PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #51- Village in Europe

[DannyRaphael]

FIRST MINI-CHALLENGE?
See below for "Information and Guidelines."

Here’s another “mini-challenge” to play with in the Photo-based Art category until the next offical challenge is posted here.

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PHOTO ART: Mini-Challenge #51- Village in Europe

This is another image courtesy of www.FreeImage.com. See NOTE below for details; if you have not visited this site before, by all means check it out.

Can't tell you what country this is, but it's beautiful, isn't it? Look forward to visiting Europe someday. In the mean time I'll have to settle for your creative renditions.

Have fun on this one.

~DannyR~

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NOTE:
Use of this image is subject to conditions set forth at www.FreeFoto.com and is copyrighted (c) by Ian Britton, site owner / administrator. Ian has graciously authorized use of images from his site for our mini-challenges.

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INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES

Unlike “official challenges” for this forum which can be found here, this one will be self-contained within this thread. It is intended as an opportunity to engage in this artform until the next official challenge is posted.

The rules are more-or-less the same:
* It’s a challenge, not a contest -- intended to provide opportunities to experiment, share methods and/or techniques and, most importantly, have FUN.
* Everyone who participates is a winner.
* There’s no expiration date.

GUIDELINES:
1. Use any method, application(s), style(s) you like:
. * Convert to sketch, grayscale, abstract, watercolor, oil painting, pen-and-ink, Conte crayon, impasto, van Gogh or any style of your choosing
. * Add elements from other images (collage) or replace the background
. * Hand painting? Tracing? Freehand? You bet. Always appreciate entries of this nature.
. * Apply filters from your favorite application(s) or tweak it with 3rd party plug-ins
. * Feeling animated? A little smoke coming out of a chimney?
. * Any or all of the above

Bottom line:
How you create this masterpiece makes no difference. Whatever floats your boat as long as you follow guideline #4 in the process.

2. When done, reply to this thread and attach your work (don’t forget the 100kb size limit).

Note: Multiple entries OK if you’re so inspired.

3. By all means include some verbiage on how you achieved your masterpiece so others will benefit from your skills and experience. Make it as descriptive as you like. Grammar and spelling will not be graded. Priority given to content, not how it is written.

4. Have fun.

[pstewart]

This picture lends itself to a delicate watercolor or sketch in soft pastels, so I decided to go the opposite way and darken it and remove most of the texture and fine detail. It's supposed to be dusk and the porchlight has been turned on...the porchlight that was originally a hanging flower basket that is.

Phyllis

[DannyRaphael]

I like this one a lot, PS. Very European.

Nice way to get this thread rollin'.

~Danny~

[JBCaffrey]

Started this one out in PhotoArtMaster and produced a monochrome sketch. Then went back to Photoshop and faded the original picture into the sketch to add some color. Finally, I saved the original picture as a pattern and then, using the pattern stamp, added back in a small amount of detail.

Jim

[Toad]

Jim:

Very nice - that is how I think of these villiages in my mind.

[mama alligator]

Something that bothered me was that large expanse of roof.
I wrapped it in Plastic first to give it more interest. Then posterized the cobblestones to keep them "cobbly".
Then ran either PS Dust & Scratches or the Polaroid D&S, don't remember.
A little bit of dodging.
This is a bit of an hommage to the stories my father used to tell about his European home...

[Toad]

Agree about the large expanse of roof - so I decided to corrupt it - along with everything else...

[VisualEyes]

Here is a cartoony look, resulting from experiments with importing the black channel from CMYK under the original RGB layer, then Stamping it and converting the original RGB layer to color mode.

[VisualEyes]

This is experimenting with a more textured effect. Colors and shadows were enhanced in PS with multiple color layers and Accent Edges filter, then the texture was added in Stoik Pictureman using patches.

[d_kendal]

looks great Truman, I especially like the effect you got on the second one. I checked out the PictureMan program you mentioned on google and it looks really interesting.

- David

[platscha@cs.com]

The second one done with pictureman, outstanding, would like to know more about the overall techniques you used.
It really looks like an oil painting and calls out to be framed imediately, extremely well done in my opinion.

[pstewart]

Mamagator, wonderful mix of filters. I use those same filters and techniques a lot but never thought to put them together as you did...very imaginative. And I just love the effect you achieved!

Toad, looks like the sponge filter helped in your treatment. I like the addition of detail on the roof...balances the excess detail in the brick. You "turned it on its head" as they say, and the overall effect is "just right." (I love it when folks do the unexpected!)

Truman, you used my favorite filter in your first one, right? (Love that anisotropic diffuse!!!) The second one is really unusual, and gorgeous. I like the way your work is always different...lots of variety in your techniques and art styles. You'd never know your pics were by the same person!

I too want to know more about Pictureman. You got a truly beautiful effect with it in pic #2.

Phyllis

[Toad]

Thx ps:

Yes - sponge definately. Took original photo - applied a multi-step B&W action that I have been messing a lot with lately, then history brushed the color back into the photo - applied the sponge, and then pointellized the whole thing.

My goal was to "rough up" the under detailed roof without taking away from textures that the street/brick had.

Not sure I am really that happy with overall effect, however - I may take another kick at this particular cat.

[VisualEyes]

Originally posted by pstewart
Truman, you used my favorite filter in your first one, right? (Love that anisotropic diffuse!!!)

No, actually it's a much more convoluted process where I accentuated the shadows and edges, then copied and pasted the black channel from CMYK under the original RGB and used the Stamp filter to smooth out the black outlines. I haven't had much success using anistrophic diffuse. I'm sure I'm missing something, but the effect is pretty minimal whenever I apply it, especially on larger images. Perhaps you could provide some instruction?

I too want to know more about Pictureman. You got a truly beautiful effect with it in pic #2.

Although I've played around with it on occasion (ever since it started out as a DOS shareware application), I haven't learned nearly as much about Pictureman as I have Photoshop. I mainly break it out for an occasional special effect such as texturing with patchs or their Hand Drawing effect. I have a very old version; apparently, the more current versions have several features specific to photo-retouching. Check out http://www.stoik.com/pictureman/ .

[Trimoon]

The colored one I just kept applying filters and layers until I got what I wanted. I wish I could remember which filters.

Village in europe Color


Village in europe Black and White

[mama alligator]

So many fine pictures!

Visual Eyes: My first graphics editing program came in a bundle I picked up a few years back. It was PM Painter by STOIK. The rest of the bundle was pretty cheesy but PM Painter was great. I always think well of Stoik for the ease of use of that program but felt that no-one else had heard of them, or would take the name seriously, so it was nice to see that you know them too.

I think I'll do another village, using PM Painter this time.

Phyllis: you always bring such vivid and vibrant pictures. This one has the feel of an animation cel, especially the light from the (new found) lamp.

[pstewart]

Truman says:

<<I haven't had much success using anistrophic diffuse. I'm sure I'm missing something, but the effect is pretty minimal whenever I apply it, especially on larger images. Perhaps you could provide some instruction?>>

Well you got the effect the long way around...just goes to show you that a filter is just a one-click shortcut and the effects can be created in other ways.

To get a noticeable effect out of anisotropic diffuse you need sharp edges and/or noise in a picture. It worked on the pic of the house since the bricks had all those edges. If you want to get the effect on a picture without noise or lots of edges, then sharpen it very crisply first. Or just add noise and see multi-colored little wiggly worms fill in all the areas of the pic like an overall texture.

As I said elsewhere, the only problem with anisodiffuse is that it leaves seams. But just turn your canvas 90 deg and reapply and they will go away. The second application does little but make it slightly more blurred, which can be fixed easily with unsharp mask (top slider to middle or right and middle slider barely moved (.1 - .4 depending on picture size).

If you are working on a big picture with a lot of pixels the anisodiffuse effect will be less noticeable than on one with fewer pixels, so it's better for online pics than for printed ones.

Phyllis

[pstewart]

Trimoon, it's hard to believe you did those with just filters...they look like you used brushes and painted your heart out! Congratulations! They turned out terrific!

You inspired me to try a bunch of filters with no plan in mind just to see what might happen. Since some of the filters/blending turned the trees in background blue, and they refused to turn green without fading away, I said the heck with it and just decided to make it autumn!

Phyllis

[Trimoon]

Phyllis; That is a keeper.

[chiquitita]

Colorful village!

[Trimoon]

I just kept applying filters and layers

[mama alligator]

That roof looks wa-ay better in blue the way you did it.
Very nice.

[darkstar]

Sort of an abstract colorful version.

[Wanda Schwind]

What wonderful artistic interpretations I love them all!!!
I fooled around with several filters. So many I can't remember them all. One thing I usually do is to prepare the image by applying smart blur and adjusting so it's not too distorted. To me it seems the filters work better if this is done first. On this one I wanted to have the detail NOT so detailed, keeping soft lines. I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but I sort of liked it. My small contribution. Thanks everyone, thanks, Danny

Wanda

[Wanda Schwind]

Using my first entry, I went to image adjustment, invert. Color dodge. Filter, blur, gaussian, I think I had the slider all the way to the right. I used the burn tool, midtones, to bring out a little more of the image, but not too much. I hope this makes sense. Had fun which is the object of this forum. Thanks again to everyone for making this forum so enjoyable and such a learning experience.

Wanda

[d_kendal]

wow, those are both beautiful Wanda!!

- David

[jerry]

Wow

What a great batch of entries. I really like them all. What a fun project..

Wanda I really like your pastel version..

I thought I would try something different.. This is supposed to look like one of those sloppy wet looking hand tinted sketches..Don't know if it does or not but here it is..

Jerry

[Wanda Schwind]

David, Jerry, thank you for your encouraging words This really is a fun forum isn't it

Wanda

[Wanda Schwind]

Jerry, I'm impressed I think you accomplished what you were going for. Really nice. I wonder how that would print. Would really be pretty in a frame

Wanda

[pstewart]

Jerry, very nice. You succeeded in getting that wet puddles look all right, while keeping other lines sharp. Can you recall how you did that?

Phyllis