FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE?
See below for "Information and Guidelines."

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category until the next offical challenge is posted here (http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/index.html).

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PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #29 - London Bridge

This is our 2nd image courtesy of www.FreeImage.com. See NOTE below for details; if you have not visited this site before, by all means check it out.

Here's one of the more famous bridges in the world. Haven't yet been to the UK myself, but I understand it's beautiful.

Have fun on this one.

~DannyR~

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NOTE:
Use of this image is subject to conditions set forth at www.FreeFoto.com and is copyrighted (c) by Ian Britton, site owner / administrator. Ian has graciously authorized use of images from his site for our mini-challenges.

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INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES

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 and, most importantly, have FUN.
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

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) or replace the background
. * Hand painting? Tracing? Freehand? You bet. Always appreciate entries of this nature.
. * Apply filters from your favorite application(s) or tweak it with 3rd party plug-ins
. * Feeling animated? How about James Bond splashing by on water skis?
. * Any or all of the above

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.

Moon from Flaming Pear LunarCell, stars from action that makes stars (in the actions section here, I'm pretty sure).

three copies of original, top layer inverse, and Eye candy 3 Antimatter - blend mode to multiply.

layer below that set to color burn.

background layer sharpened.

starfield and moon layers set to lighten. Stars erased from water and bridge and moon areas. Blurred moon slightly.
:wavey:

Great effect, hard to believe it is the same photo.

Very nice indeed! I love how the bridge turned out!

My only suggestion would be to sharpen the moon to tie in better with the overall sharpness of the other picture elements. The moon only looks blurry on a cloudy night, and there are stars in this sky.

:) gotta pick some nits sometimes, right?

Phyllis

ok.
:wavey:

Welcome to Fairyland, where night is day and day is night and everything costs a dollar! (Or is that Dollar General?)

Inversion, difference mode, anisotropic diffuse (of course! :) )

Phyllis

I thought the London Bridge had been moved to Texas (?). But that's really irrelevant, isn't it? :)

Fog done with clouds filter faded in patches with the gray slider bars in layer options (top bar only.... use "opt/alt" to separate the slider arrows). Moon just a medium opacity solid brush dot with a larger fuzzy edged dot over it.

Phyllis

Wow, Black Knight. Verrry nice. (I had a similar thought about the blurred moon seeming a touch out of whack. Just a touch, tho.)
The light on the bridge and the sky are fantastic.

Phyllis - Foggy bridge is loaded with atmosphere. Like it alot.
"Anisotropic diffuse"? Beautiful effect but sounds like a medical condition :D
Fairy bridge reminds me of the Rainbow Brite doll my daughter used to have. Fun.

I've been busy and I haven't had time to try out any challenges (or mini challenges) but this one looked fun and I had some time finally, so i took a try at it, and here's what i came up with:
first I opened up the image and carefully selected everything except for the sky then copied that to a new layer. then I deleted the original layer. I used Bryce 3 to create a sunset sky then rendered it and opened up the image to make a background layer. I used curves on the bridge layer to make the bridge color look darker and a bit redder to match the sky. then I flattened the image and duplicated the layer and experimented with different filters then I reduced the opacity on the layer i used the filter on so some of the original showed through to keep some of the detail. I forgot to note down what filters i used so i have no idea what i tried :sad: anyway, here's what my attempts:

- David :)

2nd one:

d_kenal - Both are beautiful. Especially the first one. That sky! Lovely.

Everyone has done some excellent things with this bridge it's had to spotlight just one. Love looking at them all.

Just a minor point here but isn't that the Tower Bridge not the London bridge? Leave it to me to be a real stick in the mud huh? :D
DJ

David, great sky! Nice rainy version too.

Phyllis

isn't that the Tower Bridge not the London bridge? -- DJ

DJ, I believe you're correct. The London Bridge was brought over to Arizona in 1970-71, and doesn't appear to have the towers (I haven't been up to see it yet -- it's only been 31 years...). The Tower Bridge, however, is much more photogenic, I think.

The only relevancy is that those lovely images folks created using fog or rain are realistic as well as beautiful. (Won't be finding as much fog or rain around the London Bridge.) :)

DJ, CJ: Gosh. You're right.

I guess when you've got a 6-year-old singing "London Bridges Falling Down" 500 times a day, I guess any ol' bridge you look at becomes LB. The "real" London Bridge was, in fact, moved to Arizona quite a number of years ago.

Well, there you go. Not only do you learn great digital imaging tips and techniques at RetouchPRO, sometimes you get a badly needed dose of geography and famous architecture of the world! :D

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PHIL:
Super job on "Moon Bridge" -- both versions. Very inspired.

PHYLLIS:
The fog effect is great; nice job on adding the lights along the bridge deck, too.

DAVID:
Glad you had time to jump into this one. Looks like you had a lot of fun. Look forward to seeing more of your "arty creations" in the future.

Did you get the academic verion of Photoshop yet?

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OK... Back to studying for my next world architecture test!

~Danny~

:D Sorry Danny. Couldn't let that one sneak by. What would our British members say? :D It's an honest mistake though cause that song makes it the most famous bridge in England to all of us who've grown up singing it. :)
DJ

Originally posted by DannyRaphael
DAVID:
Glad you had time to jump into this one. Looks like you had a lot of fun. Look forward to seeing more of your "arty creations" in the future.

Did you get the academic verion of Photoshop yet?
~Danny~

thanks danny! Re photoshop: I'm still saving up for it, waiting for my next paycheck to come, and I ended up not being able to afford car insurance for now ($300 a month was the lowest quote i could get, and thats just for liability - collision coverage costs more.. ouch:eek: ) so I'm selling my car and once I do that then I'll be able to get it.

- David :)

On the London Bridge/Tower Bridge point... just to add that we do still have a London Bridge in London in addition to all of the other bridges (presume that after we'd sold the old one to the US we used the cash to build a new one that was less picturesque but worked better and hence did not have to be built up with iron & steel, silver & gold, etc. etc.)

But making the current London Bridge look photogenic would be a real challenge! :D

One of great things about photo art is that a major error early on can be skillfully worked around by some creative applications of filters. I did an extremly bad job of selecting the sky, put in the one you see, converted to greyscale, duped,blurred, darken only on top layer (i love that effect, use it more often than any other), and then added the lightning. Cant really remember exactly how i did that. Tried a bunch of diffrent things before i got it to work. I think i used a similar technique as the one to make star wars lighsabers.

OOOoooo...
Darkstar, that is almost scary... great Halloween pic!

You know you can make lightning with the render-->clouds filter too. Just have to adjust the blending. I have never tried it, but have seen pics of it in a Photoshop book I have.

Phyllis

Leah:
You're making me feel better all the time. Thanks - I needed that!

DS:
Accidental art at it's finest. Looks like it's right out of a 50's Frankenstein movie!

David:
I admire your resourcefulness and sensibility. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The bright side: Once you get Photoshop, you would have been spending a lot less time in a car anyway!

. The proportions are a bit off, I've just been playing with this one.

Sanda -- cool! Love the night colors. So what/who is that crawling up the structure -- it looks somewhat like a Hopi dancer dressed up as a Kachina.

I't my attempt at the Werewolf of London. just for halloween. :D

London Tower

To me, this was quite a challenge … but I enjoyed it.

Duplicate … Select Sky, Bridge, Towers and Water. …Load Sky and Import Sky Background and “Paste into” the image behind the Bridge … Load Towers and select Filter > Texture > Craquelure, Crack Spacing - 15, Crack Depth - 6 and Crack Brightness - 9 … Opacity - 75. Select Image > Adjust > Levels, 5,044 245.

Flatten.

Don

Don, nice choice of sky...the colors are perfect with the bridge. And the texture gives it a ancient, romantic, look. Nicely done.

Phyllis

Hit the wrong button ...

Some great entries this time. The "Werewolf" is outstanding!

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This one is based on the Hayes Island Cafe technique described .here (http://www.davrodigital.co.uk/tutorials/haye-island-cafe/hayes-island-cafe.htm).

Tried another time on this one, tried to get danny's effect (which, by the way, is excellent) in an entirely diffrent way. Not exactly, but came out pretty good anyways.

Whoops, forgot to attach pic.

Don--both versions are great. Betcha can't guess which is my favorite though. ;)

This one was fun.

I used my dark paint process.

First group

Mr. Contrast
Oiriginal
Mr. Contrast

blend until satisfied and merge to a new layer.

Second group
Melancholytron
original
Melancholytron

blended until satisfied and merged to a new layer.

blended together the 2 merged layers with a copy of the original until happy and merged all that.

Duped the merged layer and ran lacquer. Blended that with the rest of it and added a texture.

Here is a version obtained by using Paint Engine - Randomize twice and then a texture pattern layer with blend set to overlay.

Catia

I was messing around, and tried Flaming Pear's flexify on it...and I actually liked a part of it. So I cut the sensable part out and did VP color pencil on it with everything set to -5 except focus and softened it. Not quite Dali-esque...

AmyHuttonhttp://www.fractographics.com/LondonBridge.jpg

I was messing around, and tried Flaming Pear's flexify on it...and I actually liked a part of it. So I cut the sensable part out and did VP color pencil on it with everything set to -5 except focus and softened it. Not quite Dali-esque...

AmyHuttonhttp://www.fractographics.com/LondonBridge.jpg

Reminds me of an encounter I had with a bottle of gin followed by a roller coaster ride once upon a long time ago. I like this outcome a lot more!:)

Flexify is a major league distortion-type filter, right?

Thought I would try the new system. :happy:

Duped the BG. Inverted and set blend to difference, set opacity to 40%. Applied texture filter, resized and saved.

Just listing the filters used: Flaming Pear's Pixel Trash, Harry's Filter's Atmospherizer, Impressionist (lots of ones and I can't remember the blends anyway), Paint Engine with @Wetter2 preset, and GIMP's Bumpmap filter just to name a few. :)

Used a slightly different sketch effect which i then overlayed the background and sharpened

http://www.tamaranphoto.com/tut_pages/sketch.html


Palms

Painterly Tower bridge.

Steve

Lots of nice versions of Tower Bridge here folks - well done :)

Here's mine: Added in a more interesting sky, simplified then smudged.

Larger Version: Tower Bridge (http://www.pbase.com/pamsav/image/54407522/original)

My attempt at this challenge I’m sorry I can’t remember the steps taken to achieve this. :cry:

TwoLaidBack

nothing special. just editing it from a interior/architectural photographer point of view.

straightened the walls. and made it have the lomo feel.

To add a little drama to an image with a lot of blue sky like this one, try:
* Adding a Photoshop Channel Mixer adjustment layer
* Monochrome = on
* Blue channel slider = -200 (far left)
* Experiment with the other controls until you like what you're seeing

:)

~Danny~