PHOTO ART: Mini-challenge #58 – Tropical Fish

[pstewart]

Beautiful, Pam...love the colors and simplicity of form.

It's great that so many folks are dragging old minis out of mothballs and working on them! The more we learn, the more we can do with the dozens of pics we already have. This trend is so successful that I won't upload a mid-week mini and will just wait till the weekend to post another pair. Meanwhile, dig deep into the treasure chest that's here, thanks to Danny.

Phyllis

[DannyRaphael]

Phyllis:

I agree... fun to dredge up these older mini's and see what we can do with them several months later.

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Pam:

Another terrific effort. You're inspiring me to try new methods or in this case dust off an old tool.

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Started by applying Hue / Saturation and Levels adjustment layers to bring out some color. Merged the three layers into a base layer, took a snapshot and set the history source.

Created a new layer which was to become the background. Opacity = 100, blend = normal.

Art History Brush tool setttings: Opacity = 15%, Area = 3 pixels, Blend = Normal, Fidelity = 100, Tolerance = 0, Tight Short strokes.

Selected a wide, scatter brush and painted in the BG. Since the brush opacity was 60%, I was able to give the illusion of "strokes on top of strokes." Although the opacity of this layer is 100% and blend is normal, enough of the original base layer shows through to fill in any areas missed with the AHB.

When BG was complete, a new layer added, blend = normal, opacity = 100. Changed opacity of AHB to 85 and selected a 10 pixel scatter brush. Began to paint the "fish layer." Higher opacity on the AHB resulted in "thicker looking paint" for the fish, the effect I was looking for.

After Mr. (Ms.?) Fish painted, I erased a few areas of overpaint near the edges of the fish. Then oversharpened this layer (amount=400%, radius=8 to bring out some detail and color.

Oops...Noticed the left (when looking at the pic) eye had lost too much detail when rendered with AHB. Copied the base layer and drug it to the top of the layer stack. Applied a layer mask and inverted it (CTRL + I) to make the top layer appear to disappear.

Selected air brush from Tools palette, flow / pressure about 25%, forground color = white and "airbrushed" some detail back into that eye.

Flattened and cloned over a couple goobers; applied frame effects and saved for the web.

Surf's up!
Danny

[DannyRaphael]

Similar technique as the previous entry with the addition of a layer Buzzed (Edges mono) and set blend = multiply.

[pstewart]

Danny, excellent! I love the shimmer and the brush strokes on the first one, and the second one is a nice rough sketch look.

Phyllis

[Snoleoprd]

Wow really cool textures, great job.

Alan

[Snoleoprd]

Don,

I checked out your site, great stuff. I noticed you had some pics of African cichlids, nice stuff. Here are some more fish shots, the conspicullatus angel pic is on this page. The pics were taken for a local fish store for their web pages. Enjoy
Fish Pics

Alan

P.S. I like all of the paint engine pics you have been posting. Great stuff.

[Snoleoprd]

Don,

Beautiful work, it does look very much like a painting. Wow. Thanks.

Alan

[lkroll]

Some more Impressionist play; I believe I could play for months and still not perfect the amazing possibilities of this little gem. One of the few times that I can say "Thanks Bill" and actually mean thanks (Bill Gates that is). LOL

[thana]

helllo again!

who said that fish can't have some wings? noone! sooo, here it is!

[Swampy]

Another Fun Project! Thanks Danny!

More manipulation than art. The layers really started piling up on this one. Six fish, many with shadow layers, the background was extracted from one of the fish pictures and where the fish used to be the rocks were cloned back in from a different photo.

Difficult to deal with light sources with so many shots taken under different lighting so I tried to cast shadows in some appropriate places if the light was in front high right.

Used a color fill layer with a gradient mask to lend the overall background a deep blue tone.

Added a touch of texture to the rocks.

I'd love to play more, but I gotta go back to work... LOL

[SWEngineer]

I haven't been doing much photoart lately. But here's a random walk with lots of layers, blending modes, & masks which turn out ok.
-Mark

[TwoLaidBack]

Ok last image for tonight. I found this one fish I just had to give it a shot to see what I could do with it.

Steps:
Opened the original image and dup. On the top layer I started using my smudge brush set pretty soft and smudged over the whole image. Once I had this done I applied a pencil effect added the texture at this point I dropped the opacity of the top layer leaving it set too normal. I next added a new layer and made the selection for the blurred frame I then inverted the selection and applied the blur and added a inter bevel merged all and this is what I ended up with.

TwoLaidBack

[Peter S]

Ok I know it another Art history Brush one from him again.

Well I got a tip for you as well this time as well.

If you do your Art History on a new layer, with a blending mode i.e. Hard light, and a colour layer between this and the background layer.
Have you ever decided that the colour layer is the wrong colour or shade of that colour?
Well if you place a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer above the colour layer, you can change the colour, lightness, saturation etc while pre-viewing the changes you want to make. Also it is very easy to change again layer if needs be.


BTW if you already new this, then why didn't you tell me before then?

Peter

[palms]

Originally Posted by Peter S

Ok I know it another Art history Brush one from him again.

Well I got a tip for you as well this time as well.

If you do your Art History on a new layer, with a blending mode i.e. Hard light, and a colour layer between this and the background layer.
Have you ever decided that the colour layer is the wrong colour or shade of that colour?
Well if you place a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer above the colour layer, you can change the colour, lightness, saturation etc while pre-viewing the changes you want to make. Also it is very easy to change again layer if needs be.


BTW if you already new this, then why didn't you tell me before then?

Peter

Cmon Peter you had to earn your money somehow ! ! ! !


Palms

[palms]

As i was here had a smudge

Palms

[Peter S]

Glad you did.
I really got to get to grips with smudging I think - very nice that.

Peter

[palms]

Originally Posted by Peter S

Glad you did.
I really got to get to grips with smudging I think - very nice that.

Peter

Now i wont say that one is easy it is a case of one step forward and one back. but when it works it is enjoyable

Palms

[MiningArt]

Fish 1 done in PaintEngine poster2 and then in Impressionist acrylic preset.