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 #51- Village in Europe

This is another 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.

Can't tell you what country this is, but it's beautiful, isn't it? Look forward to visiting Europe someday. In the mean time I'll have to settle for your creative renditions.

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? A little smoke coming out of a chimney?
. * 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.

This picture lends itself to a delicate watercolor or sketch in soft pastels, so I decided to go the opposite way and darken it and remove most of the texture and fine detail. It's supposed to be dusk and the porchlight has been turned on...the porchlight that was originally a hanging flower basket that is. :)

Phyllis

I like this one a lot, Photoshop. Very European.

Nice way to get this thread rollin'.

~Danny~

Started this one out in PhotoArtMaster and produced a monochrome sketch. Then went back to Photoshop and faded the original picture into the sketch to add some color. Finally, I saved the original picture as a pattern and then, using the pattern stamp, added back in a small amount of detail.

Jim

Jim:

Very nice - that is how I think of these villiages in my mind.

Something that bothered me was that large expanse of roof.
I wrapped it in Plastic first to give it more interest. Then posterized the cobblestones to keep them "cobbly".
Then ran either Photoshop Dust & Scratches or the Polaroid D&S, don't remember.
A little bit of dodging.
This is a bit of an hommage to the stories my father used to tell about his European home...

Agree about the large expanse of roof - so I decided to corrupt it - along with everything else...

Here is a cartoony look, resulting from experiments with importing the black channel from CMYK under the original RGB layer, then Stamping it and converting the original RGB layer to color mode.

This is experimenting with a more textured effect. Colors and shadows were enhanced in Photoshop with multiple color layers and Accent Edges filter, then the texture was added in Stoik Pictureman using patches.

looks great Truman, I especially like the effect you got on the second one. I checked out the PictureMan program you mentioned on google and it looks really interesting.

- David :)

The second one done with pictureman, outstanding, would like to know more about the overall techniques you used.
It really looks like an oil painting and calls out to be framed imediately, extremely well done in my opinion.

Mamagator, wonderful mix of filters. I use those same filters and techniques a lot but never thought to put them together as you did...very imaginative. And I just love the effect you achieved!

Toad, looks like the sponge filter helped in your treatment. I like the addition of detail on the roof...balances the excess detail in the brick. You "turned it on its head" as they say, and the overall effect is "just right." (I love it when folks do the unexpected!)

Truman, you used my favorite filter in your first one, right? (Love that anisotropic diffuse!!!) The second one is really unusual, and gorgeous. I like the way your work is always different...lots of variety in your techniques and art styles. You'd never know your pics were by the same person!

I too want to know more about Pictureman. You got a truly beautiful effect with it in pic #2.

Phyllis

Thx Photoshop:

Yes - sponge definately. Took original photo - applied a multi-step B&W action that I have been messing a lot with lately, then history brushed the color back into the photo - applied the sponge, and then pointellized the whole thing.

My goal was to "rough up" the under detailed roof without taking away from textures that the street/brick had.

Not sure I am really that happy with overall effect, however - I may take another kick at this particular cat.

Originally posted by pstewart
Truman, you used my favorite filter in your first one, right? (Love that anisotropic diffuse!!!)

No, actually it's a much more convoluted process where I accentuated the shadows and edges, then copied and pasted the black channel from CMYK under the original RGB and used the Stamp filter to smooth out the black outlines. I haven't had much success using anistrophic diffuse. I'm sure I'm missing something, but the effect is pretty minimal whenever I apply it, especially on larger images. Perhaps you could provide some instruction? :)

I too want to know more about Pictureman. You got a truly beautiful effect with it in pic #2.

Although I've played around with it on occasion (ever since it started out as a DOS shareware application), I haven't learned nearly as much about Pictureman as I have Photoshop. I mainly break it out for an occasional special effect such as texturing with patchs or their Hand Drawing effect. I have a very old version; apparently, the more current versions have several features specific to photo-retouching. Check out http://www.stoik.com/pictureman/ .

The colored one I just kept applying filters and layers until I got what I wanted. I wish I could remember which filters.

Village in europe Color (http://www.trimoon.com/Village_in_europe_Color/village_in_europe_color.html)


Village in europe Black and White (http://www.trimoon.com/Village_in_europe_BW/village_in_europe_bw.html)

So many fine pictures!

Visual Eyes: My first graphics editing program came in a bundle I picked up a few years back. It was PM Painter by STOIK. The rest of the bundle was pretty cheesy but PM Painter was great. I always think well of Stoik for the ease of use of that program but felt that no-one else had heard of them, or would take the name seriously, so it was nice to see that you know them too.

I think I'll do another village, using PM Painter this time.

Phyllis: you always bring such vivid and vibrant pictures. This one has the feel of an animation cel, especially the light from the (new found) lamp.

Truman says:

<<I haven't had much success using anistrophic diffuse. I'm sure I'm missing something, but the effect is pretty minimal whenever I apply it, especially on larger images. Perhaps you could provide some instruction?>>

Well you got the effect the long way around...just goes to show you that a filter is just a one-click shortcut and the effects can be created in other ways.

To get a noticeable effect out of anisotropic diffuse you need sharp edges and/or noise in a picture. It worked on the pic of the house since the bricks had all those edges. If you want to get the effect on a picture without noise or lots of edges, then sharpen it very crisply first. Or just add noise and see multi-colored little wiggly worms fill in all the areas of the pic like an overall texture.

As I said elsewhere, the only problem with anisodiffuse is that it leaves seams. But just turn your canvas 90 deg and reapply and they will go away. The second application does little but make it slightly more blurred, which can be fixed easily with unsharp mask (top slider to middle or right and middle slider barely moved (.1 - .4 depending on picture size).

If you are working on a big picture with a lot of pixels the anisodiffuse effect will be less noticeable than on one with fewer pixels, so it's better for online pics than for printed ones.

Phyllis

Trimoon, it's hard to believe you did those with just filters...they look like you used brushes and painted your heart out! Congratulations! They turned out terrific!

You inspired me to try a bunch of filters with no plan in mind just to see what might happen. Since some of the filters/blending turned the trees in background blue, and they refused to turn green without fading away, I said the heck with it and just decided to make it autumn!

Phyllis

Phyllis; That is a keeper.

Colorful village!

I just kept applying filters and layers

That roof looks wa-ay better in blue the way you did it.
Very nice.
:)

Sort of an abstract colorful version.

What wonderful artistic interpretations:) I love them all!!!
I fooled around with several filters. So many I can't remember them all. One thing I usually do is to prepare the image by applying smart blur and adjusting so it's not too distorted. To me it seems the filters work better if this is done first. On this one I wanted to have the detail NOT so detailed, keeping soft lines. I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but I sort of liked it. My small contribution. Thanks everyone, thanks, Danny

Wanda

Using my first entry, I went to image adjustment, invert. Color dodge. Filter, blur, gaussian, I think I had the slider all the way to the right. I used the burn tool, midtones, to bring out a little more of the image, but not too much. I hope this makes sense. Had fun which is the object of this forum.:) Thanks again to everyone for making this forum so enjoyable and such a learning experience.

Wanda

wow, those are both beautiful Wanda!!

- David :)

Wow

What a great batch of entries. I really like them all. What a fun project..

Wanda I really like your pastel version..:thumbsup:

I thought I would try something different.. This is supposed to look like one of those sloppy wet looking hand tinted sketches..Don't know if it does or not but here it is..

Jerry :D

David, Jerry, thank you for your encouraging words:) This really is a fun forum isn't it:cool:

Wanda

Jerry, I'm impressed:) I think you accomplished what you were going for. Really nice. I wonder how that would print. Would really be pretty in a frame:classic:

Wanda

Jerry, very nice. You succeeded in getting that wet puddles look all right, while keeping other lines sharp. Can you recall how you did that?

Phyllis

Wanda and Phyllis
Thanks for the comments this was fun to fool with..

Phyllis
I am pretty sure that I remember what I did..Steps are as follows:

I used Iglogans sketch procedure word for word except I did no sepia coloring.

I used that as my background.

I added the original pic above the background opacity 25%

I created a new layer set to color and painted with a wet brush (brush heavy flow scatter) after sampling the colors from the original this layer is at 100% opacity.

Colors were a little light so I copied the color layer and set to multiply..this layer is below the color layer set at 45% opacity.

Thats it have fun

Jerry :D

Great effects, you both achieved really nice effects on your work.

Wish I could say I did it myself, but I used an action from Mike Finn's actions. Oil painting. However, before I did I add the cutout filter from ps7 on my own...ta da!
I am learning from the actions, but it's going to take a while. In the meantime I'll post some nice things when I get them.
Debbie

I've never gotten the hang of pastels in real life so I find doing it with Photoshop very satisfying!

I mucked around a bit with this but the main thrust of what I did is as follows:

Duped picture. (duh)

Applied artistic filter - rough pastels.

Did it again to the background (distant hills) only to pump up their texture since they looked flat compared to the houses.

Rotated the canvas 90 degrees and ran rough pastels again. (This insured that I didn't get lines in only one direction. This is a pet peeve of mine since it always looks too "photoshoppy" to me when it happens.)

I still wasn't happy with this (still wasn't arty enough...too much like the real photo in tone) so I went a bit further.

Ran an artistic - cutout filter on it to break the picture up into as many colour blocks as I could (top slider set to 8).

Then I did the rough pastels, rotate 90 degrees, rough pastels again. This was definitely arty enough but now I had lost too much detail so I reduced the opacity of the layer to let the original photo peek through a bit.

As a final touch I used the sponge tool (set to saturate) to pump up the colours of the vegetation/flowers and the brown roofs. (In my experience pastel people often use bright colours because the medium lends itself so well to this)

So what do you think? I wish I had a printer that could do this justice!

By the way...I always learn so much from this site and all your submissions! I've copied lots of your techniques and wasted many enjoyable hours staying up until 3 am playing with photos. thanks everyone:D

Originally posted by Helena
By the way...I always learn so much from this site and all your submissions! I've copied lots of your techniques and wasted many enjoyable hours staying up until 3 am playing with photos. thanks everyone.

Ditto, Helena...it's 3:09 as I type this. :)

I like your pastel version a lot. You gave it depth and shading and brightness but still kept it sketchy. Nice job!

Debbie, nice action effect you've got there. And I like the way you used cutout first--daring experiment that paid off!

Chuck, you managed to get rid of those annoying speckled edges on the original! Looks great!

Phyllis

Village.

Debbie:

A late, but heartfelt reply... Don't feel a twinge of guilt about using actions. That would be like feeling guilty because you didn't bake that loaf of bread from scratch or bought butter at the store instead of churning it. Think of an action as a "power tool" if you will, helping you achieve results faster.

If you want to learn some cool techniques, Mike Finn's actions are among the most innovative I've ever seen. I'm in the process of dissecting another of his actions at this time. He's a genius; learn from his recipes.

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Helena:

W E L C O M E !

Really glad you could join us. Always nice to have new members who live close to Seattle so we can make bets on who will see sunshine first! (Sunny Victoria? :) )

Greatly appreciate the effort you put into the "how to" steps. That ensures folks 2-3-4 years down the road will be able to apply them to their own efforts. Well done.

Hope you find many more interesting things to try until 3:00 a.m. It's a great way to spend time and have fun.

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Chuck:

I could make out the texturing, but the image is pretty small so I couldn't see much else. If you like click the EDIT button for your post.

In the Attach File section, click the "Replace" button and specify a link to a replacement (larger?) image.

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With all these pretty renditions, make me think I should seriously consider a trip to Europe someday.

~Danny~

This photo appealed ot me right away, but I had a hard time coming up with something I liked better than the original image.

I'm playing with my impressionist filter today. Several layers with different blending modes--at least 1 charcoal, a couple of watercolors, and a colored pencil in there somewhere. I'm still playing with the filter, so I haven't figured out which ones are the "good ones" yet. I put a couple of sketchy layers and a texture on the top.

Don, You may find this link interesting.
http://planeta.terra.com.br/informatica/pluginhead/impbrsh.htm

All these great interpretations inspired me to try this one too. As usual, I think I'm in over my head, but it was fun!

Using the steps I detailed in my post about the holiday barge in the Show and Tell section (see http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6501) I came up with this watercolor.

thought I would try turning into a pencil drawing first to see how that looked..... i thought it looked ok then ran the xero lithograph filter on it which added more dots and lines so I sharpened them with sharpen edges. I played with the color balance twice which added a tint of gold to the overall piece. I discovered this process quite by accident last night. It worked well on images with well defined lines and dots .... blurry, hazy photos did not respond well to this process. Cathy

I tried this:

made 3 dupe layers

1. Smart blur>overlay edges>invert, set to soft light

2. Artistic>poster edges soft light

3. Artistic>underpainting, soft light

Flatten, put a sandstone texture and ran an edge action I got somewhere.

Simple watercolor done in PSP8 and PS7.

Catia

Well, Heres my go at a pencil sketch.

I used a technique I learned when I first started playing around with image editing.

Duplicated the layer...negative image..grayscale. Changed to dodge..gaussian blur of 5...merge. Framed it..and there ya have it.

Ran thru virtual painter> Gaouche.
fiddled with color channels a bit.
created a new blank layer and painted with pattern stamp>oil brush.
blended with overlay and opacity reduction.
added a bit of sandstone texture.


AP

:bigthmb: Marvellous result AP!!! Colours are great.

Just thought I'd add that the original image looks like Gold Hill, in the village of Shaftesbury in Dorset. It's famous for being used in an advert for Hovis bread.
The advert itself has been much parodied.

Thanks Gary....I immediately thought 'England' when I saw it.

Here's my go at it...Using Corel Painter IX

Great work bbuttry!!!

Nice one bbuttry! I liked the fact that you turned it around...looks like a whole different place ...by the ocean instead of the hills. Very cool brush work and artistic feel.

Well done BB - that is beautifully done.

Welcome Helena!

I made this into a car ad with a little tuscan landscape throwin in for good measure. I know the houses are more english than italian but at least I changed the colour of the roof to a more italian one.

Nice one bbuttry! Agreed. Creative approach and well executed.

I made this into a car ad with a little tuscan landscape throwin in for good measure. I know the houses are more english than italian but at least I changed the colour of the roof to a more italian one.Now that's inventive! Nice job of splicing the effects.

Here is my attempt as well. I mainly used three different filters. Cannot remember which ones, what order, or how much. Nevertheless, or regardless here it is. :wavey:

Here's my go at it...Using Corel Painter IX

Stunningly beautiful. What a great job. How, please tell us how???? :thumbsup:

I'm not sure what this will turn out like on a nicely profiled monitor. The one here at work is terrible (too dark). So, I guess it may appear to bright in the correct settings.

The main thing I was attempting here was Water Paper with Watercolor.

I played with the Selective Color, Color Balance and Hue/Saturation to achieve the color scheme I used here.

I used a variety of blending modes to get it to where I liked it.

Tyler

I usually interrupt Mike Finn's actions for my results but I kind of liked this snowy look. Ran MF pOpArtIsT complete followed with Painted Cartoon action.

Cheers
Dave

Duv

Very interesting approach. Quite different and unexpected!

Tyler

composite of mini challenges: #51,#8,#149,#141
-dry brush filter
-gothic glow action
-canvas texture

composite of mini challenges: #51,#8,#149,#141
-dry brush filter
-gothic glow action
-canvas textureYour vision and creativity never cease to amaze me. In three years of moderating this forum, I've never seen anyone merge four images into one like you have here. Your creations are a breath of fresh air. :)

thanks so much danny...appreciate it...means alot....i get inspired by
all the wonderful work here...retouchpro is a wonderful site to learn from
and express/share creativity.

summer and winter.

Craig

Hi all,

I tried a watercolour effect here.

Paint Shop Pro

Base layer - Various plugins which I cant remember {just having fun} :wink:

Created new raster layer -filled with white, pulled the slider down so the original image just showed through ( like tracing paper ).

Set foreground colour to black - background colour to grey. Using Paint Shop Pro paintbrush - painted over the image, using the objects in the image to dictate the direction of the brushstrokes. The rougher the better.
I kept the brushstrokes away from the sides of the picture which has resulted in the edge effect here; but of course this is optional.

I'll have to invest in a pad - painting with a mouse is clunky.

Set the blend mode on the brushstrokes layer to OVERLAY.
Adjusted the slider to taste.

Regards to all,
Mitch.
---------------
Craig - loved the summer / winter idea. Hmmmm I wonder... snow on the roof and the road, carttracks in the snow.........

I'll go the easy way with the description :tongue:

1. Facet
2. Glowing Edges 2 5 5 / 65%
3. Dark Strokes 5 5 2 / 75%
4. Photocopy 15 25 / 75%
5. Original

Flatten

1. Dry Brush 2 5 1 / 60%
2. Flattened Image

Flatten

Hue Shift -180°

Voila :)

Here is imitation of oil paintings on canvas. I have changed color and used Photoshop, Impressionist and Painter 9.

I added the priory from another mini challenge as well as a few other elements.

Wow - goose 443, that really changes the whole scene for that little street! It's like you pulled back the camera to a different angle and got a different perspective on the village. Good idea. Putting the cathedral on the hill was a nice touch too.

Helena

Thanks Helena,

The cathedral is actually a whole other manipulation in and of itself. I'm not sure how well it composits into the scene but the two seemed to go together so well I couldn't help it.

thanks mitch. the winter one was fun. was going to put snow on the streets too, but i was using a plugin also and it was somewhat fussy when i tried. so, i let it go.

now, where have i seen that priory before, goose ;)

Craig

hi!
how about some rainy village behind a (little bit creepy) fence? :)
layers, layers, layers... actually, I think there was 7 of them...
the larger varsion (orriginal :wink:) is here (http://members.lycos.co.uk/thanatos/to/large.jpg) if you'd like to see ;)

thana,

welcome to RetouchPRO!

interesting choices there. love the fence and storm :)

Craig

Hello, Thana...

Let me add my welcome, too. This is a very creative interpretation -- and we welcome creativity!

~Danny~

thanks Craig, Danny :) i was reading (or rather admiring) this forum for quite a while, and now decided, that a little fun won't do any harm, sooo there it is - my first pic - such small thing, but what a satisfaction... ;)
I hope to stay here for rather long time [;)], so i want to apologise for my english straight away - i'm pole and it's highly possible, that i'll make many mistakes...
oh, well... what will come, will come ;)
thanks again.

thana

thana,

the language of pictures is universal. you're communicating just fine :)

Craig

Not to worry... your English is much better than my Polish will ever be! :) As Craig wrote, you are doing just fine.

Keep having fun.

Lots of saturation adjustments with some Paint Engine/ Impressionist blendings. :)

Good job there. I like the mood and feel of your piece. And it is nice to see you back.

Janet

:wavey: Great to see you all again!!!!! I've been a bit intense learning as much about Corel Painter as possible in recent months and need to come home for some R 'n' R. :nod:

Ikroll and Neve: very nice work. Very nice work from all the posts.

Cathy :nod:

... Janet and Cathy. I also really like the TK feel of your piece Neve. :)

Hello Cathy and lkroll....and thanks! It's nice to be back to play again... :bigthmb:

that's lovely, neve.

and welcome home :)

Craig

Hi Craig and many thanks! :wavey:

I apologize... I do a challenge and have such a challenge getting it the correct size that I forget to write done what I did to it.

Lovely Twinkissed
if you have forgotten what you actually did, (shame if you have ) how about what software you used and what texture ?

Palms

Sure thing. I'm using PS2. And I "think" I did this....

Slightly changed the hue and increased the saturation. Then I used sharpen edges, then under brushstrokes I used accented edges, then texturizer and chose canvas. I know it wasn't too many steps. I'm pretty sure this is what I did. I love this picture though. It was so fun to play with.

Well you all be the judge. This is my second submission; usually don't do more then one, but I really like this setting. Anyway, sorry for the low quality and smaller size of this rendering (had to do my best to keep it under 100K and still look good; lots of compromises and compression). :)

Sure thing. I'm using PS2. .

:lol: I just realized my typo... not the PS2. Geez I've been talking to my kids about their video games too much. But... PSP9. Sometimes, I should just go to bed. :wink:

Very good twinkissed, i never noticed you probably could of got away with it, now i will have visions of you trying to paint on a playstation :idea:

Palms

Adjusted contrast/lightness, enhanced saturation, Buzz simplifier, & Impressionist brush strokes. Another of my Bible manips..."Seek & Ye Shall Find."

Steve

Wow, beautiful Steve.

Cathy :nod:

Thank you Cathy. It is a nice & fun image to work on.

Steve

Wow, beautiful Steve.

Cathy :nod:

Very good twinkissed, i never noticed you probably could of got away with it, now i will have visions of you trying to paint on a playstation :idea:

Palms

LOL yeah... funny when I think about it I did technically do my first digital drawings with Mario Paint. :aghast:


Now being inspired by Pstewart's nighttime approach, here is mine. I added some very light opacity cloud layers by using the fade and then by using the curves on the red channel. Oh and also used a very light pattern fill for a little more texture. I then painted in the lighting, stars, and smoke from the chimneys using a light soft brush.

I love it! Too bad halloween is already passed, that's spooky.

That is really a nice one.

Steve

hi!
how about some rainy village behind a (little bit creepy) fence? :)
layers, layers, layers... actually, I think there was 7 of them...
the larger varsion (orriginal :wink:) is here (http://members.lycos.co.uk/thanatos/to/large.jpg) if you'd like to see ;)

I really like that night shot twinkissed. It reminds me of a british Christmas card. Starry nights and no snow!

Thanks. I kinda had a Christmas evening in my head when I did it. I finally have my mouse fixed so I could probably do it now but I was going to attempt a cat looking at the lit door but my cat was looking like the blob so decided not to go with that. Ha funny, my mouse was destroying the cat so to speak.

...your rendering twinkissed. How was that done?

Very nicely done twinkissed.

Cathy :bigthmb:

Maybe this one is kind of Christmasy.

Cheers

Dave

Thought I could try my hand on this great selection of the village by Danny. There were about 44 great interpretations and renditions of it. To me those of chiquitita, Trimoon stand out, as I like that style. Also that of lkroll "Thomas Kincaid" style, great job there.

My rendition was done entirely in Painter 9. I was in the past getting tired, of jumping from one software to another, so I am kinda trying to do it all in one software or the other. This is a watercolor rendition !

dave,

i love the lights. did you hand draw those in?

Craig

I can't be the first genius to come up with this technique...it came to me earlier today and this image looked like a good guinea pig to test it on.

I ran Impressionist>linear brush (in CS2) four times on separate layers. I tweaked a lot of the settings; all four layers were identical except for brush orientation. One had horizontal strokes, one vertical, one 45deg SW-NE, the other SE-NW. I added hide-all layer masks to all 4 layers, then painted them back in with varying opacities where each direction seemed to be appropriate, mixing them in places where there wasn't a clear direction suggested..

As an afterthought I added another layer under the other 4 and buzz-simplified it. Then I lowered the opacity of the top 4 layers a little to let some detail show through.

dc

I can't be the first genius to come up with this technique...it came to me earlier today and this image looked like a good guinea pig to test it on.

I ran Impressionist>linear brush (in CS2) four times on separate layers. I tweaked a lot of the settings; all four layers were identical except for brush orientation. One had horizontal strokes, one vertical, one 45deg SW-NE, the other SE-NW. I added hide-all layer masks to all 4 layers, then painted them back in with varying opacities where each direction seemed to be appropriate, mixing them in places where there wasn't a clear direction suggested..

As an afterthought I added another layer under the other 4 and buzz-simplified it. Then I lowered the opacity of the top 4 layers a little to let some detail show through.

dcThis is a terrific technique, dc. Using Layer Masks to selectively apply a layer's content is a powerful tool in anyone's bag of tricks.

Thanks for sharing this golden nugget!

i agree with danny and that seems like a very good method for making a nice cross-hatch style.

craig

As football was on t.v. tonight thought i would have a try, ( i think this is my first for this thread ?)
Yet again the ahb

Palms

Wow I'm always amazed at the variety and talent on these boards. Fantastic jobs :nod:

This one just seemed perfect for a nighttime rendition, but in order to broaden my horizons, ;) I resisted the urge and came up with this, a base layer done in a painted carved wood script, ovelayed with dodge and luminance layers of separate renditions done in some Paint Shop Pro scripts of my own making. finally a top color layer to give it a darker glow, ok so I couldn't resist a little darkness

Garazon, that is a great looking rendition, from the painterly edges to the painterly background and foreground. Great job.

Thanks Chance :happy: it was one of those few that wind up actually looking like what I had in mind!

I couldn't resist these pretty Dorset cottages :)

Larger version: Gold Hill, Dorset, UK (http://www.pbase.com/pamsav/image/55090817/original)

Palms - I like that oily look you got with yours :)

Thank you Pam
i appreciate that coming from someone who's work i admire, I keep practicing and trying different things to get this sort of effect in ps7 (painter out of my pocket money league and my pc's capabilities for now )

Palms

A little bit of Lucis
Diffuse Ani wotsit or other
Dupe/Overlay the emboss
Add texture
Auto levels.

Peter

i like that one, peter. kind of soft and grainy and a different look at the background.

i like that one, peter. kind of soft and grainy and a different look at the background.

Thanks Craig.
Ive been messing about trying to get textures right I think this one came out not too bad.

Peter