Bamboo Trees

These beautiful trees are part of the Ormond Beach Memorial Art Museum and Gardens here in Florida. The blue sky was a perfect match for the colors in the tree trunks. I really wanted an oriental feel to the image. The first step was working on the RAW file in Lightroom. A free preset obtained from Allen Mowrery called Allen’s Vintage Retro achieved a bit of a sketch feel to the image and really softened the image. In Photoshop Lucis Pro (unfortunately no longer available) was applied using both the Enhance Detail and Smooth Detail sliders on all three channels to get a slight painterly effect in the image. Then Levels, Color Balance, and Selective Color Adjustment Layers were applied. On a stamped layer, Topaz Texture Effects 2 was opened and this is were the bluish texture became more obvious on the background. The texture used is one of the Topaz pinkish textures with darker edges. (Settings used:  In Texture Section, selected texture that is a pinkish color with darken edges (in my All, 6th row down and first column), Size 1.00 and Rotation 0 – Keep Aspect Ration; Brightness -0.43, Contrast -0.14, Detail 0.79, Saturation -0.49, Color Strength 0; Opacity 0.33 set to Normal blend mode; and Enabled Masking and set the Color tab to Hue 0.12 and Range 0.09, which blacked out most of the trees and leaves leaving the white sky for the area the texture would be applied. Next Vignette section Strength 0.40, Size 0.70, Transition 0.53, Roundness 0.61, Color Black and center in middle, Opacity 0.90 set to Normal. Basic Adjustments Brightness -0.08, Shadow 0.11, Highlight 0.12, Clarity 0.24, Saturation -0.12, Temp -0.10, Tint 0, Opacity 0.43 set to Soft Light. Overall Opacity set to 0.62 and Luminosity blend mode.) My regular workflow was done next with a Black and White Adjustment Layer set to Luminosity blend mode, Nik Viveza 2 to emphasize the focal point, and a Red Channel Luminosity Curves Adjustment Layer. (Search on my Fun Photoshop Blog for info on these techniques.) The last step involved adding a Layer Style for a little Impasto texture effect on the tree bark. Used John Derry’s Impasto Smooth Light layer style and Grut’s IO (Impasto Oil) Gypsum Slate brush to paint in some of the tree trunks on a New Layer with a Fill set to 0. In areas that still needed a little texture, used the same brush on a New Layer just sampling nearby colors. Grut’s Impasto Oil brushes are great for just adding a bit of texture and depth here and there without going to the trouble of using a layer style. This was a lot of fun to do and I like the oriental color palette which bamboo always reminds of using……Digital Lady Syd