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American Goldfinch

Digitally drawn and painted image of a Baltimore Oriole

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

08/10/2021 | Categories: Just Being Creative, Photoshop Painting | Tags: | 2 Comments »

A Duck Enjoying his Habitat

Image of a male Mallard Duck swimming in a pond

This beautiful and rather friendly male Mallard Duck was swimming all over the place while several people were trying to take his picture at Ames Park, Ormond Beach, Florida. His coloration is what attracted me to this image. Did my basic workflow on this image but thought I would share that Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI was used to really sharpen him up. The Lucis Pro filter was also used – too bad no one has decided to make this great little filter available again. Also Viveza 2 was used – my go to filter to finish up a look. ……. Digital Lady Syd

08/04/2021 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

Red Hot Music!

Digital Art Image of a violin

Had some fun today working with the wonderful violin image from Pixabay which I use a lot for practicing. Created the lines on the violin by following a YouTube video from Unmesh Dinda called Turn Yourself into Line Man with Photoshop. Once the lines were made, a layer style was added to the stripes layer with Bevel and Emboss, Pattern Overlay and Outer Glow. Pretty simple and just followed his tips and tricks in the video. Above the black background, just used Kyle’s Brix Brush (found in Kyle’s Summer 2020 set) with a bright orange red to add the texture. Used the Notes brushes made from Adobe Creative Live’s Paul Trani’s video called Create a Custom Brush with Music Notes. On this layer another layer style was added using Bevel and Emboss and Color Overlay. Next Shadows and Highlights layers were added using Sam Peterson’s tip (see my A Few Photoshop and Lightroom Tips and Tricks blog – tip number #2) – lowered the opacity on these layers. The last step was a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer using a film look to give a sort of poster feel to the image. Lots of fun to do and enjoyed trying some new things…..Digital Lady Syd

07/26/2021 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Pretending I’m Driving My Dream Car

Image of the Instrument Panel of a 1961 Corvette

This 1961 Chevrolet Corvette was sitting in the Classic Car Museum of St. Augustine just waiting for me to take its picture. I so wanted to take this baby out for a spin! Not much post work was done on this image – just used a couple settings in Lightroom before beginning work in Photoshop. Had to do some cropping and a bit of Clone Stamp work to get it to line up correctly. Then Topaz Denoise AI (see sidebar for website link) Standard effect was applied. To further sharpen those little numbers on the dials, Viveza 2 came to the rescue with just the right amount. A Green Channel Luminosity Curves Adjustment Layer was added to further enhance the instruments. See my How to Use a Red Channel to Create a Nice Blended Image Effect blog – works pretty similar with the Green Channel if the Red Channel does not look that great. Last step was a regular Curves Adjustment Layer to set the Red color just right. That was it. What a great day to see this little beauty!…..Digital Lady Syd

07/19/2021 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

Let’s Have a Little Chat

Image of a digitally painted lion

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

07/15/2021 | Categories: Photoshop Painting | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

Who’s Looking at You?

Composite image of a large deer in a landscape image.

Had some fun creating this rather strange composite using the landscape file Autumn 18 by Moonloop and a free deer object from Tara Lesher (this guy has shown up in several of my images). The first thing was to go into Edit -> Sky Replacement and choose a new sky (in the Photoshop Spectacular group – 005byJKost) and several of the sliders were adjusted to match the sky tones to the overall image. This layer was duplicated and a selection of the foreground with the trees was made – used the Quick Selection Tool to select the sky and inverse the selection (CTRL+SHIFT+I). Added a layer mask to the duplicated image layer and the sky is now removed with only the foreground on the layer. Placed the Deer object under this layer and moved it around so his head sticks out from behind the trees. To make him blend in better, a Multiply blend mode Shadow layer was created and clipped to the Deer using a light gray tone to paint some shadow on the left side of his face and lower body. Then a Color Balance Adjustment Layer was clipped to the Deer also and just the Shadows were adjusted. Above that a Levels Adjustment Layer was clipped to the Deer where the Output black slider was set to 28 to remove some of the dark contrast on him. Clean up was done in the mask on a few of the tree edges that did not get selected completely. Added a Color Lookup Layer Adjustment set to Choi Hung Estate LUT from SparkleStock. Used the Sharpen Tool to slightly sharpen the Deer eyes, whiskers and right ear. Then created another Multiply Shadow layer and Color Dodge Highlight layer to tweak the lighting effects just a bit. Last step was to make a very light vignette on image using a Levels Adjustment Layer (see my Using a Levels Adjustment Layer for a Vignette blog). To learn how some of these steps were done in more detail, check out Sam Peterson’s Photoshop Daily Creative Challenge Day 3 on Photoshop Manipulation YouTube video from Adobe Creative Live – he explains this whole process very well. Lots of fun here…..Digital Lady Syd

07/14/2021 | Categories: Just Being Creative | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

Old Ford with a Fancy Radiator Cap

Image of an old Model A Ford with a Boyce MotoMeter Radiator Cap hood ornament.

Recently went to the wonderful Classic Car Museum of St. Augustine with some of my Club buddies. There was so much to see so if you are in the area, be sure to check them out – lots of great old cars and the owners are happy to share information on all them. I forgot to get the information on this particular car, but I believe it is roughly about a 1930-ish Ford Model A Deluxe Sedan from its appearance. What is so interesting is that the hood ornament is a Boyce MotoMeter that is actually a radiator cap indicator and was designed in 1912. From the driver’s side, you can see what the car temperature is while driving. The wings are a separate part added to the cap. I wish I had looked on the other side!

Well just a few comments on the post processing here. Used Topaz Denoise AI (see sidebar for website link) and the Clear version – worked great! Then a stamped layer was created (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E) and the Sponge Tool (yep – that’s what I said) was used to desaturate some of the extraneous colors on this layer that appeared on the car because it was so shiny. The Options Bar was set to Mode Desaturate, Flow 100%, Airbrush on and Vibrance unchecked. It does not have a Sample All Layers box so that is why a stamped layer was needed. A little Clone Stamp was used to clean up a few areas and a Color Lookup table was set to a Joel Grimes preset called Detailed Warmth – set it to Overlay blend mode at 47% layer opacity. On another stamped layer Viveza 2 was applied to sharpen the cap detail and darken down the corners a little bit. Last step was to do a Red Channel Luminosity Curve to bring out the cap more. That was it – lots of fun!…..Digital Lady Syd

07/10/2021 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

Happy Lilies

Image of Lilies growing in Ames Park in Ormond Beach, Florida

Had a great time with some of my Photo Club buddies photographing Lilies at a small park in Ormond Beach, Florida, called Ames Park. This image was taken while I was lying flat on my stomach shooting as straight out as I could. It was shot using F/8.0 using a 40 mm lens. There was a lot of shine on the flowers so that all needed to be toned down a bit in Photoshop. A lot of clean up had to be done and Viveza 2 was used to help with the overall lighting effect. The last step used was applying an Orton Effect that Mark Denney uses a lot on his image. The steps are in his 6 Things I Never Do Inside Lightroom! video. I thought it added a nice finishing touch for these flowers. …..Digital Lady Syd

06/08/2021 | Categories: Photoshop Filters | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

The Grace of Rhododendrons

Image of some pink Rhododendrons

Found these rhododendrons growing in a local Lowes Home and Garden Store and thought I would give my Android phone a spin by capturing a RAW image. I was overall pretty pleased with it. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen was used to sharpen it up a little in PS – the background showing the store was removed and a texture from Daily Textures called Explorations 6 was added. A Color Lookup Adjustment Layer was applied using one of my favorite presets (from Photofocus’s Landscape presets) called Africa at 87% layer opacity. Flypaper’s Adriana texture was added on top and set to Pin Light at 73% layer opacity. One of the coolest trick I learned from Karen Alsop and that is to paint over the far edges of items to soften the effect and draw attention away from that part of the image. Just use a soft round 25 pixel brush with only Smoothing on and set the Opacity to 12% and Flow to 24% – then just sample the background color and paint on the edges on a new layer. Can adjust the layer opacity as needed. The font is called Modernline by Ef Studio. Really love these flowers!…..Digital Lady Syd

05/12/2021 | Categories: Photography | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

Before Walmart

Historical image of a General Store provided by Shorpy.com

Just enjoyed taking this image from Shorpy.com (click to see original B&W image) and converting it into a colorized image. Loved the sign that shows all the items offered, definitely a precursor to Walmart. Also loved the silhouette sitting outside the store. Had to straighten the image using the Camera Raw Filter’s Geometry panel. The wires were removed – I wanted to leave them in, but the original image did not show the wires strong enough to see them in the colorized image. In Topaz Studio 2 my “Look” for colorizing was used (for more information see on see How to Convert Black and White Images to Colorful Paintings with Topaz Studio 2 blog – links to other blogs on this site) and made a few changes to fit this image – this is where the real fun begins. Back in Photoshop a little clean up was done and a sky with the PS’s new Sky Replacement function was added – the clouds were taken from my backyard around noon. Finished off with Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReStyle (using the Zambezi Zest preset) to get the right color grading effect to the image. Check out Shorpy’s for lots of fun pix to colorize…..Digital Lady Syd

04/14/2021 | Categories: Historical Info, Topaz Studio | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

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