Forgive the brevity. I've got the flu. I'll populate this post with the traditional verbiage tomorrow.

Picture by Trimoon (Steve LeQuier).

here's my try at this one:
It's kinda a combination of watercolor and sketch techniques (plus some experimenting with the art history brush etc.)

- David :)

here's a second version, this was before I had added the watercolor effect, and I added a curves adjustment.

- David :)

Morning David..

Really like the second one, morning mist appears to be just
clearing.... How do you get those edges, they really set off this
pix?

David, I like the first one, with the watercolor effect...nice job. I agree with Goldcoin about the edge treatment...perfect touch.

Phyllis

Thanks, both of you. the edge just kind of happened the way it did, from the when I was erasing away the white layer to get the brush stroke and misty effect.

- David :)

I really like the subtle nature of the first one, very well done.

Well, David you are "two for two".....

Chuck.... That came out super.... Very defined, great color. Nice.

Nice job David I like the first as well. MIsty is perfect for that shot.

Chuck. I loved the coloration.

Well whenb I saw it I thought of the big storm.

I made Rain in textures.

And rought water in Liquify.

I lassoed the boat flipped it and made a Sail.

Chuck, really nice job on the sketch technique. But I think you might want either to saturate it more, or desaturate it completely for a b/w sketch. Right now it's somewhere inbetween and my visual cortex can't decide which way to go with it...makes me nervous. :)

Phil, clever pseudo-storm look. Very stylized...could catch on in the art world and bring millions. :)

I too thought that that wide expanse of empty water needed something, so I changed the perspective and stretched it vertically as well, to give it depth so that I could add my daughter and her friends rafting up front. Wheeeeeee....

Phyllis

Think I'm going senile! :)
Frank

Phyliss, great idea, I had a rafting pic but did not think of it. WAs that a dig, ha ha. I could not figur how to make waves, Oh well.

Frank, I think that makes two of us. The river runs dry.

Frank, one word--brilliant!

Phyllis

Tried all kinds of things on this one and pretty much didn't like any of them. This one is underpainting on the bottom layer with Find Edges on the top layer.

Steinhatchee Harbor

Chuck, I can breathe again...haha. I like it now...just right! :)

Art, well you finally came up with at least one good idea. Looks great outlined like that...a simple treatment for a simple scene.

Frank, shockingly good! Sure are gettin' the mileage outta that tiger!

Phyllis

Originally posted by pstewart

Frank, shockingly good! Sure are gettin' the mileage outta that tiger!

Phyllis [/B]

Thanks Phyllis, I think that's the second time!:(
I decided to do the picture with a ripped open effect and when I came to put something there, the poor old tiger was the first thing I came across. Honest! :) I've only been here a few weeks now and I'm already recycling the pictures! Promise I won't use it again!

A little pencil art with water color.

Different look.

Frank, oh please don't stop using the tiger...I love what you do with him. I'd miss him. :(

Phili, I love what you did with the second one...the new colors wake up the picture, and the shading adds depth...good job!

Phyllis

Among the PS7 default actions (within the Textures set) is one called "Pastel Glass Tiles," which yielded some interesting results. This .atn was used to generate two layers (A, C) in this version. (See next post for Layers palette screen shot).

A second action, "djr-Tom Nelson inspired" (which is among the .atns that can be downloaded HERE (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2653)) was used as the middle (B) layer of this trio.

Layers G, H and I are edges and frames. Framing and edging can be done to suit.

The Layers palette snapshot attached...

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Phyllis:

Yours could be a promo for a theme park. Nice blending of the images to make them look matched.
- - - - - - -
Phil:

You just keep getting better... marvelous variations.
- - - - - - -
Frank:

I'm still waiting for that creativity transplant. Brilliant (as in, ditto what Phyllis said) and awesome. You continue to show all of us how to "break out" of a rut.

- - - - - - -
David:

I think we've got you hooked on this photo-art stuff. How's the Photoshop transition going?
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Art:

Nice combination of lines and background. What did you do to get the fine lines?
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Chuck:

Nice of you to give Phyllis a saturated version! I liked both myself.
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Steve (Trimoon):

Thanks again for sharing your picture with us. You inspire us again.

~Danny~

Very nice effect Danny, I will have to try it.

Danny, Have you hgad and problems with Photoshop 7. Every once in a while it goes hay wire. I get verticle and horrizontal lines running like a mathmatical program and all of a sudden it stops and everything clears up. I cant figure it out.

- - - - - -
Phil: Have had (knock on wood) zero problems w/PS7; sounds like hardware (monitor, connections, card?) to me. - Danny

Originally posted by DannyRaphael
David:

I think we've got you hooked on this photo-art stuff. How's the Photoshop transition going?
- - - - - - -
~Danny~

:D yep, I'm completely and utterly hooked on this stuff!! As for photoshop, now I'm wondering how I ever lived without it :) I love working with it.

- David :)

Frank:

I'm still waiting for that creativity transplant. Brilliant (as in, ditto what Phyllis said) and awesome. You continue to show all of us how to "break out" of a rut.

- - - - - - -
~Danny~ [/B][/QUOTE]

Thanks Danny, you're very kind! If I had a brain cell to spare, you'd be welcome to it!:( I'm in the market for some myself. As I've said previously, I've been doing this for less than a year now and this is a great learning medium for me When I did the book with Jim's? granddaughter, I'd never done a book before, and similarly, this last one with the torn page effect was a first for me. I'd loved to be able to claim that they are all my own inspirations (to live up to your "creativity bit) but really I'm just gleaning (stealing?) ideas from reading other sites, sometimes almost direct copies, other times I do modify them a fair bit. Most of all I'm an avid follower of Rule 4, I think it was 4. Enjoy it!
Thanks
Frank

Danny, those pastel tiles really give a great look! Thanks for discovering that gem!

Phyllis

As I tried to do this one without looking at anyone else's efforts, I found it rather difficult to get something that looked like "art". Anyway, this is what I think is the best of my efforts.

Al, looks great...the charcoal effect is especially good at bringing out texture in the trees, as well as the ripples in the water.

I tried an oil painting. Used cutout textured with render-lighting, distort-->frosted glass, displace-->stucco, and finally used render-lighting on an overlaid texture from Andromeda Techtures set to soft light. At each step after cutout I mostly erased away the waviness on the boat, dock, and vertical masts etc. so the picture wouldn't lose its form. I added a gray cloudy sky by cloning part of the water and stretching it with transform.

Phyllis

Al very nice water effect. looks like it moving.

Phyliss, it looks like oil and you made the water look cold, nice touch.

Steinhatchee Harbor

Hey, thats a really cool manipulation frank! great idea. how did you get the ripples in the water around the hand?

- David :)

Having a great time trying my hand on these oldies!

Evening falls

Three layers. The top layer (execpt the sky) opacity 50%, burned adn adjusted levels. The middle layer with a lensflare, th first layer unchanged.

Herman .....

Utterly amazing in the transformation of day to a beautiful sunset.... very captivating!

Thank you! It's so inspiring to be around here!

I went on a Virtual Painter kick today and went looking through the old challenges for good candidates. This one worked well.

Bottom to top

A) VP watercolor
B) VP Pointillism—soft light
C) VP Pastel—color
D) VP Oil Painting—Lighten
E) VP Gouache—hue
F) Filter—Stylize—find edges—soft light 50%
K) Soft Sketch layer—Darken
a. Desaturate
b. Duplicate
c. Invert top copy
d. Color Dodge and Gaussian Blur (high 4-8)
e. Merge down and duplicate again
f. Multiply and Gaussian Blur (high 4-8)
G) Original –soft light
H) Pattern fill layer in soft light mode for texture

Some Retinex, Mr. Contrast, Impressionist, and Paint Engine play. Oh yes, NIK's free Colorfx warmth filter too. :)

lk,

i like that 'mist' sort of effect in the foreground. i also find the fade to black and white interesting.

craig

Used to be a great place to go fishing until they built all the condos along the river.

Anyway here's my stab.

Steve

steve,

an interesting effect. dont need the whole work flow, but some idea of how you achieved this?

also, an interesting choice of flow lines, especially in the water? why the contrasting flow lines there? i like the light blue as it tends to follow the flow of the water, but why the horizontal in the dark blue?

craig

Thanks Craig.

A combination thing.....Buzz, Gertrudis, and Impressionist. Used pencil strokes in Impressionist on the top layer and the result is what you see. I just kinda liked the maybe offbeat look.

Steve

steve,

an interesting effect. dont need the whole work flow, but some idea of how you achieved this?

also, an interesting choice of flow lines, especially in the water? why the contrasting flow lines there? i like the light blue as it tends to follow the flow of the water, but why the horizontal in the dark blue?

craig

fair enough :)

i also see a bit of van gogh here.

craig

Lens blur, tonal ajustment, applied real paper texture.

Here is a Pointillist version, done in Painter with Seurat brush and details with a fine camel. Added very subtle basic paper.
Took me a while to find a comfort zone in Painter, but now I cannot live without it.
Nice work, everyone. Once again great variations.
MargaretM

Sometimes I get a nice Van Gogh effect using Gert. Seems to just happen depending on subject matter and stroke combinations.

Am always stumbling on something new when playing with this plugin.

Steve


fair enough :)

i also see a bit of van gogh here.

craig

Am always stumbling on something new when playing with this plugin. amen to that :)

craig

I have been messing around with different way's to use the cutout filter and here's two of them !

Palms

Hi and thank you for these forums and all the different techniques shared here.

I tried to give this photo an oil painted look using a few different layers smart blurred and with different opacities, and then playing with brushes, art strokes filters and lighting effects filters set to texturize. Some layers were tinted slightly yellow with photopaint's smoked glass filter which adds more blur as well.

Hi and welcome jaysmummy your first post is good and very interesting, hope to see your work around

Palms

I've really been busy so about all I had time to do was run "Big Picture" action on this.

I used Gertrudis for this using the following workflow :

1 - Set the saturation slider to 75%
2 - Went over entire image w/large pastel brush
3 - Then went over shoreline w/vincent brush. As I went further into distance I increased the opacity.
4 - Went over boat w/smaller sized vincent brush
5 - Went over boat w/small oil brush w/high opacity to bring out more definition
6 - First half of water I went over w/high opacity medium oil brush

Here's my try at this one. Sorry I can't remember all the steps taken to achive this. :confused:

TwoLaidBack

Another one.
Sylvia

It never fails to amaze me, the detail that Lucis can bring out of a picture, I hadn't noticed the big thing in the middle before.

Peter

I hadn't noticed the big thing in the middle before.
Me neither! :wink: Well done, Peter!
Sylvia

Simple use of PaintShop Pro 8 Salt and Pepper Filter with modest desaturation