Digital Lady Syd’s Rule No. 4: See What Others are Doing
I have found that if I do not keep looking for new ways of doing Photoshop and graphics, I get into a real rut. Check out my Digital Lady Syd’s Favs page for some excellent reference books (here is an image of one of my reference bookshelves) and websites/blogs I follow. There is a lot of inspiration out there – you just have to find it!
So take some time every now and then and see what is happening. You might see something that will really inspire you and help with your digital darkroom skills…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd’s Rule No. 3: Look Back at What You Have Done
This week I was working on my Fun Photoshop Blog (Getting to the Art of the Matter) which entailed adding 38 images into a template. I wanted a certain feel to the images I was going to add so I decided to go back and review some of my older work. I discovered there were many techniques I have used quite effectively in the past and had totally forgotten about – it added a whole new perspective to what I have been working on recently. And some of the effects I did not think were that great a few years ago, I now think turned out quite nice.
The image above is one of these cases when I was just learning about how to apply textures. This image involved just adding Matt’s Old Texture as a layer, set to Multiply blend mode, lower the opacity, and with a layer mask, paint out where the texture should not be. Pretty quick and uncomplicated but the results were really nice.
Guess it is just good to see where you have been so you can see where you are going. Next time you are stuck, take a few minutes and go back to see what was going on when you were first working on images. You might get a new inspiration that will help get you back on track (like I did)!…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd’s Rule No. 2: Take the Time to Have Fun!
Well, I am not sure if this is really my first rule or second since experimenting and having fun are both important elements as to why I love Photoshop.
If you are not having fun, I can’t see that it’s worth taking the time to do – I would go do something else I really have fun doing!
That said, here is an example of something I did when I was first learning how to have fun in Photoshop and I still love this effect.
In case you are wondering what I was doing (as I am), I was big into making selections from my images to combine with clip art I had bought. Wish I could remember how I got that great outline from my beautiful Tamora Rose image. If I figure it out again, I will let everyone know.
Digital Lady Syd’s Rule No. 2: Have FUN!
Now go have some fun!…….Digital Lady Syd
Digital Lady Syd’s Rule No. 1: Take the Time to Experiment!
For my first blog “tidbit,” I thought I would show an example of using in Photoshop the Plugin Galaxy Instant Mirror effect. Sometimes you get some really interesting results using this filter on an image that did not look like much originally.
See my entry on Photoshop Fun blog called “Instant Mirror and Quick Mirror for Photoshop.”
Digital Lady Syd’s Photoshop Rule No. 1:
When stuck and not sure where to go next in Photoshop, EXPERIMENT.
