Red Maple Leaves - Scanned

[Guest]

I took these leaves off my red maple tree today and scanned them, then made a picture from them (after it got too dark to rake leaves, okay? Grrr...I hate it when yardwork takes me away from retouchpro!). I will also upload the leaves as they came off the scanner so you can play with them too...unless YOU are too busy raking your own!

I made the background from the leaves as well, by making layers and layers of them and turning/flipping them every which way till they filled the screen, then made it into a repeating pattern on PS. I know they have a pattern maker feature, but I have not tried it yet...just used the other-->offset filter as I am used to doing.

Phyllis

[Guest]

Scanned pic of leaves

Here is the original picture of the leaves, in case you want yet another excuse to waste time and avoid yardwork.

Phyllis

[Craig Walters]

looking through some of the older posts. phyllis did an incredible job on her pic.

thought i'd take her individual leaves and do something with them.

the elusive and rare, maple flower

craig

[Steve Conway]

I started to "leave" this one alone, but then I changed my mind...

Steve

[palms]

Great work Craig and Steve quite inspirational (except for the pun steve ! ! !)

Palms

[Steve Conway]

I'll admit that puns are not something that require much inspiration.

Thanks anyway.

Steve

Great work Craig and Steve quite inspirational (except for the pun steve ! ! !)

Palms

[Craig Walters]

nice steve.

thanks palms

craig

[Steve Conway]

Thanks...but I am still trying to figure out how you moved all those leaves into that tight little group. Nice idea.

Steve

nice steve.



craig

[Craig Walters]

thanks steve

i extracted two leaves to separate images. i rotated them to be vertical. starting with the darker one i put it on a blank layer over the original image (though this turned out not to be necessary). i then warped this a tiny bit.

i then took the lighter leaf and put it on a blank layer but offset from the other leaf and tilted a bit. i then warped the outer edges inward a bit. i then did the same on the other side of the dark leaf and warped the out area inwards.

i then did the same with two dark leaves offset from the lighter ones and basically did the same sort of warping and then lastly the light leaf in the foreground

each of the leaves was on its own layer but offset from the others so as to build from the back to the front and warped each as necessary to give that cupped, turned sort of look as if it were petals on a flower.

after i had the whole built up i then just used eraser to wipe the various stems, leaving only one. and, i cleaned up the edges a bit and warped a tiny bit more here and there.

being that all were on separate layers, i then copy merged all to one layer and added another blank layer with a background gradient fill and used a blend mode to finish things off.

it was a long ways to go for such a simple looking thing

craig

[Steve Conway]

Looked simple when I first looked at it. Then I realized there was a bit more that went into it than first meets the eye. And there certainly was.

Too bad it couldn't be made into a script....or could it? Hmmmmm.

Steve

thanks steve

i extracted two leaves to separate images. i rotated them to be vertical. starting with the darker one i put it on a blank layer over the original image (though this turned out not to be necessary). i then warped this a tiny bit.

i then took the lighter leaf and put it on a blank layer but offset from the other leaf and tilted a bit. i then warped the outer edges inward a bit. i then did the same on the other side of the dark leaf and warped the out area inwards.

i then did the same with two dark leaves offset from the lighter ones and basically did the same sort of warping and then lastly the light leaf in the foreground

each of the leaves was on its own layer but offset from the others so as to build from the back to the front and warped each as necessary to give that cupped, turned sort of look as if it were petals on a flower.

after i had the whole built up i then just used eraser to wipe the various stems, leaving only one. and, i cleaned up the edges a bit and warped a tiny bit more here and there.

being that all were on separate layers, i then copy merged all to one layer and added another blank layer with a background gradient fill and used a blend mode to finish things off.

it was a long ways to go for such a simple looking thing

craig

[Craig Walters]

steve,

it could be made into a script on part of it, but the warping and clean up would be very difficult to do when you applied the script to other images. the warping in particular just wouldnt match up. in fact, even the placement of the individual leaves wouldnt really match up either, especially since i used the 'pick' tool to rotate here and there and move here and there and pinch here and there. sometimes, i'm afraid, there's just no substitute for the grunge work

craig

[Steve Conway]

I was just sorta mulling it over in my head re. the scripting. But sometimes I think more things should be made interactive in PSP scripts. One would be layer adjustments for instance. Maybe in ver. 11.

Have recently begun working with Photoshop 6 as a backup to PSP. I don't intend to try to learn that beast, just the parts that I use most in PSP, like plugins or scripts, (actions in PS.) My numero uno will still be PSP.

I found a beautiful action for PS that converts images to resemble Currier and Ives lithographs. Really a nice one.

Steve

steve,

it could be made into a script on part of it, but the warping and clean up would be very difficult to do when you applied the script to other images. the warping in particular just wouldnt match up. in fact, even the placement of the individual leaves wouldnt really match up either, especially since i used the 'pick' tool to rotate here and there and move here and there and pinch here and there. sometimes, i'm afraid, there's just no substitute for the grunge work

craig

[Craig Walters]

steve,

understood re the scripts and also about the interaction. i've really not played much with scripts. i did have a go a while back but found the results in most of them i didnt really care for. i did alter one and save it as my own, but i still dont hardly even use that one. i also played around with the 'user defined filter', but that one is even worse.... too much math for me

photoshop 6, huh....hmmm, i feel betrayed! actually, i have access to ps cs2 from time to time, but i feel no great compulsion to rush out and buy it. i do refer to it when the photoshop folks are talking tech terms and techniques just so i can 'translate' into psp. but i like psp. i like the simplicity of it and even some of the tools are better in my opinion. if it wasnt for the large price tag i might get it, but i really dont think i'd use it as my default editor. i think i'd mostly use it to follow flora's techniques and then go over to psp and do it there

craig