This & That

Day 41 of Beyond Layers offered two challenges that I totally enjoyed doing. Again, where I started from was not at all what Kim did, and I didn't want to create dreaminess, but used her recipe to add crispness and clarity to the photo. Here Misaki is standing at the front door, staring at me wide-eyed like she often does, asking me if I really mean what I'm telling her. So herself here, that's what she's like with her large nose and big dark eyes under the topknot.

Serious?

Here's what I did to this image:
1 duplicated bg layer
2 added gradient map Pinkish by Kim Klassen, at soft light 100%
3 added a b&w gradient map at normal 30%
4 created text layer, font Shardee by Bright Ideas, applied stroke, turned fill to 19%
5 duplicated text layer, deleted stroke, turned fill back to 100%, set the text slightly off
6 flattened image & resized it for web
7 added frame: framing action Glass by Chain

The second image was an exercise in enlargening the canvas and using gradient fill. The photo is a detail of my belated birthday bouquet that I received last autumn. Since I was quite happy with the photo itself, I didn't do any processing to the actual photo, only enlarged the canvas, created and used a gradient fill and added the text. Can you tell warm orange is my favourite colour? Then I decided I'd like it better with a frame, so I made one using an action by WallStorm.

Editing steps:
1 used crop tool to make image canvas wider than original
2 created gradient fill (my own, warm orange)
3 added text layer with font La Belle Aurore by Kimberly Geswein, blending mode Vivid Light 64%
4 flattened image & resized it
5 added frame: framing action White Frame V4 from Photographer's Toolkit 2 by WallStorm

I'm very happy with both results here. Feels good to be achieving something satisfying with my pictures. And with two of my favourite photography subjects, too - dogs and flowers.

One Photo in Three Ways

At Beyond Layers, the day 28 challenge was to take a photo and process it in three different ways. For the photo, I took another stroll in the garden. This time, on the 9th October, there were considerably less flowers to photograph than a month ago, but surprisingly many anyway. I rather liked the picture I shot of the Narrow-leaved Meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) with all the raindrops, and so it ended as my subject for this challenge.

Hardly surprisingly, I made a scrapbooking layout of all the versions. The one in the bottom right corner is where I started from. The template is my own, I'll post the link once I get it uploaded, and both the papers are from my set Cold Spell.

Meadowsweet in Three Versions

Here are the resources and recipes. I used a couple of the techniques Kim showed us on her video, but not all of them.

Bottom left:
- Hue/Saturation layer, preset Old Style
- texture Framed by Kim Klassen at Colour Burn 18%, brushed away from blossoms with a layer mask
- texture Fall Returns by Distressed Jewell at Soft Light 46%, brushed away from blossoms with a layer mask
- levels adjustment, preset Midtones Darker, applied to previous layer
- returned a touch of colour to the blossoms by adding a burn layer at Soft Light 38%

Top left:
- action Heartland by Pioneer Woman
- added a tad of colour with a layer mask
- action Boost by Pioneer Woman, applied mostly to the blossoms
- action Soft & Faded by Pioneer Woman at 20%
- texture Abstract by Kim Klassen at Soft Light 25%

Top right:
- action B&W Beauty by Pioneer Woman
- added just a hint of colour with a layer mask
- texture Cool Grunge by Kim Klassen at Soft Light 25%
- texture Frost from Heavenly Vintage Set by Jerry Jones at Soft Light 85%
- texture Baby Blue from Heavenly Vintage Set by Jerry Jones at Colour Burn 25% on the blossoms

Originally I thought it would be rather tough to create three different versions, but actually it wasn't. What's even more surprising, I find that I'm rather pleased with all of the versions, as well as the scrapbooking layout. And yay, with this I can move week 14 of BL into the folder Done!

Texture Tuesday - Something Orange

Autumn's in full swing, I'm busy working and have had little time to spare for the last-in-line hobby of playing with photos. Popped in at Kim's blog on Tuesday for the Texture Tuesday challenge to see if there was anything in there for me, and I had to laugh out loud. Something orange should definitely be easy enough for me, as orange is my favourite colour.

Since most everyone else seemed to tackle the challenge by displaying beautiful flowers and autumnal trees, I decided to take a different approach and have a look at my wardrobe, or actually some accessories. Here's my take on "something orange": my wellies, designed by Ristomatti Ratia, my bright orange raincoat and the shoulder bag I bought in Lübeck last spring. All wonderful to wear on rainy days, by the colour alone they make me feel warm and they also make the day look brighter. What's not to love?

At the Door

What I used here:
- texture Dream It by Kim Klassen
- texture Paper and Paste by Kim Klassen
- mask by Krizomel
- background paper Cold Spell 5 by myself

Autumn Gear

Resources:
- texture To Be by Kim Klassen
- gradient Autumn 12 by ElvenSword
- font Luismi Murder by Juan Casco

And here's my recipe for Autumn Gear:
- cropped image
- duplicated background, applied Gaussian Blur at 11,5 px, created layer mask, brushed out the blur from the gear, changed layer opacity to 35%
- created Hue/Saturation adjustment layer: greens saturation -35, lightness +48
- added Kim Klassen's texture To Be at blending mode soft light 100%
- duplicated texture, turned layer -90°, adjusted blending mode to colour burn 63%, then added black & white adjustment layer (preset neutral density)
- added gradient map adjustment layer Autumn 12 by Elven Sword at blending mode soft light 100%
- brushed in watermark
- wrote text, font Luismi Murder

I fully intend to go on with Beyond Layers, too, as soon as possible. Here's to hoping it'll actually be soon.

How 'bout a Little Black & White

Another rainy day. There have been too many of them for my liking this summer. The end of the week was nice and warm, at times hot (for a Northern girl like me), and it was the kind of weather when you don't want to do anything serious, just bask in the shade, have a bite on our little homemade patio, walk in the garden watering the flowers, weeding a bit here and there, feeling the soft flow of warm air on your skin...

To counter that, it has been raining for two days now. It started yesterday, but that was mostly just drizzle. Today it has been pouring down all day, with perhaps a short break at noon, so that I managed to push the doggies out without too much yelling and stamping foot. They don't like the rain, oh noes, but we refuse to have a sandbox for them in the house. Period. As it is, I have to listen closely to what happens outside and kick them out at just the suitable moment when there is either momentarily no rain or only very soft drizzle.

But I've moved on to week 9 of Beyond Layers. The assignment for day 17 was to work in black & white, create a few different images and try and see what works and what doesn't. I have three different images here, and decided I'd stay away from flowers this time. I also thought I'd try out different methods, such as occur to me, to turn the images b&w.

Watering Hen

More Whispering

It's another Beyond Layers post again. Continued from day 15, the following day was still more whispers. Or rather, Kim offered us some photoshop techniques the word Whisper made her think of.   The challenge for day 16 was to use these techniques as well as two textures she presented us with.

Kim's example was so white with such a uniform background that I almost despaired before I even started. Have to shoot something in my make-shift "studio" (see the Start to Finish post) again, I thought.

There was this flower that I picked a while ago when we were walking with the doggies and Better Half suddenly pointed and asked if I knew which flower THAT was. I didn't, so to find out we took it along. It was quite withered when we got home but recovered quickly in a glass of water. It stood there together with a Red Campion I had taken as sort of reference, and I started shooting. The flower turned out to be Ragged Robin (the first part of the name is very understandable). In Finnish, it's called Käenkukka, which means Cuckoo's Flower.

Ragged Robin

Processing resources:
- texture Flourish by Kim Klassen
- font Le Grand Saut by Jellyka Nerevan
- framing action Glass 50 px by Chain

As the result of this processing was quite passable, I decided to have another go. As Better Half was working on another computer last night, I turned to this picture I had taken of a piece of chocolate to work with. It was something we bought in Vienna, called Studentenfutter (student fodder in English). You can see the ingredients in the picture. *grin* Is this what the Austrian students live on?

Studentenfutter

Resources used:
- texture The Veil by Kim Klassen
- brush Curly 8 by Green-Eyed Butterfly
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts
- framing action Glass 50 px by Chain

This morning after working a while it occurred to me to try if the same techniques could be applied to a photo with a noisier background. It took some trying, but here's a flower from our garden, a Snow-in-Summer in English. I'm rather happy with it, and as Texture Tuesday this time was 'Anything Goes' I'm sharing this in Texture Tuesday as well.

Snow-in-Summer

Resources used:
- texture Plaster Squared by Kim Klassen
- fonts Windsong by Bright Ideas & Copperplate Light
- framing action Motion 50 px by Chain

The recipes I've made of each picture I've processed are sooo useful, my memory being what it is. I'll start following them, take some steps I've tried and tested and then deviate again... Fun! Here are recipes for the above pictures.

Black & White with a Touch of Colour

A rainy day. Should have mowed all the lawn yesterday, instead of only going as far as the first tankful of mower would let me. It's too bad one needs to let the machine cool down -- gives one time to cool down oneself, and after that it's a real effort to get going again, although I do, for some unfathomable reason, enjoy lawnmowing. But now the grass is so wet that the poor machine will choke immediately if I try to tackle the backyard.

Oh well, since Better Half is off town training today, and all that the doggies do on rainy days is snore on sofas and chairs around the house, hoping I won't be suggesting anything stupid such a going out, this gives me time to do some more catching up on Beyond Layers. I'm feeling really accomplished -- I'm already on week seven, which means I'm only four weeks behind! That's great -- when I started, the others were doing week 11 already.  And so far I have completed each and every assignment. *insert some the self-satisfied beaming here*

On day 14 of Beyond Layers Kim gave us two videos to study, with ideas how to turn a photo black & white and then add some colour into it to heighten interest. She also gave a more in-depth tutorial on how to create watermark or text brushes.

The brush part really was all familiar to me, but it made me dig up something useful. Kim explained how to resize a brush you're using by using the left and right bracket key -- well, in my Scandinavian Mac keyboard the keys would be totally something else, and while trying to find out which keys to use I landed on this useful hint. Wow, Ctrl + Option drag made changing brush size really quick!

I'm not going to share the brushes I've made, since they are my watermark stamps and anyone interested can see them in the photos I upload, but the black & white assignment was interesting. Thought I'd try using the b&w adjustment layer presets instead of the actions suggested (to be able to afford the Florabella actions I'd have to be making money with my photos or with something anyway). Originally I was quite happy with the results, but decided then to try out the Pioneer Woman b&w action. It gave quite another depth to the image so I ended up using the action.

And then I had a brainwave. Earlier I fretted over the use (or rather, uselessness for me) of brushes, and now I suddenly saw what one could do: use a bold splash brush to add colour to the photo, instead of gently touching the photo with a default brush. Now that was fun to play with.

First Splashes of Colour

Resources used:
Pioneer Woman Black & White action
Splatter Brushes by Fuzzimo

I still have to figure out why, when flattening an image or saving it for web, Photoshop sometimes discards the layer styles. It was most annoying to notice that after I had cracked my brain for a good while to get a bevel to the splashes, it all vanished when I flattened the image. Luckily I finally managed to keep the bevel, though I'm not sure how.

Ten Truths

On Day 13 at Beyond Layers, Kim challenged us to reveal ten truths about ourselves, and then create a fun photo to go with the revelations.

Ok, first I'll deliver the (at least) ten truths about me.

1. I never drink coffee. Only tea. My grandmother was a great coffee drinker and we used to go on picnics in the garden and drink coffee when I was a little girl. Okay, my coffee mostly consisted of milk and sugar with a dash of coffee, but by the age of seven I had had my fill. After that I have only had coffee if it really has been unavoidable. Luckily it very seldom is.

2. I love Dandie Dinmont Terriers. There has been at least one Dandie in our house for 21 years. Currently we have six Dandies, the eldest 15 of them years old and the two youngest ones 8 months.

3. Our dogs are wonderful though at times I too infuriating for words, like when they wake us up after mere five hours of sleep and insist on being taken out the very minute, or insist on barking all passers-by, or decide to have a barking fit on a quiet evening just because nobody is passing by. But I love them to bits.

4. I enjoy  travelling, either with or without the dogs. It's fun to pack the doggies in the car and drive somewhere, and it's lovely to be able to occasionally travel without them, too, preferably together with Better Half.

5. I am a great fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. I used to read the trilogy through every summer for 20 years, but ever since the Peter Jackson films were released, I have only read the books once. The storyline and characters in the films have taken over. Frankly, I have lost count on how many times I have seen the films.

6. I do not watch films very much, but the ones I like I tend to watch again. Not twice. Not thrice. Over and over again. See above.

7. I love singing. I have taken singing lessons for quite a few years now. In classical terms, I am a mezzosoprano. I also sing in a 6-woman ensemble, our repertoire consists of barbershop, classic pop and some jazz standards, and I couldn't imagine life without the group.

8. I used to lose my voice totally with flu twice a year, just like my mother, but ever since I started learning proper vocal techniques this hasn't happened once. Knock on wood.

9. I enjoy listening to music in languages I don't understand. Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, to name a few. That way I can listen to vocal music even while I'm working on something that demands concentration without getting distracted by the lyrics.

10. I tend to do things in fits and starts. This goes for  Better Half as well... When the whimsy strikes us, we might suddenly decide to build a new flowerbed in the garden and do it all in a few hours, and then not touch something long-planned for weeks or months on.

11. I love hats. I don't wear them every day, except of course in the winter when one cannot go without, but far more often than others around here.

12. I am terrible at making choices. It takes forever for me to choose anything, from what clothes to wear and which tube of toothpaste to buy, to deciding the template to use for a scrapbooking layout or which photos to start processing. *sheepish grin*

Seems that I ended up with twelve, but that's alright. It was far more fun that I thought it would be, so thank you for the challenge.

Then to the fun photo. As the challenge included the word "fun", I chose this picture I took last year in June. I was sitting on a park bench, in the shade on a sunny morning of a hot day, and just for fun, I snapped this silly photo of my new hat and my leg and foot with a sandal. The picture has amused me a lot, I like it, and it is, after all, a picture of me. Kind of.

Morning in Park

Processing resources:
- texture Tone Texture 10 by Jerry Jones
- texture 118v2 by Sirius-sdz
- gradient Rivendell 13 by ElvenSword
- framing action by Chain

And here's a recipe card for that.

Ornamental Onion

Hooray, it’s Thursday and I finally managed to take part in the Texture Tuesday challenge again. It’s been a while, so happy to participate! The challenge this time was to use a flower photo with any of Kim’s textures.

I chose an ornamental onion, a tall and handsome Allium plant I photographed on 12 May this year in a garden in Dunfermline, Scotland. In processing, I used two of Kim’s textures as well as techniques we’ve practised on Kim’s Beyond Layers II eCourse. I’m so much behind on the course, but I’m catching up little by little, and I want to do each challenge, because I enjoy them a lot and don’t want to miss anything.

Ornamental Onion

Processing resources:
- textures Faved & Grey Day Slate by Kim Klassen
- a pink gradient from The Super Dooper Gradient Pack by Digital Phenom

Just for the fun of it, I thought I would create a recipe for this one. Or actually, not only for fun -- already now I notice that in some of the course challenges I have forgotten the steps I’ve taken. I’m sure this will help me review later on what’s good and what’s less good in the process or work flow, and perhaps that way I can also see what I have learned.

Making the recipe card was fun!  Resources used for the card:
- background paper Subtle White 7 by Jerry Jones
- gradient Rivendell 09 by ElvenSword
- fonts Snell Roundhand & Big Caslon

As a matter of fact, processing is never this simple... It’s not as if I’d just snap my fingers and say ok, this is what I’ll do. There’s a lot of trying out involved, browsing through numerous textures, then choosing one and, after a while of dabbling, deleting it when it doesn’t do something I’d like it to do, or does something I definitely don’t want it to do... But I’m making progress, it’s not all the time purely hit-and-miss anymore. I’m beginning to see what I’d like to end up with. Yay!