Halloween Resources – Time To Go Batty!
Not sure how everyone elses kids are or were, but I think mine liked Halloween as much as Christmas! So to kick off this (at least 2nd biggest) holiday season, I created the above image.
Only a few resources were used and they are provided free for our use. All the objects were from Obsidian Dawn’s SS-Halloween-Vectors brushes (and include a lot more than what is used above) and are definitely of the high quality you expect from this site. The cobweb in the upper right corner was provided from a nice set of brushes called pureanodyne_halloween at Deviant Art – these are actually from a set created in 2004. The Happy Halloween font is called Groovy Ghosties and can be downloaded from DaFont.com. And my signature font is my favorite fun font – Fantaisie Artistique from DaFont. The white cracks and grungy textures are from OnOne PhotoFrames (see sidebar for link to site) called Taufer Texture 01 and Grunge 05. Now this effect could very easily be done in Photoshop using a few creative brushes on a couple layers, but the plug-in was really fast and I could experiment with different colors and textures very quickly. I guess that is the main reason why you buy Photoshop plug-ins – they all have to be based on some form of Photoshop technique.
Try out a few of these Halloween brushes – they do a really nice job for this time of year! Have fun experimenting and look out for low flying bats!…..Digital Lady Syd
Where Am I?
What I think turned out kind of nice is the application of the free Adobe Pixel Bender plug-in using the favorite Oil Paint effect. It is very easy to figure out the 5 sliders. I did this awhile ago and thought it shows one of my best results. A layer mask was used to remove the effect from certain parts of the image.
Okay – guess you could tell this was in a beautiful tropical place. This is an image of the Ka’anapali Beach Club in Maui, Hawaii.
Go ahead and download Pixel Bender if you have not tried it already and take a whirl at something quite different and fun to do!…..Digital Lady Syd.
Colorful Blown Out Look Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw Preset
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While in Hawaii, after taking a lot of beautiful flower images, I created the above effect as a Lightroom preset that I have used many times. It looks especially nice for a calendar image. Hover over image above to see the original.
This preset I call “Colorful Blown Out” and mainly has Basic and Luminance settings. You can download the free Lightroom preset here and the Adobe Camera Raw preset here. For a softer look, try increasing the Recovery slider and the Brightness slider. It is a good starting point for a very nice flower look. For information on where to download the calendar template and how to apply it, see my Photoshop Fun Blog Free Calendar Template for instructions.
Give it a try on other types of images too. Hope you enjoy!…..Digital Lady Syd
