Yes it's time for another round of Art Tag. This round will start Friday 5 December.

I'm in the process of decorating my house and I was so pleased with last year's digital house decorating results, I'd thought we try it again with a different photo.

If you want to play and I know you do...send me a PM!

Hope to hear from you soon!

~T

Don't know how to play? Click here! (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2855)

Who has signed up so far....

Gina
Welles
Kissed Vixen
Svsg
RonDon

This round has officially started, but you can still sign up if you want to play! Below is the status so you can follow the progression of the game.

Players Status:

Gina - Done
Welles - Done
Kissed Vixen - Done
Svsg - Done
RonDon - Done


~T

Anyone in the holiday mood and feel like digitally decorating a house? It's a lot easier and you don't have to fool with tangled lights or frost bite! If you want to play, just send me a PM as there is still room for a few more players!

~T

Hi

do we get to see the orginal one or do we have to wait til its done :)

Kissed

Got to wait until it's done! :)

~T

This round is officially closed!

Thanks to all that played. You guys and gals created a very festive house!

We also had two additional players to the player list as Doug as well as myself joined the fun.

Okay, here is the starting image.

And here is how it changed from player to player….

And finally….here is the finished product! Great job everyone!

Good work, everyone!

I was tempted to add a bunch of snow, but didn't know if the existing snow had been added by a previous player and didn't want to cover it up if it was.

Welles,

What was your technique to change the house from day to night and add the lighted window reflections to the ground? I think others might find this technique useful.

~T

Nice little christmas-ey house :)

I had the same thoughts on the snow...I was debating making it look like a real Canadian winter ;) you know snow up to the door knob!!

but wasnt' sure if the snow was someones :)

The lighting effect on the house is cool, I am curious too..

also want to know whats that font! and how did ya get it so shiny! I want to beable to do that!!


Kissed

The text is done by an action called Blue Glitter Alien. It can be found on the Adobe Studio Exchange web site.

Adobe Studio Exchange (http://share.studio.adobe.com/Default.asp)

Blue Glitter Alien (http://share.studio.adobe.com/axAssetDetailSubmit.asp?aID=3963&back=http%3A%2F%2Fshare%2Estudio%2Eadobe%2Ecom%2FaxQuickSearchSubmit%2Easp%3Ftxt%3Dblue%2Bglitter%2Balien%26allprods%3D0)

~T

With all the comments about snow, I thought I add a little storm. Here is a version of the house with Adobe Exchange's Winter Wonderland action run on it.

Enjoyed the progression on this!!! Wonderful job to all who worked on the image.

T - the addition of the falling snow is the perfect ending!

yes the snow fall looks great :)

and thanks for the link for the text very cool~!!


Happy holidays to all...

can't wait for the new year and the next round of art tag....
less we are getting one for new years ;)

kissed

A very nice christmas card indeed!
And I would like to know how you changed day to night too!
Since I was first I didn't want to do too much so the others could find something to do! I thought about changing the snow but didn't do it. Shame!
You saved ou bacon (!) by putting in the snowfall T Paul.:)


gina

Sorry I took so long to answer but I've been very busy with non-computer work which has to be finished before the Christmas season truly descends upon us.

Let me first say that I loved the results of our Christmas decorations and think that T Paul's final snowstorm addition should be considered the final image.

I went second and received the image with Gina's addition of the stylized starry sky and (though I didn't know it then) the lighted trees flanking the house. When I looked at the image I decided that it had to be turned into a night scene for that was what the new sky demanded and the illuminated trees could be made to stand out too. To accomplish that goal I first created three selections and saved them as alpha channels. First I did a hard selection of the sky which was easily selected with the magic wand. I added the stars to the blue by holding down the shift key and using one of the lasso tools until I had all the sky and stars selected and saved as alpha channel one. I then used the lasso tool and went around the perimeter of one the illuminated trees, feathered the resulting selection 20 pixels, and saved it as alpha channel two. Repeated the same step with the other illuminated tree. Then I created the overall selection by loading one alpha channel as a selection and shift adding the other two.

After creating that fairly complex selection I inverted it. Duplicated the background layer and added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer linked to the copied background layer with a mask made from the inverted selection. That meant that I could darken the image but the sky and illuminated trees weren't affected. So I didn't mess with the sky and the trees truly appeared illuminated with the feathering acting to cast a glow on the ground underneath the trees and on the corners of the house. I liked that effect but it became obvious the I needed to light up the house.

That turned out to be fairly tricky. I don't remember all the details but I had to select each window. That was done with the rectangular marquee tool and then transforming the selection to match the perspective of each window. Each window selection was saved as an alpha channel and eventually they were grouped together in 'logical' groups, the three dining room windows, living room windows etc. Once I had the selections, experimenting how to illuminate the windows was a trick. I ended up loading my grouped window selections and copying to a new layer the windows from the original background layer and then duplicated each of these copies. On the first copy of each window grouping I inverted the window image to try and get the frame of the window darker and the glass panels lighter. The second copy of each was above it's companion image and given a style of a simple inner glow and the fill opacity was reduced to about 15%. The inner glow layers were linked to new blank layers and merged to eliminate the style but yield the result. The resulting 'lighting' layer was set to screen blend mode and the opacity modified until the windows looked as though they actually were lighted from within.

As I looked at the result it seemed that such an illuminated house needed to have light patterns on the snow outside and on the roof above the front porch for verisimilitude. Actually that turned out to be fairly simple. I loaded my window group alpha channels as selections and then moved and distorted the selections until they seemed to be placed properly on the snow or porch roof and feathered the selections so the spread of light would be vaguely realistic. Using the original background layer, I copied my window selections to new layers. So I had copied the lighting of the original image on the newly darkened image to make it seem as though the light from within was falling on the outside. I forget now but I probably used a screen blending mode and adjusted the opacity of these new layers.

Although the whole thing seems complex it only took a couple of hours, including the time it took to figure out how to do it. I sort of figured that I'd leave a night time canvas for people to add illuminated decorations and that's what happened.

Cheers!
Welles

Hi Welles,


thanks for the elaborate advice. I think it really made the pic!


gina

Wow Welles, excellent description and thanks for taking the time to share your technique!

~T