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Handsome Fellow

Image of an Iguana taken at the Palm Beach Zoo

Love how this beautiful Iguana looks up close – he lives at the Palm Beach Zoo in Florida and I think it may be a juvenile since it was so colorful. It took a lot of manipulating to get this image post-processed, but I really like the final results. Two images had to be stacked and aligned in Photoshop as some parts were more in focus in one image than the another. A black layer mask was added to the top image and just the parts needing to be sharper were added painted back in. Topaz Sharpen AI was tried on a stamped layer, but some bad haloing appeared so this filter was removed. On a stamped layer the Iguana was selected using a layer mask. On a duplicate stamped layer placed underneath the subject layer, the Tilt Shift Filter in the Blur Gallery was applied to smooth out the background. I had to reload PS2021 as the pins were not showing for these filters on my computer in PS2022. Not sure what the issue is here! Used Viveza to sharpen up photo and the new Spectrum Neo for the lighting-love the relight effect in this filter. Then a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer and two Levels Adjustment Layers (one for a vignette) were used to finish up. It took a while, but well worth effort……Digital Lady Syd

04/08/2022 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

Waiting for Sunset

Drawing of a deer waiting for a 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

04/02/2022 | Categories: Just Being Creative, Photoshop Painting | Tags: , | 2 Comments »

Missing You

Portrait using Art History Brush

Just had some fun using the Unsplash photo to create an interesting portrait effect using the Photoshop’s Art History Brush. If you have not tried this, you should as it can give some really nice results without really painting much. I will admit that I used my sketch brush to clean up her eyes and mouth especially. The background texture is from Kim Klassen called Hellodecember-0312. If you want to learn how to use the Art History Brush, follow a 5-minute YouTube video by Brady at Texturelabs called Ultra-realistic Sketches in Seconds! He gives you a link to the two Art History brushes that were used on this image. (If you are interested in more of Brady’s info and some more free brushes, check out another excellent video called Anyone Can Create Incredible Paintings in Photoshop with a Single Tool.) I recommend you give this type of painting a try if you want to try something different on your image…..Digital Lady Syd

03/18/2022 | Categories: Photo Art | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

Playing Lionfish

Image of two lionfish taken at Sea World, Orlando

Yes, these two rather vicious looking lionfish are probably friends. I had one for several years that was very tame. He would follow me around the tank when I was in the room. Who knew? (Check out Ray Hunziker’s book on Marine Aquarium Basic Setup and Maintenance on pg. 67 – he had similar experiences!) Had to take some pix of my Leo the Lionfish relatives when I had the chance. Since they were both moving and the tank itself gave some pretty weird shadows, it was a challenge. Using Topaz DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI totally saved the image – that is why it was never post-processed before due to the high level of noise. Many steps were involved, but probably the most important thing was the lighting on the two fish. Overlay and Multiply layers were used to create the shadow and highlight effects…..Digital Lady Syd

03/10/2022 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

The Bubble Creature

Digital Art image of a geometric creature

This is a little creature I created following Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost’s How to Create a Smoke-Flake in Photoshop short video and written tutorial. There is an action used to created the basic geometric flake that can downloaded if you scroll to the end of the linked site. It was created from a smoke image and totally surprised me as to how easy it was to do. My flake was Free Transformed and a background was created. A few items were added and the bubbles painted on were from a PS brush set called bubble_brushes_by_jennyle88-d7bl6zd from DeviantArts. When doing this technique, make sure your image is not too big. My initial image came out to be over 4 Gigs (Yikes!). To compensate, the smoke image was changed to an 8 bit mode, and 6 inches X 6 inches at 200 res in the Canvas Size dialog. This is just a fun thing to play with in PS!…..Digital Lady Syd

03/07/2022 | Categories: Just Being Creative | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

The Chocolate Shop

Image of The Chocolate Shop in St. Augustine, Florida

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

02/10/2022 | Categories: Photoshop Filters, Photoshop Painting | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

Ice Princess

Image of a model with ice hands and white hair

Just a quick blog to give some credit here. Loved how this wintry effect turned out thanks to a really fun video by Paul Trani called Photoshop Masterclass: Surreal Winter Poster at Adobe Creative Cloud. He did his image really fast, but it took me a while to get my image looking right. This beautiful model image is by Jerzy Gorecki at Pixabay (check out this his other model images – really fabulous!). The background is a Laura Kuhn image from Pixabay that was deeply blurred and desaturated using Gaussian Blur and Hue Saturation Adjustment. Otherwise lots of “hand painting” to get the total effect wanted. Paul gives you a lot of information on how to get this effect, but lots of my own brushes and adjustments were used since this is a very different picture from his. Overall, lots of fun for this wintry season…..Digital Lady Syd

01/26/2022 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

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

01/16/2022 | Categories: Just Being Creative, Photoshop Painting | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

B-24E (Liberator) Bombers – 1943

Image of Vintage B--24E Bomber assembly plant

I love Shorpy.com and whenever a really interesting image appears, I love to try and do something unique with it. This image is called Avenging Angels 1943 and is of the Assembly Plant that was in Michigan and it was a huge facility. I love seeing the woman looking at the engine and another in the front center window – very busy people in this place! Check out the comments for some really interesting information.

Since the original is a black and white image, First I ran the image through Lucis Pro to really sharped the edges of the image. I wanted to add a little color so a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer with purples and blues set Soft Light blend mode and a Color Lookup Table Adjustment Layer using my Sharply Dark LUT at 86% layer opacity. Painted in some lightening and darkening using Sam Peterson’s brush and technique (see my Fun Photoshop Blog – A Few Photoshop and Lightroom Tips and Tricks-Step 2). Last step was to add a Black and White Adjustment Layer set to Luminosity blend mode and setting the Blues and Cyans to get a good contrast. …..Digital Lady Syd

01/04/2022 | Categories: Historical Info | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

The Christmas Tree

Christmas image of a Pixabay image

This image is from ISO Republic and is one of my favorites to try new techniques on. This time a Photoshop file was used to get the original painterly effect, then I painted on a black and white version and added a free music sheet to give a holiday flair. The PS file is from Deeezy called Free Paint Art Creator – has a smart object in it and you just add your own folder and adjust all the layer settings – no PS action involved. Lots of fun! Then obviously several adjustment layers were added on top. A black and white version was created. Painted over layers set to Linear Burn blend mode for the dark red paint layer and Soft Light blend mode for the lighter green and beige layers. No particular brush is needed – just something you like to use. I will caution that the file gets quite large due to all the layers in the PS file. After doing this changes, I created a stamped layer on top and made a new document – to do this right click on the layer and select Duplicate Layer – in drop-down Document field, chose New and rename it to a new name. Then immediately save it as a new document using this name. Now there are two documents and you can finish up the post-work on one that is not so large. Happy Holidays Everyone!….Digital Lady Syd

12/21/2021 | Categories: Just Being Creative | Leave A Comment »

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