Artistic Cut Out Tool

There is a Yahoo Group, Artist Techniques Digital, that I joined a couple of months ago and it has turned into a treasure for me.  The biggest boon is that the group owner, Sherre Hulbert, posted a "Tool of the Week" that I'm playing with.  Many of the "tools" in Photoshop I know nothing about, and it is sooo easy to get into a rut, using the same tools over and over again, and learning little or nothing about the rest.

This weeks tool is the Artistic CutOut tool . . . guarantee you, a tool that I never would have thought to use without a little prompting!

Apple Picking Time

Pear

Actually, it is a nifty little tool to use, and I enjoyed playing with it.  I have to be honest here, I did use a texture on both photo's and the photos aren't mine, but rather royalty free photo stock from stock-xchng.

Below is a photo I did take last week that I used with the cutout tool and a texture.

That's it folks, not even a thought of the day!

More fun with creating textures.

Digital Montage Studio has a challenge this month to "get out and grab some photos of texture" that can be combined with other images to alter them digitally. 

Can't admit to "getting out", but I did go thru my photos and found a few to play with;  a couple from a visit to the Carson Ranch, and a photo from China. I had fun creating the textures, and look forward to creating a whole lot more with varied techniques . . .

Below is a sample board of the photo's and the changes I made to them to create textures.

Sample Board

And here are a few photos' that I applied the newly created textures to:

Native Apricot

Panda/Chengdu Research Center

Water Garden

Thought for the day: Live in an attitude of gratitude and give thanks for what is and for what is to be . . . 

I could be doing something other then playing . . .

but my big plans for the day collapsed due to inclement weather!  

Today's plans were taking photos of the bartlett pears at the Capitol (just turning red), cleaning out my planters, (frost finally did-in the geraniums) and getting my outdoor rug rolled up and put away for the winter!

What I did get done was pull the motor and dump the water in my fountain and retreated to my favorite pass time - playing in Photoshop!

Because today is a gloomy, rainy, snowy day, I choose to play with color, sort of . . . fall colors at least!

Indian Corn

Corn in Dried Husk

Have not really known what to do with the photo below, but it so true of Santa Fe: the pueblo style architecture (although a little more "edgy" then pueblo style), the contrast of blue sky with puffy white clouds, adobe brown, chamisa and green trees.  Rendering turned the adobe brown a little more red, but I liked the contrast, and love the triptychs frame!

Arroyo Chamisa

Thought for the day:  There's not a day that goes by that you can't choose to learn something new!

PS:  The clouds are clearing, the sun is shinning, the snow is melting - time to get on with the rest of my day!

Dia De Los Muertos

Dia De Los Muertos

Dia De Los Muertos came into my life about 10 years ago, and I have been celebrating it ever since.  Love the idea of celebrating the lives of those that have passed before us.

Altar Basics

KK's Texture Tuesday

This weeks TT challenge was to use at least one layer of Kim Klassen's "and then some" texture.

Below is a photo taken looking straight up into a tree with the blue sky as the backdrop; the photo was rendered in Topaz Simplify and has a single layer of "and then some", set on linear burn at 100%.

Blue Sky

The photo below was taken with a macro lens of a well protected marigold in my yard using two of Kim's textures: "and then some" set on linear burn at 100% and "scripted autumn" on overlay at 47%.

Marigold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 On both photos I pulled the texture away from the edges, and beveled to add the sense of a frame.

Happy Halloween

Enough yellow already, give me red!

My new project today was warming up the yellows' on my photographs taken at Maggie's yesterday; you won't get to compare it with the originals, as I took my project seriously and warmed up four photo's and don't want to bore you lopsided!

 

Coyote Fence

 

Golden Bough

Golden Tree Trunk

Golden Leaves

Autumn red in New Mexico is chili ristras!

Viva Nuevo Mexico

Ristra