Creative interpretations: Flowers - Bird of Paradise

[DannyRaphael]

When I was growing up in Southern California, these flowers practically grew wild. Now that I live near Seattle, Washington I only get to see them in pictures like this, taken by J. Shupienis.

Have fun!

~Danny~

[jch71566]

Beautiful picture, Danny!

For this one, I used the following:
* PhotoEffex Background Blur
* Xero ArtGrain
* FlamingPear Organic Edges

-Jeff

[Duv]

The only thing I can grow is Dandelions.

Neon Glow
History Brush, Medium Opacity
Saturation Adjustment Layer

Cheers
Duv

[kiska]

Hi all. I used:
Mike Finn's-
Amateur painter
Simplifyer
Pixel painter, 2x
Pattern, gradient, color fills
blends

kiska

[DannyRaphael]

One of the Virtual Painter options I like is Impasto, but out of the box it usually screams VIRTUAL PAINTER! So I usually attempt to disguise it to some degree.

Despite being based on the Impasto filter I thought this one came out looking fairly oil painted.

Notes (see Layers palette snapshot for setting values):
* Layer A: Applied Photoshop's Watercolor filter two times
* B: Duplicated A and applied Virtual Painter Impasto (all settings at 50%)
* B: To tone down the Impasto effect, applied PS Ocean Ripple
* B: This was way too much Ripple, so Edit > Fade was used to back it off some
* B: To give it a rough, textured look, applied a huge amount of Unsharp Mask (500,40,85)
* B1: Duplicated B. Applied additional Ocean Ripple to tone down the dark areas near the edges. Again, used Edit > Fade to throttle it back. Added Layer Mask to enable selective application.
* C: Copy of Background to which Find Edges was applied. Blend changed to Overlay. This brought back some edge detail.
* D, D1, D2: Each a copy of the original background, blend mode set to Luminosity. When the layer mask is applied, Luminosity brings back texture and tone, but doesn't mess up the existing colors. The purpose of these layers was to restore a little detail at different parts of the image. In the big scheme, this could have been done with one layer instead of three.
* E, F: Levels, Hue/Saturation to suit.

Happy trails...

~Danny~

[Fluffbutt]

I started with my cartoon action, then just added chalkycharcoal and then paint engine. copied the backgrounf layer to the topmost, and set it to hue mode.

[DannyRaphael]

Fluff:

Nice to see you! Your action generates some interesting, arty effects. Thx for posting the action in the other thread.

- - - - - - -

I was messing with Image > Apply Image. I don't really understand how it all works, but it creates some pretty interesting effects. (I just duplicated the Background and invoked the command.)

See screenshot for Apply Image dialog settings.

[Cheryl H]

I wish these grew in my backyard.

Two versions here.

For the soft look: Duplicate background. Run buzz gloss stack (reduce all to 4 except set remove to 100). Increase brightness and contrast.
Select black and invert selection. Paint with history brush at 50% using a grunge brush. Bring back lots of detail on subject, not so much at edges.

Run impressionist (I've been playing with creating brushes--custom). Run fantastic machines paint engine--arctic and fade 65%.

Select inverse. Run virtual painter oil.

Create new layer. Flood fill with dark brown. Run texturizer. Create layer mask. Paint with grunge brush (low opacity) to reveal image below.

Did the apply image trick at the end again.

For the more dramatic image: duplicate the background and smudge paint.
duplicate the smudge painted layer and run Buzz sketch 1 with remove set to around 100 set the blending mode to color burn then merged all to a new layer.
duplicated this layer and ran Lucis sculpture. Reduced opacity to 65% and played with blending mode.

[Fluffbutt]

Cheryl - I've got a couple in the front garden, I'll zip them up and email you the flowers (umm, no, it'll clog the modem...)

But they're not a nice and fat (healthy) as Danny's picture!! (6 months of average over 37C does that to flowers...).

Glad you all liked the action. I've made another, but it's not a photo-art action, it's a fancy glamour smoother action (misses egdes, smoothes flat area like cheeks, etc.. not a lot of good for arty bits... but I'm playing with it).

[shupienis]

Hello everyone...

It's interesting to see what you all have done with my photo. It is one of many images I have submitted to Photosig,com, Photo.net, and usefilm.com, and you may see my portfolios at those sites.

I've always been a fan of impressionist art, and I've dabbled a little in what I call "photo-impressionism", whatever that means.

In case you are interested, the photo of the bird of paradise flowers was taken at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. It's one of my favorite places to visit, with gorgeous floral displays year-round. The equipment was a Nikon EM, with a Quantaray 28-80 Macro lens. Film was Fujicolor Superia 400.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Danny for giving me credit for the original image. Feel free to use what I've posted, as long as you properly attribute the original work to me, and you do it for educational or non-profit purposes. (If you want to make money off my work, that's OK, too -- as long as I make my fair share too! )

//Joe

[DannyRaphael]

Hi Joe:

It was nice of you to add some detail about your pic. Someone sent it to me in e-mail sometime ago and attributed it to you, and I thought it would be a worthy one for folks here to arty-ize. Thanks for offering your other pics.

~Danny~

[jaykita]

This time i used --
Layer 1--Original layer -
Duplicate L1 -median 45, vivid light.
Dup L1- smart blur,edgesonly, invert, gblur,usm,multiply blend.
Dup L1-cutout filter, difference blend, play with HSL (lightness -90 or so) till you get approx same colors as original.
Select all, copy merged, paste.
Jaykita Watercolor-A setting (check the "Impressionist plug-ins Custom Styles" thread), brush size 35%, median5, opac63.
Merge, virtualpainter watercolor opac53.
Merge. Handpainted a few white patches with low opac watercolor brush.
Texture sandstone 4, top.

[jaykita]

Here's another (and better, hopefully) attempt, at the watercolor effect. one must try,try,try till.....

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by jaykita

Here's another (and better, hopefully) attempt, at the watercolor effect. one must try,try,try till.....

Hey, this turned out pretty neat, too.

Speaking of "try, try, try"... You have inspired me once again...
* After downloading your lovely interpretation, did a Select > All, Edit > Create pattern (the WOW technique)
* Created a new layer and filled it with white to serve as a background
* Created a new layer onto which I tried various Wow watercolor pattern stamp brush presets to get an overlapping brushstroke effect that characterizes some watercolor styles.
* Duplicated the original BG and copied it to the top of the layer stack and added a Hide All layer mask.
* Restored a little detail by airbrushing white on the layer mask.
* Added Levels and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers to fine tune contrast and saturation.
* Flattened and added a little Unsharp Mask to bring out some brushstroke characteristics.

In this case I believe I obliterated too much detail with my not-so-consistent Wow brushstrokes. One with better brush control and more patience than me would get better results. But I liked the general direction.

Experimenting can be so educational. This is why when I'm in "try it" mode I try to keep track of what I'm doing just in case it "comes out good"!

~Danny~

[jaykita]

Hi Danny, I think your watercolor is so much better than mine! Lovely glowing colors, a typical watercolor effect! Keep up the good work!