Creative interpretations: Flowers, Tulips - Skagit Valley, Washington in April

[Robt]

I took this image in April [suprise]. As I looked at it I kept thinking it is what I saw or at least mostly; but I wonder what would happen if....

I would love to see what you folks would do with it.

For those of you who haven't been there or seen areas where the farmers grow flowers instead of corn, those are tulips in the field. The Skagit Valley is in Washington State, N.A. about half way between Vancouver,B.C. and Seattle.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-restoration/8320-dust-spots-their-removal.html

[DannyRaphael]

Robert:

Skagit Valley is one of my favorite destinations, especially during the annual Tulip Festival. I started going there every couple of years starting in 1985. When my daughter was about two, I took some pics of her surrounded by tulips. To her mom and me, they are classics.

Anyway, on my interpretation I started with a levels adjustment layer to ramp up overall contrast. That worked for the mountains and foreground, but washed out the sky. So, I added another levels adjustment layer and corrected the sky which, of course, hosed everything else.

No problem. With foreground color set to black I airbrushed the foreground area of the second Levels layer to suppress its effects in that portion of the image.

Then a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer was added and saturation was boosted.

Created a new layer on top, executed Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E to merge layers w/o flattening them. One problem at this point: The sky came out pretty posterized as though I'd applied a Posterize adjustment layer, but I hadn't. Here's how I addressed that.

I duplicated this merged layer and applied Noise > Median to it, resulting in smoother transistions between areas of sky color vs. the jagged, poster-like edges. Why Median vs. Gaussian Blur? Median seems to retain color saturation better in these types of situations whereas Gblur tend to "muddy up" colors.

To this blurred layer I added a hide all layer mask (Layer > Add Layer Mask > Hide All). Then with forground color set to white I airbrushed white in the sky area, revealing the softened sky from the blurred layer while retaining the detail of the mountains and foreground in the layer below.

Created a new layer on top and again applied Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E to merge layers into the newly created top layer.

Duplicated this image and flattened. Cropped to 8"x10" 150 ppi for future printing purposes.

Duplicated background. Applied a custom Impressionist style that I created last night. (See attachment.) While I liked the arty effect, in my view too much detail had been lost.

Duplicated the background again, dragged the duplicate to the top of the layer stack and applied Photoshop's Dry Brush filter. It rendered an arty look without completely obliterating detail. Like the layer above, a Hide All layer mask was added and with foreground color set to white, I airbrushed the Hide All layer mask to reveal areas of detail, such as the houses and farm buildings.

Once I was satisfied with the application of detail, one more layer was added to the top of the layer stack, Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E to merge/without flattening the individual layers. Finally I applied Unsharp Mask that gave the "brush strokes" a little more character.

Time for final inspection (zoom in pretty close and eyeball the final result). Much to my chagrin, I found some areas I didn't like that I wanted to redo. Without going into the gory details, it's sufficient to say I deleted the layers I didn't like, and started again from a point where I could improve the results going forward. This is why I perodically create a new layer and do the Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E thing vs. Layer > Flatten all the time. Having layers in tact throughout the development process enables me to go back a few steps to correct an error or change course vs. having to start over from the beginning.

Due to the nature of the original image it's unlikely that without knowledge of its source (or a catchy title, like "Tulip Field in Springtime") an unsuspecting observer would most likely not interpret the bright colors in the forground as row upon row of tulips.

But we know and that's what counts!

Thanks, Robert, for a fun reason to create today.

~Danny~

[Duv]

Danny. Don't you ever get writer's cramp. Great discription on just an awesome pic. I've been playing a little bit with your new style and can tell you it has found a permanent place in my quiver.

After a levels adjustment and patching some of the sky, I ran Power Retouche: PR Brightness Brightness 3 Preserve Color 170
Brush Strokes: Crosshatch 12/10/2
Impressionist: djroil24 Image 25/77/67
Impressionist: Pencil Crosshatch Detailed: Image: 25/60/146
Match Color: Increased Luminance and Color Intensity
Cropped to put barn in 1/3.

I would have loved to been there and get up close and personal with the tulips against the mountains.

Cheers
Dave

[Robt]

Guys I thank you! What great ideas. Of course Dannys instruction will cost me my summers shooting while I figure out how all this works but..next year.

These were also from the same days take. DUV the red is kinda upclose and personal. Danny the little girl in the frock was a fast grab shot- kinda street photo as I sped by but I know what you mean about kids and the color.

[kiska]

I used Painter 8 chalk,crayon, colored pencil. To pscs curves, Paint master Mystery action, median, usm, diffuse lighten. Filters used were sprayed and sandstone texture.
kiska

[kiska]

I combined red and purple tulips images. Selected several purples and placed. Ran median and anis. filters. Embossed, copied emboss, one screen, one overlay. Curves to brighten flowers and darken green
kiska

[Duv]

Kiska. Each of your offerings are lovely. The colors are so vibrant.
Robert. Thanks for posting additional pics, especially the little girl. I've only been down thru Skagit once, at the wrong time of year, but it is still a lovely area. There's something about little girls that always turns out a nice pic.

Cheers
Dave

[kiska]

Thanks, Dave. H/S and curves will perk up a lot of colors. Your little girl is 'sweetness and light'.
kiska

[DannyRaphael]

What an adorable picture!

The how-to steps are detailed in the attachment.

~Danny~

[kiska]

Danny- you're TOO good. Go away
kiska

[SWEngineer]

Like JC, I'm making a mess having fun... but with Painter8 brushes. This was painted by hand, not cloning. It gave me a lot more freedom with the interpretation, and its clear I need the practice.

Sky and background (snowy) mountains basically followed this great tutorial: http://www.designertoday.com/tabinde...opDefault.aspx

The rest of the scene was just me running amuck with a mix of brushes from the Acrylics group. Final touch up in Elements2. (A towel pattern fill layer grouped to the flowers layer -- IMO "towel" in Overlay makes a way better pointillize filter than the pointillize filter itself; GBlur + Spatter on a copy of the foreground hills layer with some masking & 51% opacity to cut the "oversharp" Painter output; A ton of filtering on the dirt/grass strip in the nearest forground which I made way too flat / monotoned in Painter.)

-Mark

[Neve]

Well done Mark, you got more than a good result. That's a useful tut so thanks for the link. Must try a scene soon.

Thanks to whoever posted this lovely wee lass amongst the flowers...

Auto Contrast Enhancement.
Slightly buzzed
Impressionist/Jaykita's WC A (thanks Jaykita, really loved it on this image!)
Duped this layer - Mode Multiply.

Merged layers.
Added a mask twice onto new cloudy bg.

[jaykita]

Neve, i love the way that turned out!

I was tempted to use the impr filter too, and this is what i did with my image:
On original layer, image adj- levels to brighten.
Next layer - white fill, for art history brush. I used the Nagel Series 12-14 brush, downsized to 7, for my brush. Used the same brush on the "Old Ford" image. Can be viewed here.
Overlay-blended with original, opac 50%. Selected all - copy-merged, pasted as new layer.
Ran impr filter Jaykita wc A on this layer. Lowered opac to 56%.
Selected all, copy merged, pasted as new layer. Used ps wc filter 14,0,1.

[Neve]

Another wonderful result Jaykita!

[Legacy~Art]

What alot of superb looking paintings...

Give yourself a pat on the back you done very good with these pictures.

(Keep getting message "Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 90 seconds." So if this messages is duplicate you know i tried lol )