I wish you guys could smell these as well as see them. They are really quite fragrant, as well as lovely to look at.
:wavey:

A nice card to send back to the relatives who are still shoveling snow.

These looked like they'd be fun to play with. On this first image, I played almost entirely with layer modes, with a slight addition of texture.

Here's another view. I don't know quite what to call this. One layer had some brush strokes on it, the rest was mostly playing with layer blend modes.

BK, love your card...well done!

Tyeise, both of yours look like fabric prints...very nice!

Here's my first try at it. First I cropped and enlarged to concentrate on fewer flowers.

Phyllis

This one is more scribbly.

Phyllis

And last, here's a watercolor.

Phyllis

What kind of flowers are these? They're gorgeous!!!

Excellent entries thusfar. All winners!

No matter what I tried, these really wanted to be chalk flowers drawn on a blackboard. Who am I to stand in the way? Far be it from me to stifle the awesome power of the flower.

Amanda, wow...you really did achieve the "colored chalk on blackboard" look! Great job!

I used to have wallflowers in my garden...came up for a few springs then one year they were just gone for good. I even tried planting new seeds twice...still no wallflowers. I miss them...they were such a beautiful schoolbus yellow and gold, and smelled good too. Sigh.

Anyway...here's an embroidery.

Phyllis

And I really like the delicate look of this one. Started with accented edges followed by outline method, followed by anisotropic diffuse and sharpening, then finally KPT6 equalizer (don't know how I lived without that amazing filter).

Phyllis, beautiful work as always. How did you acheive that interesting texture on the leaves of your first one?

Amanda, I like how you placed the flowers in the corner over your artistic version. :)

Tyeise

So they really are called wallflowers? I thought BK was being witty. :tongue:

I wonder if they'll grow down here...

Originally posted by themanda
So they really are called wallflowers? I thought BK was being witty. :tongue:

I wonder if they'll grow down here... Oh no - I don't do witty. :tongue:

I'm surprised that wallflowers didn't do well for ANYONE, as they are almost in the weed category as far as hardiness goes. They get little green-bean-like seed pods on them after their first profusion of blooming, and if you trim those off (and throw them in some dirt after they have dried) they bloom again and again. I'm sure they'd grow in Texas if they grow here in the Northwest. Seem to like sun.

Hi Folks
Really GREAT entries so far..Very nice flowers to work with..Here is a tinted sketch with some hand masked highlights..Thought it kind of looks like wallpaper..

Jerry :D

Phil:

Wonderful pic for this mini. The "Whidby Postcard" is a WHOLE LOT better that one would find at the North Bend Safeway, that's for sure!

- - - - - - - -
Phyllis:

Your watercolor treatment is very impressive. If you have time would you detail the technique? I don't recall seeing it anywhere.

- - - - - - - -
Amanda:

The combination of edge treatment + distinct foreground / background flowers is very effective

- - - - - - - -
Chuck:

Especially nice results of AHB + Trimoon's texture. Can you give some detail on brush selection / settings, AHB settings. Very nice.

~Danny~

Beautiful work by all. BK, that's a beautiful photo, I don't know if I could mess it up no matter how hard I tried! By the way, where do you live on Whidbey Island? I lived in Oak Harbor from July 85 to Dec 88.

I haven't used my batik effect in a while, and I think it works with this. Bill Miller

I agree. Very nice rendition.

Originally posted by tyeise
Phyllis, ... How did you acheive that interesting texture on the leaves of your first one?

That comes from what I call my "abstract" technique, which is detailed here in the photo art forum. Basically it involves making the basic outline but in the process adding equalize, anisotropic, and cutout. The full instructions are at
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4945 .


Originally posted by danny
Your watercolor treatment is very impressive. If you have time would you detail the technique? I don't recall seeing it anywhere.


It's nothing fancy. Mainly just smart blur to simplify a bit, followed by anisotropic diffuse, unsharp mask, then a pattern adjustment layer using a blotchy pattern that I made a while back. Any blotchy pattern should work okay, but if you want the one I used, I will post it here.

Phyllis

Blacknight, thanks for a great image. Everyone seems to have had a great time with this one.

I basically used the method I described here: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5051&perpage=15&highlight=spider%20flowers&pagenumber=2 (scroll down to my response to Blacknight). I also ran some filters on the flowers...smart blur, anisotropic and watercolor or dry brush IIRC, among others that I can't recall. I worked on this piecemeal on and off all day today, so I didn't keep track.

Pam

Phyllis:

Thx for the how-to hints and the super texture... I've been pecking away at it and got no where even close to the wonderful results you got.

- - - - - - - -

In the mean time I became sidetracked and ended up with something completely different. Ah, the wonders of random, accidental art. :)

I used the output of three actions here (see following), modifying the results of the 2nd one a bit and the last one considerably.

Action for outer frame (unmodified results):
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=47874#post47874

Action for inner selection:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=45554#post45554

Action for flowers background
The The flowers background is based on an action recently downloaded from www.share.studio.adobe.com (if you haven't signed up for this site, you'll need to). Search for the action set "SimpleEffective". In it is an action called "Alienique," which I modified heavily. Send me e-mail if you're interested.

Originally posted by Bill M
Beautiful work by all. BK, that's a beautiful photo, I don't know if I could mess it up no matter how hard I tried! By the way, where do you live on Whidbey Island? I lived in Oak Harbor from July 85 to Dec 88.

Currently Oak Harbor - have lived on the south end in Freeland and Clinton as well. Lovely places, all.

Just great submissions so far :bigthmb:

-- With the weather here on the East I needed a touch of spring to remind me YES it will come! All my flowers that started to come up are now under snow and ice.
So here is my touch of spring!

Hi Jill! Yes, snow here too in Eastern PA - thanks for giving us some hope that spring flowers will be here soon! (maybe?). I really like the texture and colors on your rendition....at first I wasn't sure about the framing .....but I kept looking at it and decided, yes - really a 'cool' presentation.
Regards,
Bill C

Ran across an action I wrote awhle back (click HERE (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=29746#post29746) and decided to try it out on this one.

Sure helps to have a pretty picture to start with.

How about a go at this one?

It's coming up on Spring in the Northern hemisphere (finally!).

....and I'd better duck for cover after posting all those beautiful beach scenes from Down Under :lmao: I LOVE snow scenes too!!!

PSP8.1

Simple Filter/Top Left Mirror
Buzz Simplifier Filter
Aim/USM - Dupe Layer
L2 - Impressionist/Conte/Conte Faithful
L2 - Layer Opacity 76%
Merged both layers.

Art histouy brush, over sharpen, texture
Link to a larger image (http://www.pbase.com/image/40404146)

Neve and Stephen, wonderful. I love the colors and the execution.

Neve, the mirrored effect is great. I can see that used in so many ways.

And Stephen, your mastery of the Art History Brush is as always inspiring and jaw dropping.

Janet

Hard to resist such pretty flowers. I'm wondering how BillM got the edges to his Batik fabric, very kewl.
I did a line drawing overlay using smart blur and then a lot of experimenting w/ Impressionist, minimum, maximum & median, looking for a watercolor effect.

Thank you for your kind words. This was a great picture to work with and I loved the colors.

The art history brush is intimidating at first, but it is very easy to use. A lot of people have problems in the very beginning because they don't know how to get started. They bring the image up and then try to use the art history brush but it won't work. A way around this is to do all your adjustments to the image (such as size and color) and then save it. Makesure you close the image and then reopen. As long as you don't change the size of the image, the art history brush will work from then on. With the image open, I ususally create a second layer and apply some textured paper to it. I usually use a color for this paper straight from the original image. Then I'll add some texture. There are a lot of ways of doing this, but I won't go into that now. I create another new layer, set the blending mode to hard light and then I start painting with my art history brush. When I through painting it all in, I'll over sharpen it using unsharp mask, adjusting the sliders back and forth until I get what I'm looking for. This usually brings out the color. From this point, there is really no way of telling which point I'll go. I usually just play around until I get something I like and add texture and flatten. That's what I did for this image. I know this is not a step-by-step, but I am finishing up a long-promised tutorial on this technique. This technique actually will let you do the so-called gragan technique or the above technique illustrated by these flowers. It's all the same. The tutorial will be in PDF form and will be free for download and can even be posted there. If you desire more than PDF, there will be videos available for order, but I feel that the PDF will be more than adequate.
Steve

Thank you for your kind words. This was a great picture to work with and I loved the colors.

The art history brush is intimidating at first, but it is very easy to use. A lot of people have problems in the very beginning because they don't know how to get started. They bring the image up and then try to use the art history brush but it won't work. A way around this is to do all your adjustments to the image (such as size and color) and then save it. Makesure you close the image and then reopen. As long as you don't change the size of the image, the art history brush will work from then on. With the image open, I ususally create a second layer and apply some textured paper to it. I usually use a color for this paper straight from the original image. Then I'll add some texture. There are a lot of ways of doing this, but I won't go into that now. I create another new layer, set the blending mode to hard light and then I start painting with my art history brush. When I through painting it all in, I'll over sharpen it using unsharp mask, adjusting the sliders back and forth until I get what I'm looking for. This usually brings out the color. From this point, there is really no way of telling which point I'll go. I usually just play around until I get something I like and add texture and flatten. That's what I did for this image. I know this is not a step-by-step, but I am finishing up a long-promised tutorial on this technique. This technique actually will let you do the so-called gragan technique or the above technique illustrated by these flowers. It's all the same. The tutorial will be in PDF form and will be free for download and can even be posted there. If you desire more than PDF, there will be videos available for order, but I feel that the PDF will be more than adequate.
SteveThanks, Steve, for once again sharing some of your methods with us.

You bet, when the .pdf is ready to go, give me a yell. We'll definitely find a place for it. Sure appreciate the offer.

~Danny~

Nice work all.

BG. Crop, tweak composition, adjust tone & colors
A: copy BG. Amphisoft Simplifier. Impressionist JaykitaWC2 modified.
B: copy A. 2X Impressionist same settings
C: TornEdges sketch on a bandpass layer (0.7 to 3). (SoftLigth).
D: an Impressionist texture only layer. (Overlay)

-Mark