How I Am Feeling ATM
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
Spanish Cay Lonesome Beach
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
Being One with Nature
Above is another of my variations from my selfie image. These AI variations all turn out so different although in most cases the person is looking in the direction I was and the coat is somewhat similar, mine being light beige. I find that when having a problem with a face feature looking right, going back to the original selfie and copying that part onto it own layer. Then moving the layer above the variation layer and free transforming if needed works nice for getting a more accurate look – then blend into the face with a brush. My original nose is appearing in many of these AI images! In this case, the Liquify Tool was used along with Viveza and Topaz Lens Effects Reflector filter to lighten the left side of the image – it gaves the background some depth difference. For tree background, used Generative Fill prompt of “Oil painting outdoor background with trees.” Otherwise using all the same brushes as in my other blogs. It is fun to do these, and I am hoping I am getting better at drawing and painting faces!…..Digital Lady Syd
A Sophisticated Model
Thought I would put up another Photoshop Generative Fill variation from my selfie – this time a more sophisticated looking person selfie image (used Dave Kelly’s free Gen Fill Photo Painting Action set to GF Painting 40 before running Generative Fill). Had fun painting her as the Oil Painting prompt was too much for the overall image, but looked good in her hair. Used the same brushes that were used in my Fun Photoshop Placing any Photoshop Generative Fill Variation on a Layer Easily Blog. The main difference here is that Rebelle, a really nice and pretty inexpensive painting program, was used to smooth out the thick paint background and created a beautiful backdrop. Just took the PSD file into Rebelle and made some changes to the Oil & Acrylic Brushes -> Round -> Rough Oil Brush – changed the Loading to 100 and the Size to 50 – just sampled colors and painted softly around the subject. Pretty simple and easy to do. Oh yes, I didn’t like her nose so I copied my from the original selfie layer into the image and blended it in. It was in the right place at least!…..Digital Lady Syd
Older Woman of Another Generation
I recently read an interesting article Unveiling the Intriguing World of Face Cubism: Exploring the Artistic Journey on how to do a Basic Cubism Portrait so it seemed like a good idea to try it out in PS Beta AI. Using an image by Jude Infantini at Unsplash, it did not work well, but I did get an effect that I sort of liked. Actually it looked like a man with all this hair (because I used Dave Kelly’s Gen Fill Photo Painting Action set to 40% so the image will not look much like the original), but the overall image was quite striking. Added several New Layers on top and just started painting in the image the way I wanted it. Added in the necklace using AI – with the Lasso Tool selected where necklace should go, I ran Generative AI again (Prompt: Native American Necklace). Ended up using a Curves Adjustment Layer, the Sharpen Tool, and a Layer Style to finish off the image. I am currently reading The Travels of Marco Polo, and I think this rather older woman could possibly look like what a women of this region from back in the 13th Century. Anyway, it was fun to ponder…..Digital Lady Syd
A Halloween AI Party
I have always loved doing Halloween images so it was a lot of fun to create this one after this rather weird AI generated background from the Photoshop Beta software was produced. The prompt used on this one was “flowers and river oil painting” – see my AI Digital Oil Painting – How To Do This Fun Photoshop Blog for more on how this was done (used Method 2 by Brian Mataish called Photoshop Generative Fill AI Can Turn Photos into Paintings. This Tidbits Blog is on just the post-processing steps used after the AI background was created.
The original AI background had this pretty scary vampire looking guy on the right, so that felt very much like Halloween. A Halloween theme was created using a free Color Lookup Adjustment Layer called SS Vieru 02 for the basic color that I thought looked really good (to download click Sparkle Stock Canyon Film). On a New Layer the Vampire was painted in using my SJ-Pastel-3 Painting Brush (see my How to Create My Favorite Brush Fun Photoshop Blog for the settings) and some cloning was done on another layer. The Remove Tool/Spot Healing Brush layer was created to remove some bad looking areas – I am finding I do switch between them (see center of my Photoshop Beta AI with Fenced Zoo Images Fun Photoshop Blog for more on this). The Pot and Fire were both generated in two different generation layer prompts and read “Halloween black witches pot” and “flames” – then smoke was added on layer above using some really old smoke brushes. The bat was generated using “Halloween bat” in the prompt. The cat is from a Halloween Obsidian Dawn vectors set ($4 set) which had the cat brush, skeleton brush and the raven brush. The cat was painted with a Cheetah Fur brush that the great Aaron Blaise taught how to make (see How to Make a Digital Brush using a Photo) and the tail was flared out to look scary (used Coyote Mange Rough Tough brush for this – still the best animal fur brushes around!). The Dark Skin Cobra Attacking Pose Snake is from PixelSquid, the greatest object resource item around – hopefully even after AI – it is a pay-to-use site. (For more info on them, check out my Some Compositing Tips and Resources Fun Photoshop Blog halfway down.) A sampled light orange was used on a New Layer to add some Fog (used Grut-I Fixray brush – he has the best brushes around – and a free brush weekly!) and then on another New Layer used the same brush with a darker sampled color for a slight vignette effect. Two layers were added as Darken and Highlight layers using Sam Peterson’s brush and colors – see my A Few Photoshop and Lightroom Tips and Tricks Fun Photoshop Blog – Tip 2 – use this for pinpointing light and shadows on an object. A Black and White Adjustment Layer set to Luminosity (because it always looks good) was added next. Used Pratik Naik’s technique Tip 2 for lightening and darkening parts of image (on new layers above set to Overlay blend mode – use at least a 100 px soft round brush set to Airbrush in the Options Bar and Flow at 9% and use white or light color to lighten image or black or darker color to darken image – different colors give some great results – use layer opacity to lower effect). This enhanced the light at the top coming and the dark in areas for more of a cave feel. Last step involved adding a New Layer on top with a few little sprinklers to add some texture in the lighted areas. Phew! That was it – took a while to complete!…..Digital Lady Syd
Another AI Oil Painted Image of the Natural Bridge
The process used for this AI image is from Brian Mataish’s video called Photoshop Generative Fill AI Can Turn Photos into Paintings using the Quick Mask to set the partial opacity selection. Check out my blog at AI Digital Oil Painting – How To Do Fun Photoshop Blog for info on this technique. This blog is to show the post-processing after the Generative Fill was created to demonstrate what can be done with an AI generated image.
Had to use the Remove Tool/Spot Healing Brush on a layer first thing (see center of my Photoshop Beta AI with Fenced Zoo Images Fun Photoshop Blog for more on this). Then a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using On1’s Heat Wave 7 preset (yep they work in PS too) was added. I was not happy with the results yet so this time Luminar’s Neo was opened and only my favorite filter called Mystical (a bit like the Orton Effect) was selected. It was masked so the foreground water mainly used it. A swan was added using Midnightstouch Swan Lake set brush #22 (the set is on DeviantArt) – just painted over it with my SJ Pastel-3 Painting brush (it is set to 67% opacity most of the time – see my How to Create My Favorite Brush Fun Photoshop Blog for the settings) and lowered the layer opacity to blend it in. I felt a focal point needed to be supplied. A bluish texture was applied using the Adobe Paper Texture Pro panel (Caspian) set to Saturation blend mode at 79% layer opacity, and used a Levels Adjustment Layer to fine tune the using only the color Channels (followed Aaron Nace’s video called Make Amazing Photoshop Composites Quickly-part 1 at the 22-minute point – really interesting technique). A Curves Adjustment Layer for tone was added (see Denny Tang’s site with a Tone Chart Photoshop Action to download for doing this – have been using this technique as an action for over 5 years – it’s the best way to do this and use it on almost every image). There was this ugly blob on the right side of the image which was supposed to be a tree. Selected the tree area – generated it and got what you see in this image which looks so much better. The color was off a little so a Curves Adjustment Layer was clipped to it to make it match – to clip use the first icon at the bottom. Some sparkly dots were added to add a texture interest on two different layers – one using light colors and one using darker ones. Last step used Pratik Naik’s technique (see How to Create a Fun Cartoon Tip 2 Fun Photoshop Blog – on a layer above set to Overlay blend mode – use at least a 100 px soft round brush set to Airbrush in the Options Bar and Flow at 9% and use white or light color to lighten image or black or darker – different colors give some great results – use layer opacity to lower effect) to draw the eye to the swan. Still using a pretty basic workflow!…..Digital Lady Syd
AI Painted Image of Natural Bridge
Here is another AI generated Oil painted image using the same Natural Bridge photo but has a totally different feel to it. To see how this was created and what the original image looked like, check out my AI Digital Oil Painting – How To Do This Fun Photoshop Blog. The post-processing for this image was pretty simple after the AI Generated Fill background was selected (used the prompt “river and flowers oil painting”).
Started with a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer with bluish tones in it and set to 79% layer opacity (see Sparkle Stock’s free Bleak – Trellick 01 preset); a Curves Adjustment Layer for tone (see Denny Tang’s site with a Tone Chart Photoshop Action to download for doing this – have been using this technique as an action for over 5 years – it’s the best way to do this and use it on almost every image); a Levels Adjustment Layer to adjust the Blue color (followed Aaron Nace’s video called Make Amazing Photoshop Composites Quickly-part 1 at the 22-minute point – really interesting technique); a Black and White Adjustment Layer set to Luminosity blend mode (because it always looks good – see my How to Use a Black & White Adjustment Layer to See Contrast in a Layer Fun Photoshop Blog); Lighten and Darken layers using Pratik Naik’s technique (see How to Create a Fun Cartoon Tip 2 Fun Photoshop Blog – on a layer above set to Overlay blend mode – use at least a 100 px soft round brush set to Airbrush in the Options Bar and Flow at 9% and use white or light color to lighten image or black or darker – different colors give some great results – use layer opacity to lower effect) which was used especially where the light is coming into the image; and finished with a Remove Tool layer for smoothing out a couple tiny water issues. In other words most of my basic workflow – now you know what I do! Quite a difference from the original image!…Digital Lady Syd
Same Natural Bridge with Different AI Oil Paint Results
This digital AI oil painting was created by following Marty at Blue Lightning’s steps in his video Photoshop AI Transform Photos into Oil Paintings and it created this interesting photo from my original Natural Bridge image. Can you see the frog? For more info on the AI was created, see my AI Digital Oil Painting – How To Do This Fun Photoshop Blog. The Generative Fill prompt said “very spring oil painting.”
This blog is giving all the particulars as to how this image was post-processed after the Photoshop Beta Generative Fill layer was created. A Color Lookup (PS’s Foggy Night preset at 52 % layer opacity) Adjustment Layer; two textures (still using the obsolete Adobe Texture Pro panel even in the Beta!-used Sakura Skies set to Overlay at 100% layer opacity and Masque set to Color Burn blend mode at 28% layer opacity) for the more pastel look; a Levels Adjustment Layer in the Blue and Red Channels (followed Aaron Nace’s video called Make Amazing Photoshop Composites Quickly-part 1 at the 22-minute point – really interesting technique); a Remove Tool layer for getting rid of some of the artifacts that Generative Fill seems to add sometimes; some painting to create the frog – the eyes were already there (used my SJ Pastel-3 Painting brush that I have used forever – it is set to 67% opacity most of the time – see my How to Create My Favorite Brush Fun Photoshop Blog for the settings); and some Darken and Highlight layers using Sam Peterson’s brush and colors – See my A Few Photoshop and Lightroom Tips and Tricks Fun Photoshop Blog – Tip 2. I really like the dreamy effect the AI digital oil created. …..Digital Lady Syd
Modigliana Guy
Totally had fun creating this sort of cowboy-looking guy while trying to do another Modigliana figure as in my recent Fun Photoshop Blog (A Few Photoshop Digital Painting Tricks You May Not Know). Been following some of the tips in Aaron Blaise’s class on Clear Expression to learn face object placement (watch for great sales on his various classes). The painting took a long time to do, but eventually it was drawn to get a Modigliana perspective. The background was created with one of my Painter backgrounds and setting 9 Levels in a Posterize Adjustment Layer. A Kyle T. Webster Tilty Pencil Variant (from Winter 2022 set) Mixer was converted to a regular brush (changed Erodible Tip to Small Round and 9 px Tip; added Shape Dynamics Size Jitter 11%; Texture Scale slider changed to 28%, Brightness 60, Contrast 10, and Texture Each Tip checked; and Transfer With Opacity Jitter also checked – use all other settings from the Mixer and it turns into a really nice sketch brush). Also Kyle’s the Hunky and Heroes Heavy brushes from the free Bowie Set (located in the Adobe Cloud-search for Bowie Toolkit) were used to paint his clothes. Aaron Blaise’s favorite brush was used for the face and skin. Used The Etherington Brothers various tips for the face and hands – lots of good information here. He may not be the best thing I have ever drawn, but I am learning a lot about drawing!…..Digital Lady Syd
Some Fancy Text
This is an example of a Sam Peterson Challenge from a few months ago called Fancy Text. It was a lot of fun to do. The painting effect was created using Brushes from Kyle T. Webster’s Fall 2021 brush set (these are all part of the PS collection of brushes that can be downloaded for free with a PS membership). The Boxit, Circlez, and Rippolo brushes were used to create the painted look on the letters. From his Summer 2020 set the Brix Brush was used for the splashed-paint background. Overall just a lot of fun to do. Check out Sam Peterson at the Adobe Creative Cloud site for more challenges. …..Digital Lady Syd
Just a Bird Buddy
This image was actually created while trying out some of the new Spring and Summer 2022 brushes by Kyle T. Webster (that come with PS). This bird was drawn from one of my camera pix taken at the Jacksonville Zoo of a Verreaux Eagle Owl. He was a pretty good size with huge eyes and appeared to be a rather calm kind of bird. I decided to have some fun and give him a different color palette and background. The rough and refined drawing brushes were created using one of Aaron Blaise‘s drawing tutorials (check out any of his YouTube tutorials to see how he does this – pretty easy). The underpainting effect used his Color Brush. The tree was created by making a selection of a tree with the Lasso Tool, then painting with Kyle’s Spring 2022 Woodchuck Joey brush over it using a couple different colors, and removing part of the right side of the tree using the Tilde (~) key (acts like an eraser but uses the brush currently selected). The skin texture was made from Kyle’s Summer 2022 Pellet CS brush with different colors. The little flowers used the Summer 2022 Soft Spat 1 brush also in different colors. The tree leaves were from Kyle’s Spring 2022 – Shrubbed brush. The rest just involved some lightening and darkening. The hardest part was painting the beak – this owl does have a very colorful beak. It was a lot fun just to try out new brushes!…..Digital Lady Syd
Turtle and Child Sculpture
This image was taken on the Big Island in Hawaii at a small shopping center near Waimea – I wish I knew who did the original piece of sculpture as it is quite striking and beautiful. The photo background was very busy so I decided to try some digital effects to the image. It really is a faux digital painted image as the background painted effect used Topaz Studio (AI Remix – 0.69 opacity and Normal mode, Velvet Abstract preset set to Style Strength High, Brightness 0, Contrast 1.00, Sat 0.75, Hue 0, Smooth Edge 0.20, Sharpness 0.47, and Suppress Artifacts 0; Impression – 1.00 opacity and Normal mode, Type 16 Stroke, Number of Strokes Med, Stroke Length 0.56, and Painting Progress 0.16 – painted out the turtle and child and Texture – and Background Type Original; and Precision Detail – 1.00 opacity and Normal mode, Overall Small 0.60, and Lighting Midtones -0.47). Then on various layers in PS, different parts were painted using PS brushes to add more defined strokes and to clean up some of the Studio stroke overlap. One brush used was Kyle’s Real Watercolor-80 Round brush set to Normal brush mode to paint the face and body of the child. Black & White, Curves, and Levels Adjustment Layers were added on top. The Sharpen Tool was used on a separate layer to sharpen up the eyes a little. A Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using On1’s Loyalty Reward for May 2022’s Fun in the Sun6 LUT was added and set to 27% – really brightened up the image. Last step involved adding darken and lighten layers using Sam Peterson’s colors and brush to draw attention to the boys face. (See my Fun Photoshop Blog A Few Photoshop and Lightroom Tips and Tricks – Step 2 for info on this – really easy to do and look great on images!) That was it – it was really fun and relaxing to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
The Lifeguard
Just downloaded this week’s free brush from GrutBrushes – each Monday he gives you a new one some of them are fabulous. He has some great brushes (I love his cloud set for starters!) This week’s brush is an ink brush called Citrose and I really like it! Everything painted or draw in this image used this brush. For example, just for sketching the brush was set to 13 pixels. The Color Tones were added with the brush set to 70 pixels which made a very smooth color. The water was set to 400 pixels, white splashes and birds were set at a very small size. The only extras were a Gradient Fill Adjustment Layer used on the background at 76% layer opacity, and a Texture layer using Pro Casanova from the Adobe Paper Panel (not sure it is available anymore but try this link if you are interested) set to Overlay blend mode. The font is one called Zahra Inline Grunge – has a stroke layer style added and set to the outside. I was not going to do an image with the brush, but it turned out to be such a nice brush so I started doodling and came up with this crazy image using it. …… Digital Lady Syd
Living in the Abstract
Just a short blog – I thought I would show you the results using this drawing I created of a lioness turned into a painted image using Kyle T. Webster’s Spring 2022 brush set. The drawing is one I did following Aaron Blaise’s Digital Painting for Photoshop – Getting Started-Sketching in Photoshop video. (See my recent Fun Photoshop A Little Aaron Blaise Digital Drawing Practice blog for more info on this.) I used one of Aaron’s resource images – it is not an exact representation but I felt he should get credit for the original drawing idea. Then, just following Kyle T. Webster’s YouTube called Illustration Masterclass: Draw Stylized Portraits with Custom Brushes to paint the lioness. This video used many of his newly released Spring 2022 brushes, which can be found in PS by clicking on the Hamburger icon in the top right corner of the Brushes Panel and clicking “Get More Brushes” – if you have any recent version of PS and are on a monthly plan, it will be listed at the top of the page, after logging if needed. There appear to be 37 brushes in this set. If you want to see how each works, watch his Brush Hour with Kyle T. Webster: Check Out the Spring 2022 Brush Set! video. This image mainly used his Woodchuck Joey, Pellets and Old Blue brushes with a few other ones thrown in. I actually changed the Pellets-Alt brush to a Spacing of 98 and a smaller size of 45 pixels to get a really nice texture effect when the stylus is pressed lightly and really smooth when pressed hard. To select the colors, a color palette layer was created by following Kyle’s video called Illustration Masterclass: Choosing the Right Colors for Your Digital Illustrations which is very helpful when trying to get colors that blend nicely. The splatter effect is a PNG overlay file that was downloaded from Creative Market in a set called 48 Subtle Grunge Textures Vector by Anastasia Autumn. It has PNGs, JPGs, ABRs PS brushes, and Vector AI files with the 48 textures in each file format. By adding a layer style to the PNG texture 01 layer and in Layer Styles selecting the Gradient Overlay, all these colors would be added (not sure which gradient, but it had a lot of horizontal gradient colors in it). It was set to 59% layer opacity. Major Cool! Viveza was used to fine tune the final image. Overall, this was just major fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
Waiting for Sunset
Just had some fun creating a little atmospherics image. Following Aaron Blaise’s Digital Painting videos – these are from 2017 but they are still really relevant. One of the sections is called Creating Atmospheric Perspective using Layers. It was a lot of fun to do and pretty easy. Just used a Hard Round PS brush with Transfer on for the mountains layers and with a lighter color added using the Gradient Tool for atmosphere layers. Can make as many mountains and as much atmosphere as you want. The foreground flowers are from Maddy Bellwoar Hand Painted Gouache Brushes Plant and Flower set – Wildflower Stamp 9 – really nice. The deer shape is from a Photoshop set by Timoes Animal Shapes from 2002 and the grass reeds were created in Aaron’s class. Lots of fun. And Aaron has just released a new digital class but I have not tried it yet. I am sure it is also great!…..Digital Lady Syd
The Chocolate Shop
Had fun post-processing this image from Kilwin’s Chocolate Shop in St. Augustine, Florida – excellent chocolate! This image was pretty tricky to do as that little train was moving all over the place and it was in front of the food sign to make it even harder. It really helped to have Topaz Sharpen AI (see sidebar for website link) on this one – use it as a first step almost on every RAW image. The biggest problem was all the spectral reflections on the sign – totally blocked out some of the lettering. Therefore, a lot of clone stamping and painting was done on this image. For cloning, a brush from PS Guru Aaron Nace that is just a 30-pixel round brush set to 25% Spacing and 28% Hardness – the Options Bar was set to 100% Opacity and 80% Flow, Aligned checked and Sample Current & Below. It does a pretty good of job but is a little choppy looking where the strokes stop. To fix that, another clone brush was used – one I call Soft Build up Clone by Pratik Naik, a famous retoucher. It is a very simple brush too – Size 100 pixels, Spacing and Hardness 25% and Build-up checked in the Brush Settings Panel. In the Options Bar, the brush has an Opacity 100% and a Flow of 9% – be sure to turn on the Airbrush – also turn on Aligned and Sample Current & Below. If this does not smooth out the lines enough, just increase the Flow a little. This brush is really fabulous! Just cloned over other lettering to reconstruct the bad letters. Also used Kyle’s Drawing Box-Glide Sketch Pencil/14% (for smoothing) Sm brush and my SJ Pastel3-Painting brush (all over my blogs if you want the settings) for clean up. The font is one I really like – Onamura Thin. That was about it – took some time but overall a good final result!…..Digital Lady Syd
Winter in Indiana
Just practicing my painting and decided to do an abstract from one of my childhood haunts. The originals of this image were really of the lake trying to freeze but I decided to add a little more drama for my image. In this case, the lake has frozen and melted several times to get this rough edge.
One reason this image was done was to try out a couple Smudge brushes created since I discovered I don’t have any in my favorite painting tool set. Basically followed the older Digital Painting Techniques Volume 1 from Brian Recktenwald tutorial. It served the purpose and several brushes were made and used on this image. Also a lot of painting was done with my SJ Pastel 3-Painting (have used this brush forever – great for just painting in solids with a little texture in it.) I also downloaded Daarken’s brushes and used one called Texture Sample Brush 45 3 to add the icy feel to the image. Used Carlos Cabrera’s brush for the overcast clouds from the same book. The bird set is called Bird Brushes by Canmax Stock-SB 3. Lots of other brushes were used like Kyle’s Animator Pencil 2016 and his Glide Sketch Pencil and David Belliveau Mixer Brush. Last step used Viveza 2 to get a nice focal point to the birds……Digital Lady Syd
American Goldfinch
Spent what seems like hours working on this gorgeous Goldfinch. The reference photo was by Stephen Walker at Unsplash. Totally drawing and painted following the technique in the Behance Video called Painting Beautiful Birds in Photoshop with Maddy Bellwoar. I am still working on the second half, but the technique used on this bird is from the first part. She provides brushes to draw and paint with and spend a lot of time showing how to draw birds. Excellent tutorial! The flower brushes are from her Hand-Painted Gouache Brushes for PS and Procreate that she just released. I used some of them as Pattern Stamp brushes. The Pattern used was from Jessica Johnson at Creators Couture using her Romantic English Garden Multi-color Floral Set – this set has some beautiful floral patterns, and some great Pattern Stamp brushes too. The background was created using Kyle T. Webster’s 2020 Summer Set’s Brix Brush in Photoshop. A Lookup Table using the Cerulean preset gives it this bold dark blue/purple effect. Otherwise bunches of layers and brushes and hours but lots of fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
Let’s Have a Little Chat
Going to make this short and sweet. Been practicing my digital painting and thought I would post this guy whose image is from a pack from ISO Republics 30 Free Images (be sure to change Image Size from 72 ppi to 300 ppi before starting so image is of a manageable size). The real trick is to find the right brushes to use – mainly the Mixers, Regular Brush and Smudge Brushes. The main Mixer Blender brush is from one I brought into Photoshop from Corel Painted and just make a bunch of iterations of regular, smudge and mixers from the tip. (See my older blog called How to Bring a Corel Painter Brush into Photoshop – it still works!) Most of the painting effect was placed on a layer above the original painting (Option Bar setting were Load the Brush After Each Stroke off, Wet 100%, Load 50%, Mix 80%, Flow 100% and Sample All Layers check on. Then used several layers to do whiskers, eyes, nose, etc. A Shadow and a Highlight layer was added to distribute the lighting correctly. Added an Autumn Colors Color Lookup Adjustment Layer at 63% and a Gradient Map set to light yellow to white, Multiply blend mode, and 47% opacity. That’s about it. Lots of fun here!…..Digital Lady Syd
Happy Lily
This white lily just appeared in my front yard last summer – I had planted this variety several years ago. I was excited to see it but the white color did not lend itself to great photo shots. I decided to give it a digital touch Here are some tips I had for this image:
- Had to use a special brush I made to get rid of some of the color from chromatic aberration in the white lily petals – created a clone brush set to Color blend mode at 32% opacity to paint over those areas very lightly with a small 15 pixel brush. Brush called SJ Remove Chrom Abb around color edges. Only used where there is white or light color on the subject, now on the long edge and side of the petals which were way too soft. Used a regular soft cloning brush here.
- Did not like the line definition of the petals so decided to use a new brush I created from Kyle’s Spatter Video – named it SJ Drawing Br-Airbrush – very small 3 pixels but very nice for this type of line drawing on flowers.
- To get a more interesting effect, on the line drawing I opened the Layer Style – Glow and set it to Opacity 16%, Color a dark blue or #2d354e, Spread 41% and Size 32 to get a rather interesting shadow effect around the lines and gives a bit of a painterly effect to the whole image. This definitely turned out really good.
- Used the Pattern Stamp Tool to created the pretty flowers on the ground – Used Jessica Johnson’s English Garden brush and pattern – in this case used one with the blues and purples in it. (Brush 11 at 200 pixel and Pattern 14) The brush had too much texture in it but when I turned it off, it did not look as good when repainted. Therefore I added a slight Gaussian Blur to the layer and set the Radius to 1.4 to remove the texture quality but still maintain the detail in the flowers.
- Used Grut P Limbo Lift brush in his Pencil set to add shadow and highlights and his S Tend Octo brush to add the green and white small flower look.
- The Bokeh Texture was from Jill Wellington from a long time ago and was set to Color Burn blend mode. Added a layer mask and painted out the flower.
That is basically what was done. It is fun to try new things!…..Digital Lady Syd
Celebrating Winter
Just practicing painting. This is one that I created following a set of videos called Painting with Photoshop from Corel Painter Master, Melissa Gallo from many years ago. This series is still the best one out there to learn how to paint in Photoshop. This image used several variations of her Pencil Sketch Brush which comes with the workshop. If you really want to learn how to do this, it is totally worth the money. Created this image due to the fact that everyone is getting large amounts of snow this week. Enjoy the beauty of wintry mess!…..Digital Lady Syd
Feeling Groovy
Just had some fun with ISO Republic’s Guitar Man, my favorite practice image, to create a rather crazy abstract using some Corel Painter brushes mainly. A while back I had purchased a learning video and some brushes from Karen Sperling called Quick Fix Color – I decided to use these brushes that make these really interesting dabs. Back in Photoshop added a splatter brush to fill in missed areas, a Curves Adjustment Layer, a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using On1’s Heat Wave LUT set to Overlay blend mode at 57% opacity, and the Camera Raw Filter. Anyway, just lots of fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
Fisherman’s Cabin
This image was created using one of Shorpy.com’s great images called Fisherman’s Cabin-Shore Road-Magnolia-Cloucester-Massachusetts, cc1905. This image was run through the Image Colorizer (see my How to Colorize Using Image Colorizer blog for info on this) first, then after some clean up in PS before taking the image into Topaz Studio 2 where Impression, Edges, and Color Theme filters were applied. Then the image was taken into Corel Painter and the image was painted over where the canned Impression program left stroke I did not like. Back in PS, the Mixer brushes were used to do the final clean up on the image. Lots of fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd
