabel

...And I sure hope not your last. A simply brilliant concept and great execution.

Glad you had fun on this one. Now, you'll probably be hooked forever on this sport. So, keep on having fun in the future, too! :)

Thanks Cathy, I like yours as well. Now that's real art.

Danny thanks again for all your help, and thanks for encouraging newbies like myself to submit their work, however "lame" it might be. We all have to start somewhere, huh?

Annabel

thought i'd bump this up with my own entry :)

K.

That's great Kraelin. Can you explain how you do the animation:question:

Thanks,
Annabel

thanks, Freddieanne.

sure, it's a simple .gif animation. you make up every frame individually and then join them all together with an animation program. i used jasc's animation shop that came with paint shop pro 7.

the hard part was making all the individual cells or frames. for that i took the original pic and masked the clouds out in a layer. i also had to select the cloud background out as a new image, then fill along the bottom of that new selection with clone and other similar techniques to get a full rectangle of clouds. that then became my base cloud picture for later use.

i then doubled the width of the base cloud pic, but left the height the same. the reason for this is that i'm going to paste the base cloud pic back into sequential layers, but move it slightly to the right each time. if i didnt double the width, i'd run out of base cloud pic on the left as i moved the image right.

i also extended the base cloud pic's canvas size vertically, turned on the grid set to the size of each frame distance i wanted to move the base cloud pic, and then added in a vertical guide line along the bottom in the new extended area to help me line up each new frame that was going to be made.

as i pasted the base cloud pic back into the original on a new layer, i would use the guides i'd made at the bottom to move it one more cell to the right. i did this 32 times to get 32 layers with the base cloud pic moved over one cell each time.

after i had all my layers, i simply turned on the original layer with the masked sky, and the first cloud layer. i then did a copy visible layers and hit control V to make a new image of it. i then turned off the cloud 1 layer and turned on cloud layer 2 and repeated the copy and paste. then just repeat this for every cloud layer, giving me 32 new images with no masks and no extra layers. these would become my frames in the animation. 32 frames with the clouds move slight to the right in each successive frame.

then i simply called up animation shop, loaded all the individual frames into an animation framer in the right order and tested it. when everything looked ok, i saved the original with no compression or lost quality. but, that made almost a 4 meg file; too large to post here :)

to get the file smaller for posting here, i had to resize the animation frame size and use compression. the original file size of the original image was 800 x 600. my frames ended up having to be about 250 x 168, or something like that, and i had to use a 75% compression rate. all in all, this ended up being about a 90% reduction over the original.

now, i could have done a seamless looping, where you wouldnt see it jump back to the start of the loop each time, but that would have required a fair amount of extra work, since i caught my mistake a bit late in the process.

for anyone wishing to do things like this, i HIGHLY recommend working the entire process out ahead of time, step by step. i went the rough route just working things out as i went. there's prolly easier ways to do this also, but i just went with what came to mind at the time. there's prolly also better animation programs out there as well, even for simple .gif animations. if you really want to get into it, get something like macromedia flash. that's kind of the photoshop of flash/animation....and nearly as expensive :)

also, bear in mind that with animations of the kind i did, there tends to be a bit of repetitive work that can get a bit boring at times....make a layer, paste the clouds, move them to a precise location, set them, test each frame, turn off the previous layer, make a new layer of the one just created, rinse and repeat 32 times.

K.

Wow!!
Thanks for the detailed explanation Kraellin. Quite an involved and labor intensive process it seems. You had great results though.

Thanks again
Annabel

thanks annabel. yes, they can be fun to do...especially once done ;)

here's the full sized animation without compression. 56'ers beware; it's a 3 meg file ( i said 4 above, but it's 3).

http://mizus.com/kraellin/red-rock-1-k-1.gif

give it a minute to load each frame and then it shld run. i tried it in preview mode here before posting and it does work, but for some reason it's running quite slowly. if you want to save it and run it separately, i believe you can simply 'save target as' to download it.

K.

Very nice effect Kraellin. It seems very complicated.

Cathy

thanks cazubi.

it's really not much more than anything you're doing already, layers, masking, cut and paste... the hard part is the bulk of it. once the frames are all made, animation shop puts it all together pretty easily.

K.

Red Rock Canyon, NewMoon.NV

http://img316.imageshack.us/img316/5046/minichallenge08nevadaredrockca.jpg



p.s what should I do to have the pic in thumbnail....? not sure how to do it here....tks...

OK, I know I'm a nerd, :blush: but I couldn't help myself. Having done a lot of hiking on redrock, looking at this photo I was reminded how sandy it is. Hence my crazy idea. You said to have fun Danny.

My first photo art.

Annabel

I think that's a fantastic photo art. Like it should be called "True Sands of Time". Absolutely great how you put the two together.

Buzz simplifier & edge color, played with blend modes, copied, pasted as new layer, over original, played with blend modes again. Merged.

Steve