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A Leopard Thinking

Drawing of a leopard

Just thought I would post my Leopard drawing – it looks a lot like the one Aaron Blaise teaches you how to draw in his Wildlife Painting Bundle – Leopard Painting Tutorial. (See my Got Some Free Time! Try Drawing! blog for the Elephant drawing I did from the same bundle.) Since being stuck at home so much, it was the perfect opportunity to work some more on my drawing skills. This image took a very long time to finish (yes many hours went into this), but overall it was a lot of fun to do. For me that is the name of the game! If you want to learn some of Aaron’s techniques, check out the link above for some super inexpensive offers or check out Aaron’s fabulous YouTube channel. And lots of great animal brushes are at his website also. ….. Digital Lady Syd

07/15/2020 | Categories: Just Being Creative | Tags: | 2 Comments »

The Mighty Dragonfly

Image of a dragonfly

Had some fun giving this guy new background. The original background e was pretty much out of focus the image was shot at F5/6, and so a splash brush was used on a layer above to add some texture over the original background. (See my recent How to Use a Spatter Brush for a Background Effect blog for how to do this.) Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI was used to sharpen just the dragonfly. Some Dodging and Burning and Spotlight Effect was used on him. Last step was a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer using just reds and warm cream color. ….. Digital Lady Syd

07/10/2020 | Categories: Textures | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

What a Beautiful View!

Image of a view from Edinburgh Castle in Scotland

This is an image taken a while back at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland – missing not having any gorgeous landscape images to take like this one. Hard to believe these clouds were so dramatic! Not much done on this photo – just some LR basic processing, then in PS, Topaz (see sidebar for the website link) Denoise AI was used. Next a little Luminar (see sidebar for website link) and finished off with Viveza. All my favorite plugins!…..Digital Lady Syd

06/30/2020 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

Fishing in 1904

Image from Shorpy of guys fishing in Whitefish Bay, Ontario in 1904

This image is a fabulous one from Shorpy.com, one of the best places to see great historical images. I decided to use one of my colorizing techniques since the image was so clear and interesting. Used my blog called How to Convert Black and White Images to Colorful Painting with Topaz Studio 2. The first step is very important as noted in the blog – make sure you have adjusted the resolution and size of the image before beginning to change the image. When opened in Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Studio 2, only AI ReMix was applied using Daylight Fade preset, High, Brightness 0.60, Contrast 1.00, Sat 0.75, Hue 0.15. From within Topaz Studio, Topaz Adjust AI was opened and set to Standard and Strength 0.71 – then mainly all the sliders were adjusted to get a really nice look. Back in PS, the skin color was painted in as for some reason it did not pick up color. The blue color came from Topaz ReStyle and Nik Viveza was used to even out the whole effect. This was the perfect image for this type of coloring…..Digital Lady Syd

06/11/2020 | Categories: Photoshop Filters, Topaz Studio | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

Some Sunshine when It Is Raining

Digitally painted image of some sunflowers in a vase

Had some fun painting these wonderful sunflowers in Corel Painter. If you have Painter, I hope you are following Karen Bonaker who has a great website on how to use the program. Last week she shared the image and several brushes and taught us how to paint the flowers. It has been a long time since using Painter so it felt good to get back to it. And of course for me, I have to finish up in Photoshop and do my same adjustments on photos to my digital art. Anyway, it felt great to be painting again……Digital Lady Syd

06/09/2020 | Categories: Corel Painter | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

Queen Emma Lily Displaying Her White Blossoms

Queen Emma Lily Displaying Her White Petals

Another image of my beautiful Queen Emma Lily blossoms. This time she has three visitors – not sure these are wanted guests. Looks like a little garden work is in store. This image contained a very short workflow – a little sharpening in Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI, some dodging and burning, and Nik Viveza to adjust the background color and focus on the blossom. Pretty easy. ….. Digital Lady Syd

06/04/2020 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

Scared Hood Ornament

Image of the Hood of an Antique Ford

This vintage Ford image was taken in the parking lot at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm a while ago. I did not realize how scared the hood ornament looked until I started to work on the image. In Lightroom I applied one of my presets called SJ HDR Split Tone – the image did not end up this way in PS, but it is how I started. In PS Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI, Lucis Pro – just a single slider to give it more of a cartoon effect, and a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using a PhotoFocus preset called Africa set to 40% opacity (and killed the split tone from LR) were added. Did a little dodging and burning on the text and headlights. Finished up with a Levels Adjustment Layer to add more contrast and Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to give it a little more saturation (this rarely happens for me). That was it. Very easy and lots of fun. …… Digital Lady Syd

05/28/2020 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

The Ferocious Mastodon

Image of the mastodon exhibit at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida.

I had such a good time at the Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville that it would have been easy to overlook the terrific exhibits this museum has inside. It was hard not to notice this huge American Mastodon. I decided to try a different type of treatment – followed an article in Kelby One‘s Lightroom Magazine No. 52 last year by Martin Evening (this guy is a terrific PS guru with some great books on it). He showed how to create an infrared preset in Lightroom so that is what is used on this image. It does not look like an infrared particularly, but it has a really nice effect to it. In Photoshop Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen’s plugin was applied, a little dodge and burning was done using two Curves Adjustment Layers, and some text using the Hillray font was added. It was really fun to try out a new technique. ….. Digital Lady Syd

05/26/2020 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Cherry Blossoms

Image of abstract painting of some cherry blossoms

Been missing the beautiful Spring in Virginia and the DC area so created this digital painting to get the essence of the beautiful colors of the Cherry Trees. It was started by using an image taken at the Jacksonville Zoo of trees covered with white Spanish Moss in February. Two textures by Kim Klassen were added: her Granny Cupboard (where the Blend If This Layer black tab was split and set to 187/221 to show just the tree trunks coming through this light colored texture) and Shine (a pinkish texture which was set to Darken blend mode). After that, just various layers were added using 6 different brushes in Photoshop. Also two Impasto Layer was created using a Layer Style created in my How to Create an Impasto Layer Style blog. I used Fay Sirkis’s Palette Knive Reflection Soft Blender #2 mixer brush to add the general impasto effect (KelbyOne is the only place I know that still has her brushes). Used one of Grut’s brushes to make tiny flowers – had changed it to create the blossom effect I wanted – basically little bunches of dots with Color Dynamics turned on. This brush was also used on the the Layer Style to add some depth to the brush strokes made on an earlier layer. Also used Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Lens Effects to create the soft pink color, add some light to the left side of the image, and add a graduated fog vignette. Overall it was a lot of fun to do. This is a great time to try out new techniques……Digital Lady Syd

05/19/2020 | Categories: Photo Art | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

Little House on Green Turtle Cay

Image of a small house locate don Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas

This is an older image taken before Hurricane Dorian decimated Green Turtle Cay last year – I have not idea if this home is still standing. I remember seeing these types of clouds everywhere around the Bahamas. To create this effect, Jimmy McIntyre’s How to Use Luminosity Masks and Single Exposure video was followed. I could not be happier how it turned out! This guy is the best when it comes to luminosity masking! The technique separates the highlights from the rest of the image on three different layers. He is using the Apply Image command to create this effect. It takes several steps to do, but the results are spectacular and no noise was or haloing was visible. If you do landscape photography, I would definitely check out this video……Digital Lady Syd

05/15/2020 | Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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