Now that spring is just arriving in our area, it might be fun to use some of our favorite flower images and Photoshop to create orbs. First select one of your favorite flower/garden images and crop it into a square with the flower fairly centered. Next, convert the image to 8 bits. In Photoshop: Image > Mode > 8bits From the filter menu: Go to Distort > Polar Coordinates When the Polar Coordinates dialogue appears, choose Polar Rectangular [...]
This image was created last weekend at Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GA . The goal is to combine two images in Photoshop, creating a soft ethereal feel in the finished image. From a tripod-mounted camera, the first “normal” capture was made at F8 focused sharply on the white dogwood blossoms. The second “blurry” image was made after manually adjusting focus to render the entire scene very blurry. Tip: shoot the blurry image with the lens wide open. Shooting wide [...]
This image was captured on the plains of the Masai Mara in Kenya. We’ve all had a great situation ruined by a terrible background. The sky in the zebra image was rendered as solid white and featureless. A cloudy sky with lots of detail was dropped in, adding lots of interest. The key is to use a more detailed/interesting sky, but one matching the overcast condition of the zebra image. A little layer masking, a blend mode on [...]
This image was captured panning with a group of Camargue horses in southern France as they ran by our workshop class. For this image a slow shutter speed was panned to capture the beauty and grace of these powerful animals. Once the image was processed traditionally, a layer mask was used to overlay a texture, creating a painterly effect. A combination of Blending Modes and selectively painting on the texture created an entirely new image. Equipment & Settings: Canon [...]
