PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #49 – Park Bench

[MoonFizz]

Aha! good point Phyllis, but this is a rare species of
Squirrilus digitalus and can appear both night and
day and in fact anywhere

- Gary

[themanda]

I was playing around with Phyllis' trademark abstract filter, trying to see what I could get.

After a lot of margaritas, I came up with this.

I don't know how I did this, but I sort of like how textural it feels. To me, this almost feels like it was embossed on a paper grocery bag, then painted with watercolors. But that could just be the worm talkin'.

[Pam]

Very nice watercolor-on-paper-bag! It almost looks like you watercolored on some thick handmade fiber paper. Whichever brand of "worm" got you there...let me know....I'll take some of that

I don't know how I missed this great image! Thanks, themanda, for bringing this one outta mothballs


Pam

[pstewart]

Amanda, the texture you achieved is wonderful!

Pam, love those spots of color...how did you do that?

Phyllis

[MoonFizz]

Amanda,
Very very nice !
so pastel and delicately textured ....love it

Gary

http://moonfizz.com

[themanda]

Jean, you did a great job! LB looks like he's been there all fall...

[TwinANJ]

Made layer of orig picture. Filled in bare trees with PS7 leaf tool used the colors from trees in the background. Took my boxer LB who was laying on the couch cut him out and put him on the park bench ( he is never good at sit stay!). Work color and brightness on LB to match background. Cropped so you could see LB better (he is sooo handsome!).

Jean

[TwinANJ]

Thank you! I am a little (well a lot) post stupid and had to call my sister so I could upload the picture larger. I deleted and reposted. You are correct LB is so lazy he would sleep right though till spring!
TheManda...Margaritas, like what it does. Here I have been drinking just beer.....guess I will have to break out the blender for the next challange!

[pstewart]

Good job, Jean...looks like he was always in the picture.

Phyllis

[TwinbNJ]

toooooo cute! Yes that is Mr. LB ! --- lol
I think he likes the couch better than the park bench --- well done sissy.

[MoonFizz]

Thought I'd ressurect a previous one I did and
add some water ........"flood filter"

- Gary
http://www.moonfizz.com

[TwinANJ]

Moonfizz....Beautiful. The light on the river and around the bench are perfect! If I did not know better I would think the picture was real.

Jean

[retpmikl]

Separated the bench from the bg with a layer's mask. Desaturated. Levels. Bit of ... just forgot. Well, version one.

[retpmikl]

Version two, with a lotta green.

[David Vance]

The photo has a certain calming effect to it and evoked a feeling of peace. The image was created using my secret sauce, lighting effects and a home made ray of light.

Hope you enjoy the effect.

David

[tyeise]

David, your image reminds me of the old series "The Saint". All you need to do is add a stick figure.

I looked at this image quite a while, and all the lovely versions I found here.

Gary, I love your river version! Made me go and download the trial for the flood filter.

I decided to try something totally different. I wanted to see what the bench would look like without the trees growing out of the top. One of the things I wanted to stand out was the contrast between the white bench and the color of the foliage.

There are more compression artifacts than I would have liked, but I did my best to keep the file size down to the forum limits.

Tyeise

[BillC]

The advantage of posing late is that you get to see all of the wonderful, creative ideas.....the disadvantage of posting late is that you get to see all of the wonderful, creative ideas and it is tough to come up to the standards all of you set!
Slight 'buzz' added to this one....darkened....spotlight (render), and texture.
Regards,
Bill C

[Cheryl H]

I've enjoyed looking through this thread. There's a large variety of excellent submissions.

I'm still playing with my dark paint effect. I've started using layer sets when playing with this. They're easy and make it a little easier to undo mistakes--nice since the problems I have with this method seem to happen in the very first step and I can't tell it didn't work until the end.

Layer set 1

1. Flaming pear's Mr. Contrast
2. copy of the original
3. copy of the Mr. C layer
play with blending modes until happy

Layer set 2

1. Flaming pear's Melancholytron
2. copy of original
3. copy of melancholytron layer
play with blending modes until happy

Then, take put layer set 2 on top of layer set 1 and play with the blending modes for the set. Add a copy of the original on top and play with that. Merge results to a new layer and duplicate. Run flaming pear's lacquer on the top copy and play with blending modes. Add texture.

[jeaniesa]

That's really beautiful Cheryl! I like how deep and rich the colors are.

Jeanie

[Cheryl H]

Thanks Jeanie. I'm still working on this look--my success rate is only about 50% of photos I think are suitable. I was pretty happy with this one though.

[catia]

Here is something a little on the lighter side. A watercolor ala Trimoon.

Catia

[catia]

For those that prefer a little darker result, this was obtained by running the Trimoon "Good Watercolor" action on the previous result. Backing out the texture via history, applying Sandstone at 6, and fading to 50%.

Catia

[Peter S]

Wanted to see what Redfield's bas-relief would do with this one.
Started with Lucis, then 2 layers of Redfield's gizmo. Tweaked colours with selective colour, to darken the blacks, and boost the whites, also tweaked reds and yellows.
Added a texture though hard to see it here.

Peter

[rpenn]

A variety of things including hues, levels and a dash of gaus.

[alexmeta]

Impressionist

[Blacknight]

Studio Artist and Photoshop. Zoomed in, took a screen shot, and cropped.

[Canna W]

It's been good to see everyone's different approaches...

I just followed this tutorial here: http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutoria...tch/sketch.htm

Followed by a bit of lightening and darkening on the bench, and a crop and vignette.

[BarbaraT]

I recently downloaded trial versions of Topaz Adjust, Clean and Simplify and then I headed right over here to RetouchPro where I knew I would find lots of great images to play with.

This is the result of using all three plugins on the photo. I was trying for a watercolor effect and am pleased with the result, considering I have only had the plugins for a few hours. I think when my 30 days are up I will be spending some money at that website.

I have let other things pull me away from my Photoshop time for too long, will try to get back here more often now.

Thanks for looking at my attempt,
Barb

[pavel123]

welcome back
Great watercolor.

Pavel

[MiningArt]

Tried to highlight the bench and chair frame while at the same time carrying the eye to the beautiful color of the woods.
1. changed to a square format and brought the bench and chair frame to the foreground
2. ramped up the tree background color and used a paint effect to soften
3. highlight the foreground with green and brought out the detail a bit

The second version I tried to highlight the central trees and smudge the background. The forest fire effect was not planed, going for fall colors and got carried away.