Still using the Chalk Brush to paint. And Mark English does always inspire me even though my drawing does not look like his work. This image used a Melissa Gallo Pastel Texture for the background. A Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer was applied to create the shirt patterning. My old version of Viveza 2 was added to pop the colors (still my favorite overall filter). PS’s Camera Raw Filter was used to brighten up his face. Enjoying making these little portrait images!….Digital Lady Syd
No AI – just drawing and painting. Another Mark English inspired image. Love using a Chalk Brush to paint these little portrait images. This one used the same brushes as in my short Tidbits Blog called How I Am Feeling ATM. Used one of my older Melissa Gallo textures – she used to sell the most beautiful textures and this is one of them. The netting and detail on the dress are all brushes by Jessica Johnson (need to get her E-mail as she gives away some really fun brushes). And to get this nice bright color feel, a little tip I learned using the Photo Filter Adjustment Layer. Try setting to Warming Filter 85 to start with and a Density of 85 – change layer blend mode to Multiply and reduce the layer opacity to taste. Instead for this image, the Filter was set to Red, Density to 52 with Preserve Luminosity on, Linear Burn blend mode, and 48% opacity. Can really adjust as you wish! ….. Digital Lady Syd
This older image had a big tree trunk in the middle of it. Now that Photoshop has improved so much, it was easily removed and the buildings were blended together beautifully. I actually did this image with pastel oranges and yellows and a bright blue sky which looked pretty good – this is how the original appeared. But I decided to give it a more industrial look using the now defunct filters Lucis Pro and Topaz ReStyle’s Rum Purple preset. Did a Sky Replacement using the PS Night Skies Package1-001 by Clifford Mervil. Added a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using On1 Moody Clouds preset (if you own On1, you probably have this one – they do work in PS). Otherwise lots of clean up. I love the fact that unusable images from a while back can now be saved! ….Digital Lady Syd
Yes Sophie, my sweet tailless feline, has come to my rescue this time and suggested we create this whimsical office that we both would love as a workspace. Note, she still can’t keep her eyes off the birds! So how was this image created? Using the Photoshop Beta version, an image was created with this text prompt “Office space in an office with windows high up in a building” using Special Effects Sketch and Watercolor. The variations that did not work were deleted keeping just a similar version as above. On a duplicated Smart Object Layer, the Parametric Filter (which are only available in Beta at the moment) Spherify was selected (set to Medium, Close Up, Size 1, Image Scale X:2.69 and Y3, Sphere Scale X:1.9 and Y:1.18, and Background Color White). On separate layers lots of clean up was done. Put some of my cartoon images on the computer screens. Sophie’s image is from a generic cat picture placed in Topaz Studio 2 – used the Impression filter to give her a painterly look. To get the soft sunny background effect, the cleaned up image was taken into Anthropics Smart Photo Editor and settings called Beach by InoculateIT were used. The final step was to add a few birds into the sky with a brush Bert Monroy teaches how to make. This was a lot of fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
Merry Christmas to everyone – hope this Holiday brings you much good cheer! I enjoyed making this candle card – pretty simple and lots of fun. Basically ran from the Contextural Task Bar a prompt saying “Lit Yellow candle in the middle of the image with no decorations around it” – Cinematic and Cartoon Effects were check. Took 4 Variation runs to get the one I liked, but finally did. To get the pretty greenery, just followed Jessica Johnson’s Behance video called Creating a Stylized Holiday Holly Illustration in Photoshop & New Brushes. By using a simple Pointed Arrow as a brush tip, many different kinds of fern-like greenery can be created. Most of them were Pattern Stamp brushes with different color swatch patterns used to create the interesting colors in the branches. Mixer used to paint the berries and a little gold dazzle using a gold layer style. She has lots of info on how to do this on her website. I found it was a lot of fun to create this card and make some new brushes. Happy Holiday!…..Digital Lady Syd
Just enjoyed doing Christmas Cards this year. This ornament is one I bought years ago at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and I have always loved it! Thought I would share. The image was not real sharp, but I used an older version of Topaz Sharpen AI and it still does a fantastic job! Used an Iridescent Pattern Stamp Brush from Jessica Johnson (she is a Photoshop Pattern Stamp Guru!) and a silver glitter pattern from Chris Spooner ages ago to create the garland. (The patterns can easily be made by following my Fun Photoshop How to Create a Glitter Texture blog from a while ago.) Added some more greenery around Santa using the brushes made by following Jessica Johnson’s Behance video called Creating a Stylized Holiday Holly Illustration in Photoshop & New Brushes. The Merry Christmas font used is called Baroque Script. That was about it! Happy Holidays to everyone!…..Digital Lady Syd
Created this image using Adobe Firefly AI – created a layer and clicked on the new bottom icon that says “Generate an image using a text prompt.” Used the prompt “surf shack at the beach at sunset, with surfboards. Silhouetted surfer holding surfboard looking at sun.” I got the above basic image with an ugly surfboard so another a selection of it was made. Ran another Generative Fill with the prompt “Hawaiian flowered surfboard” and got the above variation. Had to select the surfboard and do a Free-Transform (CTRL+T) for it to fit over the original ugly surfboard. Added in some birds and a little clean up to get a very nice Hawaiian scene. The font is Zahra Inline Grunge. This was actually a lot of fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
I like Mark English‘s work a lot and decided to try it again to get my creative vibe flowing. Not sure this is exactly a “self-portrait,” but I do think it represents my recent feelings. For info on how I discovered his art, check out my Masked Tidbits Blog with more info on this. No AI was used in this image – all digitally drawn and painted in Adobe Photoshop 2024. Just a couple things make this image unique for me – I created a brush to give a really heavy texture feel to the image. In a 50-pixel Chalk brush, I added a texture pattern from Jessica Johnson – she uses this pattern (TM-6) a lot in her brushes (see Texture section of brush to download-check the little + sign on right of pattern), but I did not use her Pattern Stamp brushes, just the texture. Since Transfer’s Flow Control Panel was set to Pen Pressure only, it can be painted over to get a more dense effect if needed. Used the same texture pattern in a layer style for the hair with the Pattern Overlay set to Opacity 17 and Scale 93 – layer was set to 46 Opacity and Fill 0, and just the hair was painted over on the layer. Otherwise just the same workflow for drawing. Lots of fun to create this…..Digital Lady Syd
I tried out Google’s ImageFX to see if I liked it as well as Adobe Firefly – thought it did a pretty good job but still not sure how to use the prompt to get exactly what I wanted. Only used one prompt called Sketchy – it created several beautiful sepia and black and white sketches. On this image a pencil outline of the original sketch was created. The various AI brushes from my other blogs were used to paint in the face and hair. Then took the image into Portraiture Pro and completed her face features. Went back into ImageFX and used the prompt “Dinosaur Open Mouth” and added the dinosaur in the upper left. A Selective Color Adjustment Layer was added to adjust his coloring. Made a Vignette using my Using a Levels Adjustment Layer for a Vignetting blog (great for precisely setting up the vignette on the image). The Font is called Lobster and used an Outer Glow Layer Style. Overall, I would say that ImageFX is doing a better job with faces, but it appears there are limited choices when a prompt is used (or I need to learn how to use it better). Anyway, it was fun to try out….Digital Lady Syd
Spanish Cay is on the northern edge of the Bahamas – in this image you can see the blue water from the Atlantic Ocean outside the little cover areas shown. There are plenty of small beach areas that look wild and secluded just like this beach. This image was post-processed using Photoshop’s Sky Replacement panel as the sky in the original photo was totally flat (the sky is from a company that is out of business now); On1 Effects 2023 using the AI brush to select different parts of the image – used Dynamic Contrast on the dead branches, foreground water, and fence (see Getting Started with On1 Effects 2023 by On1 and How to Reveal Stunning Detail in Your Water Photos by Scott Davenport); and Camera Raw Filter (see The Photo Editing Trick Every Photographer Should Know! by Mark Denney). It was fun trying out all these techniques. …..Digital Lady Syd
Check out AI Gigapixel stand-alone software for upsizing your images. It’s incredible! And it can now be used as a plugin when in Photoshop. Also Topaz Labs Photo AI has some great sharpening and denoise tools along with Photo Video AI.
Click here to visit Luminar for more info and check out their new AI Filters.
Click here to visit GrutBrushes.com
And be sure to check out his Free Brush of the Week and Brush Sampler! These are the best brushes you can find!
Unfortunately Topaz Studio 2 and other Topaz Lab filters are no longer available for sale as of 2020. If you had bought these filters and would like to put them back on, here is a link to the Legacy Apps where they can be downloaded again. Below is an example of the wonderful Remix AI Filter from Studio 2. The wonderful Impression still works fine in Photoshop right now along with Adjust (all versions), ReStyle, and even PhotoFXLab!
Wonderful software to use as a substitute for or plugin with Photoshop. Many great filter effects and lots of AI capabilities!
