Here's a scene that I have tried to do something with and I can't seem to get what I want. Of course the problem is that I don't know what I want.

See what you guys can do with it.

E.B.

I started to try black/white, but ended up playing with the color of the light hitting the different parts of the pasture.

Oh WOW CJ! That is awesome! :) Now I'm almost embarrassed to post mine. :(

I was trying to play with the light as well, but leave it more as a traditional photo. First I cropped it to make it more of a panoramic, then added a different sky that I have in my "sky collection." Increased the contrast by copying the green channel to a new layer and setting the blending mode to luminosity with opacity 50%. Added another layer in overlay mode and played with dodge & burn on the highlights and shadows. Finished it with a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to adjust everything to my liking.

Jeanie

E.B. - nice picture, thanks for sharing.
CJ - very dramatic - I like the lighting and texture.
Here's mine
Duped the layer
Top layer - ran Apply Image ... with the mask button checked ... then selected blue channel, difference, gray channel
Then I changed the blend mode on top layer to Multiply
Flattened
Bill C

Jeanie, CJ, BillC

Would one of you adopt me so I could watch you do this stuff.

All three of those renditions are great.

E.B.

Did a couple of versions of this. Plain old clouds filter for the bland sky, and the NEW command/option/tilde thing (cool - thanks, stay-at-home mom!!) on a layer set to vivid light. Sharpen and hue/sat to taste.

The other version.

Whoever guesses what filter I used wins a prize! :tongue:

Jeanie - wow! Nice work
BK - also, a wow! great colors...(could you provide a link/hint on the 'tilde' thing?)
My guess on the filter ... begins with an A! (of course!)
Regards,
Bill C

e.b.--thanks for posting such a great pic. it almost looked like a painting already!

cj--that's gorgeous! such a soft, pretty look. love the self-framing on it, too. great job!

jeaniesa--i'm so glad you did post this. it's wonderful!!! :)

BillC--wow! i love how you balanced the light and the dark in this one. terrific!

my man BK--look at you all down with the Anistropic filter.
(where's my prize????? cash is always nice.) ;) I like both of your versions...very well done!!!

fishboy--you most certainly are good at other things besides plants and animals. great work!

chuck--I love it! :) :)

Mine is just a quickie done with Paint Engine. I added a few friends for our distant horsie. He looked lonely.

Isn't everyone having a great time with this image!! :) Thanks again, e.b.!!

Jeanie -- "Awesome" right back at you! What a wonderful panoramic view!

BillC - love the night view, and it makes good use of the detail-less sky area -- smart and good-looking!

BK - vivid reproductions - good use of the Luminescence mask!

Fishboy -- obviously, your skills work on landscapes as well as fish; love that magenta sky. We get those here often.

Chuck - love those clouds! Make it bigger!

Amanda -- I'm SO glad he's got friends now - what a beautiful pastoral scene!

Yes, a lot of very creative, wonderful renditions.
Here's my 2nd ... having too much fun in the digital darkroom. (and, way too much time)
Bill C

BillC!!! Loving it!!

I usually don't like water added to photos, but this really, really works for me. Well done!!!

I really liked this picture when I saw it. Bill and I must have been working on the same idea at the same time as far as changing the dirt in the fore ground. I added blue bells.
All the submissions are great.
Took a picture of blue bells from the web and dup it a bunch of times. Worked the bightness and contrast. Used dry brush and plaster filters.

Jean

Originally posted by themanda
BK--where's my prize????? cash is always nice.
*hands her a box of crackerjax*

Your prize is inside... :tongue:

Wow, so many great efforts...changes in light and color can make so much difference, can't they? Lots of good work here, but a few really caught my eye: CJ, the lighting is absolutely perfect! This is a wonderful bit of photo art! Jeanie, the panorama is a great idea and turned out really well! Amanda I love the ponies you added...perfect touch! Chuck, that's a great painting and the added clouds add extra oomph...great job!

Phyllis

I needed a photo to practice on and found this lovely one it almost has a Constable air about it ! ! ! ! (painter of course not policeman !)

and need more practice

Palms

I needed a photo to practice on and found this lovely one it almost has a Constable air about it ! ! ! ! (painter of course not policeman !)

and need more practice

PalmsNicely done, Palms... Glad you dug this one up.

- - - - - -

I was in the mood to do a little playing. The results I got are easy to recreate in Elements or Photoshop as long as one has the Impressionist plugin and the "jch van gogh" custom preset installed.** See the Layer's Palette snapshot for the layer detail.

The texture/depth effect comes from applying the Texture > Craquelure filter with all settings = 0, a trick I learned from Phyllis Stewart.

** To find this and other custom Impressionist presets, go here:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8328

Step-by-step:
1. Duplicate Background
2. Apply Impressionist > jch > van gogh (pressure = 200)
3. Layer > New Layer > Hue/Saturation (Saturation = 75)
4. Create a new layer
5. Alt + Layer > Merge visible
6. Apply Craquelure 0,0,0

~Danny~

Couldnt quite get the sky right....

I used this image (http://image44.webshots.com/45/2/2/93/365220293Ncbosj_ph.jpg) that I stole (er um) borrowed for this mix of fantasy with reality. For the original background, I merged the original with an Overlay of Harry's Atmospherizer filter to blend it with the fantasy background. Hope you all like it. :)

Nicely done, Palms... Glad you dug this one up.I am glad i dug this one up as well. already some great postings added. the texture /depth effect looks interesting -- will have to look into this,

Nancy i like your sky

Ikroll i also like your stole/borrowed effect

Palms

Can't see the forest for the painterly effect.

Steve

Ikroll i also like your stole/borrowed effect

Palms

Thanks Palms. :)

lk,

that is very, very cool! love the addtions and coloring. the only thing missing is the unicorn, which is what i was going to add to this one :)

craig

Cloned foreground, added second horsie and simplified in CS2; painted in Gertrudis Pro; added texture, embossed, touched up in CS2.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f131/dkcoats/RP/pasture.jpg

dc

A very nice shot with good color and lots of opportunities. I did an oil painting that began with Caravaggio (default setting) but lost track of the rest.
Alan

lk,

that is very, very cool! love the addtions and coloring. the only thing missing is the unicorn, which is what i was going to add to this one :)

craig

Such a small addition too. :mad:

Thanks for the comment Craig. :)

This is my SA try.

Great photo, EB! The painted versions look like they should be hanging in a museum somewhere.

My goal was to add something suitable to the foreground (me and my cows), add some punch to the sky and change the lighting on the right side of the picture for some depth.

I started to do something "painterly", but I'm not good at it so left it more photographic.

My Try.

Replaced the sky
Used Carravagio
Min-i-max filtering
Smoothing

Lord knows everything I did with this, I tried to remember, but got a pm from D.R. and now can't remember a thing except.
Art history, and I went down to a one pixel brush at times just to get some more details in.
Also overlaid a Redfield Bas-Relief layer to heighten the brush stokes.
Oh yeah there is a slight texture there as well - honest.

Peter

Painted pasture.

Steve C.

Cropped a bit, added some sky, added a horsy, painted with Impressionist, sipped on a beer...