PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #042 - *Judy's Hibiscus

[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# 42 – Judy's Hibiscus

This gorgeous hibiscus picture was taken Judy Howle, a new RetouchPRO member, who graciously donated it it for a mini-challenge. I’m sure many of you will be as inspired as I was when I saw this one.

Judy, of course, retains the copyright © not only for the original image, but for any photo-art versions of it. Unauthorized distribution or use without her permission is prohibited.

By all means check out her site: http://myweb.cableone.net/howle/page...hotography.htm

Many thanks, Judy, for such a great image.


~DannyR~

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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? How about blooming on the fly?
. * 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.

[JBCaffrey]

I guess I'm going first.

I created a new layer with just the flower and leaves then applied the BuzzPro Watercolor stack.

Although not much of the background shows, I inverted it, applied the BuzzPro Watercolor stack and then used gaussian blur.

On top of everything is a layer filled with a paper texture to which was applied a layer mask. Then I revealed the picture beneath ala Trimoon's sketch technique.

Jim

[jerry]

Jim..Really nice affect..Very artlike .

Here is my try..(Kind of looks like a valentine..Oh well.. accident)

cut out flower and leaves
applied paint engine arctic..
created white background..

sampled pink from flower..created layer above flower and filled with pink.

added noise..and applied layer mask to uncover flower..
adjusted levels..

thanks
Jerry

[Blacknight]

KPT Fraxplorer for background, opacity dropped and hue/sat to suit - ran spatter filter - made three copies of original - darkened one with levels, the other with curves - ran trace contour and set fill to 43% - history brush for red flower. Blend modes luminosity and overlay.

[DannyRaphael]

Here's what you get by duplicating the BG layer, applying the Glowing Edges filter (1,20,3) and setting the blend mode to Luminosity.

~Danny~

[CJ Swartz]

Lovely treatments, everyone-- Jim (love the papery effect), Phil (that background is gorgeous), Jerry ( Valentines in October are special), Danny (strikingly lovely), Chuck (she gave you the idea, but had to execute it - lovely) -- you all are showing me something new each week.

I used Rough Pastels and Find Edges and used overlay blend on original. The background then seemed too dark and featureless, so I used levels and Hue/Sat to reduce saturation and lighten it. Added butterfly using custom brush.

[pstewart]

Chuck, this is just lovely...softness and texture both work. I think Trine will approve.

Danny, wow! Just about knocked me off my chair! It was really too big to fit on my browser window though so I (fortunately) missed some of the effect-- which no doubt saved my life! Seriously though, really daring and striking...I especially like how the leaves are bordered by the bright green "lights."

CJ, that's a great "paint" effect with a creative use of filters. I will have to remember that combination...thanks!

Here's my version, done with a lot of layer blending (difference mode was in there somewhere), color adjustments, and finished off with Andromeda Techtures.

Phyllis

[arthill]

I used Ink Outlines then on a layer above that I applied Smart Blur Edge Only set that to Soft Light and 50% transparency.

[Wanda Schwind]

I miss you guys Other obligations. Everyone, just lovely, wonderful, beautiful and any other adjective that applies.
I used photoshop, and painted the flower in Painter Classic, the frame, PhotoImpact. Thanks everyone for such a learning opportunity. Thanks, Danny. My small contribution.

Wanda

[jaykita]

I always enjoy looking at the early creations. Such fabulous talent.
Added my 2-bits worth, done with art history brush and trimoon's impr chalk sketch filter..

[PamSav]

Saw this one earlier and just had to have a go at it. I love flowers

Started off by extracting the flower and leaves from the background. Buzzed slightly, duplicated and used smart blur, edges only to get the outline.

Took a snapshot of image (select all, copy merged, paste into new layer) and applied watercolour filter. Copied buzzed layer and brought to top, set blend mode to lighten. Took another snapshot.

Used Impressionist (jch Van Gogh) on new plain beige layer for background, used gaussian blur to blend and applied a gradient mask to soften the edges.

Duplicated outline layer and moved to top of stack, blend mode multiply, 11%.

New layer filled with plain beige. Applied mid grey mask to flower and leaves to partially reveal them, set fill to 36%

b/w clouds layer set to overlay, 34%

Phew ! I think that's everything ......

[TylerRB]

Pam

Result looks absolutely stunning. Glad you like flowers, because this one is a beauty.

T

[PamSav]

Thanks Tyler I was really pleased with how it turned out.

[alfredo]

Please be gentle. I started off in PS7. I made a copy which was converted to gray scale. I used the erasure and lasso to remove the background from the RGB original. I selected and copied the remaining image of the flower and leaves. I opened a new like size transparent background file. I pasted it onto the transparent file. I then copied it and pasted it onto the gray scale image. Cleaned it up, saved, then opened it in GIMP2.2. In there I applied the cartoon filter, and the fractal filter. Later I did minor tweaks in PS7.

It will take me a bit to learn the 100k dance. I'm willing to practice.

alfredo

[PamSav]

Great result Alfredo. I look forward to seeing more of your work