Okay for the “Translucency challenge” I walked around the house trying to find a translucent object to take a picture of. I played with smoked glass, my scanner’s dust cover and a frosted picture frame, but I just wasn’t coming up with any ideas from these items. Then I came across some bubble-wrap. After enjoying a childish moment of popping a few bubbles (who can resist) I went outside with my digital camera and took a picture of the sky while holding the bubble wrap in front of the camera.. I also took a photo of one of the hanging baskets in the backyard.


Here is how I did it:

1. Opened the photos in PhotoShop. Decided to use the sky through bubble-wrap as my background. Made a duplicate copy of it and change the layer to color dodge with opacity set at 100%. This created the intense blue look.

2. Next I looked at the photo of the hanging basket and lassoed a flower stem out of it and copied and pasted it onto its own layer between the background layer and the color dodge layer.

3. I gave the flower layer an outer glow of blue. Mode Color Dodge. Opacity 50%. Blur 50. Intensity 370. Then duplicated the layer to increase the intensity.

4. I duplicated the layer one more time, but this time I used a glow of purple.

5. The picture still needed a little oomph so I played with some lighting effects with the triple spotlight using blue lighting on the top flower layer.

6. The flower still was dark in areas so I erased different areas on the different layers to help the background show through and give it that translucent look.

7. Next I added a lens flare effect to the center of the flower to a lower flower layer.

8. Finally I added the text, added a drop shadow, and lowered the opacity to 60%.

Cool photo and Great job putting it all together! I find it relaxing to look at and kinda soothing. Tom

Fascinating! You definitely created a translucent feeling. Great job! :D -Jeanie

Thanks Tom & Jeanie.

Boy did I get some odd looks as I walked around the yard with my piece up bubble-wrap and my digital camera. The sad thing is I am new to the neighborhood and the neighbors are going to think I am a loon.

:dizzy:

-T

Neat idea. I really like it. Being new to the neighborhood, you could always make a few prints to give to your close neighbors. At the same time, you can explain that you're not really a loon, just a photo restorer (if there's a difference). :D

Ed

I'm glad you braved the neighbors to try something new. It turned out fantastic!! I think you may have started a craze here, to find new and interesting ways to shock the neighbors. :D Seriously though, I thought it was very original and inventive and your efforts paid off. Great pic.
DJ

Very interesting image, almost as though take under water..... I think it's the saturated blue that gives me this feeling. Could also explain the relaxing/soothing feeling that Tom mentions. Great work. Hey, have you ever tried scan-o-grams? Fun exercises, though not really directly related to photo-restoration....

Cheers!
Donald

Hawkaye, I am intrigued. What exactly is a scan-o-gram?

-T

I guess we'll never find out what a scan-o-gram is :(

egads guys, sorry for the lack of response..... afraid "life" had me side tracked there for a bit. I'm about to hit the sack, but I'll spend tomorrow catching up on happenings here on the board, and I'll post an example of a scanogram I did and was fairly happy with the results. Goodnight, one and all. Til tomorrow.

>>>---Hawkaye--->