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Checking Out the Visitors

This guy resides at The Smithsonian Zoo in Washington, DC (check this cool Lion live web cam to see what is happening). He seemed to be enjoying watching the crowds come by for a visit. I decided to do a monochromatic treatment. In Lightroom the sepia tone used is similar to that used by the famous wildlife photographer Nick Brandt. In Photoshop Perfectly Clear was used to adjust the exposure where a preset called Fill Flash was used – it really brought out the details in the face. A Dodge and Burn layer was also used. I love to visit the Lions at the zoo!…..Digital Lady Syd

Fishing at Flagler Beach

Image of fishing pier at Flagler Beach, Florida.

Had some more fun using Sparkle Stock’s free action called Inception. This time used a fishing pier and added some birds from PixelSquid. This image turned out to be a gig in size as the action tends to really make the file large. I just created a stamped layer and used it to start an new document to finish up. To get the yellow color, a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer preset called Edgy Amber was applied at 74% layer opacity. A few of the fishermen had to be adjusted so they did not look exactly the same. Otherwise, pretty easy to do……Digital Lady Syd

Butterflies

Image of several butterflies on a textured background

Ended 2019 with a butterfly graphic image. Had fun just trying some of the new techniques from this year. Mainly trying out a little blend if technique to remove the backgrounds from the butterflies. A couple Color Lookup Adjustments Layers and a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer were used to add in a little more effect. The original background texture is called Butterfly Flutters by French Kiss and the font is one of my favorites, Argentina Script. There is so much that can be practiced with Photoshop……Digital Lady Syd

Happy New Year

Image of beautiful butterfly wishing everyone a Happy New Year

Yes, this same beautiful butterfly (Palamedes Swallowtail) is showing off for New Years. This time she is covered with confetti created by using an old set of brushes from Morgan BW called Confetti and Streamer. The font is called Castile Inline Grunge. The Magnifier effect is from a free action called Adobe Looking Glass Actions – both actions in the set were used to create the effect. Also, the Pattern Stamp Brush was used to get the brightly colored background – I actually created the background pattern for this image using more free Pattern Stamp brushes from Jessica Johnson.

Happy New Years to Everyone! Thank you for following me here on my blog and on my Flickr account. Hope you have a great year ahead of you!…..Digital Lady Syd

Edinburgh Lunch

Image of lunch at an outdoor restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland

This image (a favorite of mine taken of a little street in Edinburgh, Scotland) was used to try out a new Photoshop Action downloaded from Adobe Create Magazine. It is called Painterly and is very flexible as to how it can be used to make a very nice artistic effect of an image. The action was created by BlackNull (or Nuwan Panditha) and also included brushes and patterns needed to run the action. There is a very informative 6-page PDF file that explains everything you need to know on how to get good results. It was a lot of fun to do and only took an hour or so to get this final image. A couple of my regular tweaks in Photoshop were done after applying the action, but overall the effect was from the action. One disadvantage is that the image, which was set to 8-bit, became over 1 Gig in size. Since I had turned off many of the layers while adjusting the action, I just right clicked on the Layers Panel upper right pop-out and selected Delete Hidden Layers. Then it became much more manageable. Anyway, thought I would present the action as it was really nice to try out. Enjoy!…..Digital Lady Syd

Enjoying the Holidays!

Image of a butterfly in winter background

My image of this beautiful Palamedes Swallowtail Butterfly was converted to a wintry scene and put in holiday apparel. Butterflies like to dress up. To get her to this point, Perfectly Clear was used to do an overall exposure and sharpening effect. The background had a chain-link fence that looked terrible and a couple extra flowers on the left side. To get rid of all this distraction? Just select an 80% hard round brush set to 5% Flow and paint ed it away. If you accidentally paint over the edges, can either choose a small eraser or add layer mask to remove it. This is how the butterfly lines could be shown so clearly. It is amazing how easy a clean color can be achieved. Elements were added on each side to give a nice frosty look. For the right plant, used Sweet Floral Watercolor Bundle by Mnuk with a clipped Curves Adjustment Layer using the color channels to get the colors needed. The left element is Watercolor Leaves by Sunny Illustrations with a clipped Curves Adjustment Layer with both the RGB and Color channel color changes. Foreground leaf was covered up with a leaf by Sweet Floral using a Selective Color Adjustment Layer clipped to get the correct color. The font is called Alberobello Script and the free snow brushes were from Serge Ramelli (the best out there). It did take some time to do, but it was a lot of fun……Digital Lady Syd

The Old 1929 Ford Model A Car

Image of an old 1929 Ford Model A car in front of the Cordova (Casa Monica) Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida

Just posting a quick blog of an antique car that is usually parked outside the Cordova Hotel (now the Casa Monica Hotel) cc 1888 in St. Augustine, Florida. Lots of fun adding an old feel to the image. After watching Unmesh Dinda’s video called 4 Luminar EXCLUSIVE Effects Photoshop Can’t Create!, I decided to use my similar image and try out the technique. From Lightroom Luminar 4 (see sidebar for website link) was opened and his steps were followed. The LUT used is from the Street Look set called 60’s B&W preset. In Photoshop used On1 (see sidebar for website link) as a plugin to add Cross Processing filter using Yellow Strong and Vintage filter using Earth – all filters were set to Opacity 59%. Now the image had a more yellow/green look so in PS a Color Adjustment Layer was added to get more of a dark purple and cyan feel. A Levels Adjustment Layer was used to adjust the overall brightness of the image. Last step was to add a subtle vignette. I love doing vintage look images. …..Digital Lady Syd

Painted Flowers

Digital painting of a wedding floral arrangment

Just had fun painting – I like to practice a bit each week so I do not forget how to do this. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI was used to sharpen the image. Actually used a plugin I got recently, Perfectly Clear, to brighten up the image – just used Tone, Color and Preprocessing panels. Had to clean up a little and then put together several brushes in a group to use for painting -mainly mixers, blenders, and a couple regular brushes. A bevel and emboss layer style was added on top to get the canvas effect…..Digital Lady Syd

Beautiful Hawaii

Image at Ka Iwi Scenic Shoreline on Ohau, Hawaii

Just missing Hawaii. This image was taken at the Ka Iwi Scenic Shoreline in Oahu – great place to take pix. Just adjusted sliders in Lightroom – no presets or a local adjustments. A B&W Adjustment Layer, a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using my preset, a Red Channel Curves Adjustment Layer, Viveza 2 to direct focus, a Spotlight Effect layer, Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise AI at 0.47 was added and applied to just the sky with a layer mask, and finally a Vignette using the Levels Adjustment Layer. Pretty much my basic workflow. ….. Digital Lady Syd

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving wishes with yellow daisies

I still have a few yellow daisies blooming in my yard so they decided they would like their picture taken to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. What I like the most is the pretty font in this image – it is called Argentina Script. It lots of different Glyph settings to make your text look fancy. Also used Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI and Topaz Impression (for just the background – painted back the flowers), PS Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using Crisp Winter preset, a red Photo Filter set to 27% Density, and Nik Viveza. Great fun with this one!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving from Digital Lady Syd!