PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #45 – Japanese Garden

[freddieanne]

Craig: WOW!! That is sooooo..... cool. Is there a way to slow the movement down?

Annabel

[Kraellin]

annabel,

yes, but only by going back into the build and altering the time on each frame. if it was a flash animation, you could most likely do it as the end user, if the creator put that feature control in. but as a simple .gif animation, i cant put that feature control in.

if you have a .gif animation program, such as jasc's animation shop, you could load the animation in there and change it yourself, and i'm fairly sure it could be loaded into other animation programs and done also.

also, bear in mind, this is a frame by frame type animation, so, if slow things down too much you'd get that move, stop, move, stop, move stop, type of action. so, you'd have to add more intermediate frames to keep the motion smooth.

and thank you

Craig

[Marthig]

Hi all talented and creative people !

Fell inlove with this garden when I first saw it about a week ago, was really motivated seeing all the beautiful posts and well, see below the results of my effort, all with PS CS2:

I used another beautiful photo found in a free stock photos site that in itself reminded me a lot of a Hokusai painting and merged both, had to stop adding "cute" things as I kept imagining butterflies more birds flying, etc.

Number 1- is really the second, used the pencil option in Virtual Painter 4 plug in with all the options set to subtle , placed the layer at the bottom, set the top one to "softlight" flattened and saved for web.

Number 2- is really the last, apart from all the additions, I used the sand texture graduated at very few px, tried to tone down the colors but I am not too good with those filters. Used some levels, curves, shadows/brigthness and even the exposure filter

Number 3 is of course, the first one --after all the work of merging the "Hokusai" pic, addition of the various fish and birds-- and the tree reflection. Selected the brook and changed the colour some so it would look more bluish and applied the distort/ocean ripple and wave filters.

Well there sure were more things I did to the image but can't quite remember (I think that art and science do not mix well, at least for me )

C&C of course are always welcome.

Regards - Martha

[Kraellin]

i REALLY like the second one. perfect mix of form and color. one and three are good, but the second really appeals to me. number one is just a bit out of focus, which is its own look and nothing really wrong with it, but i just like the second look better. with the third the bush in the foreground on the right is a bit bland with those colors and the look is followed up with more as your eye travels deeper. still, it might well appeal to others. all three are done well, so all i'm saying is number two just fits my tastes more.

well done and thank you!

Craig

[Marthig]

Craig,

Thanks a lot for your possitive criticism or comment I like that ! I tend to elaborate too much my retouchings or photo-art (?) and then well ... But I am happy because am learning tremendously from these mini-challenges and other forums full of excellent works.

Talking about excellent work, I enjoyed your swimming fish rendering it is so good, and loved the detail of the plants moving when it goes trough them, this might be a stupid question but you used Flash, didn't you? Whatever it is you used it marvelously.

I looked in detail all of the previous postings and I am glad this is not a voting contest as I would not know how to choose the best !

Congratulations to all !

regards - Martha

[Kraellin]

marthig,

you're welcome. i love this place and the folks here. i can only hope that my comments help besides, it's just my opinion. someone else may well like one of the others better. oh, and you mentioned having to stop adding 'cute' things. i think you got it just right, not too bare, not too busy.

and thank you. the swimming fish was fun. i used jasc's animation shop, which came with paint shop pro 7.xx. and i'll tell you a little secret; the moving plants was a mistake that i decided to let stay

and i agree, voting would be very difficult here!

Craig

[PhotoB]

after a crop, gausian blur, charcoal filter and a little borger/drop shadow from this tutorial, I ended up with this:

[Kraellin]

cathy,

dont know how i missed yours. very lovely! i particularly like the soft fuzzy bushes down on the right.

photob,

nice

Craig

[dbuckle]

Adding my try to the list. I used Studio Artist and PScs.

[Kraellin]

interesting, dbuckle. why the silhouette of the cat?

Craig

[freddieanne]

Beautiful renditions so far by all.

Whenever I've been to the Japanese Gardens in Portland OR, it's rained for a spell. This didn't detract from the spectacular beauty however, it was sort of refreshing. So, here's my attempt.

Can't remember everything as I started this a while ago.

I think I made adjustments to hue/saturation and levels to make it look darker and cloudier.

Used an action by Mike Finn - "Paint with Texture" and then the history brush tool to bring back detail.

Added rain effect with a layer filled with black - Filter/Noise/Add noise and then blur and then motion blur and then blending mode - screen.

Annabel

[garazon]

Wish I could get these things to come out like I invision them, but I guess it takes time, or it might not ever happen! Anyway this is sort of close to what I was shooting for.

Impressionist- djroil24 overlayed by a PSP script of mine blend set to luminance, then adjusted the color and tone.