Hi all,


Here is a pic of a lotus blossom taken at Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles, which if you have ever been there is not the safest place in the world to go, but when the lotus are blooming, the lake is amazing. I have always liked this image because of its simplicity, I hope you like it too. I am really interested to see what all the talented people here can come up with, using this image.

Enjoy,

Alan

Such beautiful flowers these are...I have never seen a lotus. :(

I used the same basic technique I used yesterday to paint Lynda Logan's Hope in this same forum.

1. Some color adjustments and layer blending etc. to get a revised picture that had more contrast and more color variety.

2. KPT pyramid paint followed by faint paint daubs and faded spatter.

3. Duped then darkened and increased contrast with a levels adjustment on the new bottom layer.

4. Put a layer mask on the top layer, filled with black, and painted over with varying opacities of white with a big scattering brush (leaves or crystals etc...forget which pattern this time). This blended the light and dark in a blotchy pattern to simulate brush strokes.

5. After merging these layers I finished by adding a pattern adjustment layer using the confetti pattern. Last time I'd used a similar one, the crystals pattern. They are very similar patterns but the latter is orderly in diagonal rows where the former is random.

I also used a "stone" pattern layer as well along the way, to get a rough paper texture.

Phyllis

What great opportunity to try Cricket's Watercolor Technique.
Since the background is not distracting I didn't do anything to it.
I do not have a scanner, so I masked the flower out. I "paint bucket" filled the background with a light olive color. Using history brush tool with the dynamics turned on and watercolor#2 & 4, I put back some of the dark green color. Also by varying the blend mode (Screen, overlay, darken) on the brush tool options I was able to get different shades of green.
I also used some smudge tool on the flower with very low opacity.

Cricket's tutorial can be found here :
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=4805

Tony

I finally found my Painter 6. I am just beginning again to learn this program after seeing Jack's (JAZ) contribution here in Photo-Based-Art. Jack's work convinced me to give this program another chance.
Anyway, as Jack says, it is easier to produce photo-based art in Painter than in Photoshop.
First I cloned the picture. Then Select all and filled with white-ish fill color. Deselected then turned on the tracing paper. With the tracing paper on you can see the image underneath the white fill.
Checking on clone color I used heavy chalk on the flower and coarse airbrush on the background. Saved it in jpg. I applied the texture in PS7 using rough pastel art filter.
It took me three hours to get to this but I think it's worth it.

Tony

and a bit of 'verbiage'.

First, I've made two copies of the bg layer cause I knew I wanted to work on the green bg and the flower separately.

A=green bg only B=flower only

Then, I've separated the flower from the green background with the Magic wand and the lasso and saved the selection. With the selection, I've isolated the flower and the green bg each on their respective layer.

On the green layer, first I add an adj. layer (A1=Hue/Saturation) and pushed the Hue +36 to have a bit more blue color. I then Grouped it with A.

On A, I used Filter/Artistic/Colored Pencil (5, 15, 25), after having added noise (9,27, Gaussian). [Thanks Danny for the trick.] I then used the Smudge tool (about 60, Normal, Strength ± 30) folowing the direction of the pencil lines.

For the flower:
First, I added an adj. layer B1= Level (0, 0.95, 216) to get brighter colors and grouped it with B.

On B, I've worked with the Smudge tool, varying the diameter and working with Normal, Lighten and darken, about 16-34 %.

On top of all that, I've put an adj. layer C=Brightness/Contrast (+24, +30)

That's about it, I think.

Lotus - isn't that what Jeaniesa has for an avatar?

Anyway, I inverted, Eye Candy Antimatter, and inverted again. Set the blend mode to Linear Light and put a KPT5 fractal behind it. Painted in black on the background using the flower as a guide to darken the flower color. The quote is from a cross stitch pillow my mother has.
:wavey:

This is just two layers, antimatter on the top, and lots of hue/sat and blend mode experimenting. Texturizer filter with watercolor paper, inverted. KPT Equalizer as a final step - it made it "glow" a bit, and I thought that was a good effect.
:wavey:

A retouch version of my earlier one (is it obvious that I like those practices?)

I've added a Filter/Paint Daubs (3,2,Sparkle) faded at 40% to a copy of the green layer + Blend Mode=Overlay).

And a Filter/Dry Brush (1,10,3) to the flower layer (+min. corrections with the History Brush).

Oh ya, and I've put up the Brightness/Contrast adj. layer to +24, +30.

Too bad it's already over... Going back to work tomorrow. I had a real good time. Thanks all folks.

Done with Project Dogwaffle, a free paint program that might give some fun when you don't have a 'big' painting program.

http://www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?download=1&ID=1472

A watercolour attempt

Palms

Another couple from me, love the simplicity of this flower

Palms

A glowing flower:

i like the double framing there, gerry.

ok, no filter forge filter this time. just a little whimsy.

Hi Alan,

this is a very nice picture, i like it.

cropped the image
made masks from chanells R G B
screen and multiply layers used to change contrast masked by the 3 masks
lens flair effect on an overlay layer gave the lights

saby

I was just trying to keep this simple.


Peter

I was just trying to keep this simple.


Peter

Peter sorry to pick flies, but check the right hand side out, looks like some residue left there ( i am hugely guilty of this it is usually where the tool pallettes sit :ditsy: ) Now if it is Artistically left i apologise.

Palms

Just playing with GIMPressionist again. :)

Peter sorry to pick flies, but check the right hand side out, looks like some residue left there ( i am hugely guilty of this it is usually where the tool pallettes sit :ditsy: ) Now if it is Artistically left i apologise.

Palms

Ok Ok I got it wrong (again) consider it rectified.:lol:
Thanks Palms
LK that is very busy. Like it.

Peter

That 's it Peter, just shows simplicity is sometimes best,
But lk that is not simple by any stretch of the imagination but i could see it framed and in a modern art gallery

Palms

from one of my filter forge filters:

I had to give this a try. Wondered how it would look on a ceramic tile.
Shari

clever, shari. i like it :)

such a beautiful flower... it deserves another go.

Thanks, Craig. I find this is so addicting. Retouchpro is the first place I go when I turn on the computer-even before checking the email.
Mind if I ask how you got the sparkle effect? Your lotus just jumps out of the screen.
Shari

How in the world did I miss this one?? Lovely flower.

How in the world did I miss this one?? Lovely flower.

I don't you how you missed it either unless we are related somehow (cause I missed it too :) ).

It is simply stunning Swampy!!!

Janet

Thank you, Janet.

I did a little smudge and sharpen, paint with history and then some dodge and burn. Used a brush with a rosy color and yellow with the brush set to jitter the colors then added on of my favorite textures-stucco 2.

shari,

the sparkle is a fairly natural result of one of my filter forge filters. it uses HRD lighting environments and depth/height adjustments. it also has a built-in reflection aspect. i think on that particular image it was the reflection aspect that added the sparkle. i call that particular filter 'the monster'; not because of the ugliness of the product, but because it's the largest filter i've ever made :)

and what did you use to get your tile?

Glad I didn't uninstall my PS5.5 when I installed CS2. The angled brushstrokes filter (one of the gems that I really like in Photoshop) for 5.5 actually works in Irfanview (not so for CS2 for whatever reason). Still doing my Dual collaboration between Irfanview and GIMP2.4 (sad that these two programs together still use far less resources then CS2 alone as far as my PC is concerned; oh well) for this brushed oil rendering. :)

I did this as a straight retouch: sharpen, contrast, convert to Lab, D&B, lighting effects

Excellent, Dave! Very sharp and crisp with wonderful detail in the petals.

Beautiful Flower!
Embossed then used some actions I had forgotten about..Sandpaper, Goldflakes, etc..

dee dee, i like that. good replacement of the background.

lk, very cool.

and dave, very simple, very clean. nice :)

Craig,
Thanks for the info on the sparkles. I haven't tried any of the filterforge filters yet. I've looked at it but really don't know anything about filterforge.

As to what I did to get the tile, I wish I knew. I fiddled over a couple of days, off and on. I know I used high pass filter at the beginning, and finished off with a bevel, but what I did in between is not so evident. I get to trying something, undoing it, trying something else until I get a look I like, but then I can't duplicate it. No self-discipline, I guess.
Shari

Thank you, Craig. :-)

Great one to see resurrected messed around with some textures ! ! !

Palms

shari,

that's fine. i do the same thing all the time :) every once in a while i go back and look at something i did a year ago and go 'how the heck did i do that?' :)

nice, palms :)

lk, very cool.


Thanks Craig. Forgot to mention that I also used EyeCandy III Jiggle preset to get the random waviness (since angled brushstrokes alone is way too straight). :)

...and another! :)

well, i'm not quite done with this one yet. applied my 'silver surfer' filter to this one and liked the results :)

and here's another using a filter forge filter called 'spherize'.

and, if you happen to like abstract distortions...

Very nice Craig especially your silver surfer which is aptly named as it does have a liquid feel to it

Palms

Craig, that filter looks like it has great potential. Would love to see it on just the flower.

thanks, palms :) yes, i like the surfer filter also. it's an alteration of one of steviej's (from the filter forge forum) filter forge filters. he's done a lot of chrome/metal/glass type filters.

and thanks, dee dee :) i also thought the same thing as i was working with it, but was too lazy last night to do a cutout. i might be able to alter the filter to select only certain hues or brights/darks, though, and do it that way. wouldnt work on every picture, of course, but could help on some.

alright, i did the cutout and pasted over the original :)

alright, i did the cutout and pasted over the original :)

And it was well worth the effort excellent

Palms

Marvelous Craig. I really like the effect you achieved with this one.

Janet

Craig, it now looks like that beautiful hand blown Italian glass! Wonderful!

thanks, palms :) thank dee dee; she's the one got me off my butt to do it up right :D

thanks, janet :) a very fun filter.

and thanks, dee dee. you knew what it needed. thanks for the prod ;)

Any time, Craig! :-)

Just looked through the thread and you have all done such lovely pics...
Very well done.....
Its such a beautiful photo...Thanks for sharing...

Here are two from me....I used Fractalius!!!

Patricia..........:wavey:

Very nice Craig. I would consider investing in the software but since it is not ported to the Mac, I can't. :(

patricia, both of those are gorgeous, but i really like the first! :)

gerry, the mac version is in progress. not sure of the due date, though.

I had to give this another try. Since I couldn't use Filter Forge, I did the next best thing. I cutout the blossom and used the Plastic Wrap, Chrome, and Glowing Edges filters, and changed the blend mode to overlay on each of those layers. I also darkened the background layer.

Well done, Gerry! You have duplicated Craigs look the hard way!.

Thanks, Swampy. It would have been easier with the plugin but it was fun to see if it could be accomplished without.

The liquid effect is really neat. Mine is lights and rain drops.

Welcome aboard, Mining Art! That is very unusual. I like the drippy look.

Influenced by my another interest of mine.

very close and very cool, gerry :)

i like that, mining art. very different look :)

i like yours, too, shay :)

Re: Lotus Blossom
Welcome aboard, Mining Art! That is very unusual. I like the drippy look.
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Swampy

Thanks Swampy, like a good potato salad with no recipe I was just experimenting, so probably could not replicate it.

I thought I'd go for something decidedly strange

Peter

Sort of a modification of my usual stippling technique; still use Amphisoft filters, but used Raster Master and Xylograph this time. Also used GIMP's Spyrograph filter with some Squarify for the frame. Some necessary cleanup too. :)

very nice ikroll
It looks like it was printed on fabric. Nice effect.

i like that, peter! looks like some sort of strange reptile coming to have a bite of flower :)