dream versions

i wanted to make a photo of a dreaming girl for 365 project. so i took a bunch of photos of me on the floor. I chose to work with high ISO because it gives nice effect to black-and white photos. then i started adding semi-transparent layers in photoshop. to make the new layers look more appropriate i added noise to them (forgot to add to some however). also was experimenting with rendering a lens flare... have a look at all variants :)

1.
i liked the 'dream' layer.. created it with some brushes and liquefied. but probably it's not suitable here.

2.
tried to make it more transparent to match the photo better

3.
i liked this one.. and didn't like at the same time. mixed feelings. can't explain

4.
tried fixing the previous one through adding color... can't say it fixed my feelings :D

5.
new layer.. worked with brushes, blurred through Gaussian blur, set to semi-transparent. i like this one actually :)

6.
changed colors with "curves"...

7.
... and added a lens flare

8.
applied some filter (don't remember which one)

9.
removed transparency, added wind effect

10.
didn't like it with the wind effect, added lens flare instead

11.
added "glowing edges" filter. i like this one the most!

12.
added noise

13.
added lens flare (again)

14.
desaturated

still think 11 is the best

365 projects

OK so as you know (or don't) i have started this new photo-blog (Daily photo from Irina) where i'm posting one random photo for each day of the year. it's really a fun thing to do and well sort of responsibility. However, the photo may not be taken on the day i'm posting. some photos are from my archives, but which i'd like to share and which i like!



Nevertheless in matters of improving photography it's highly advised not to post old photos. the next time (after this 1-year project is over) i will keep that in mind for sure!

Anyhow. It's not all. There is another 365 project. Where you have to take one photo for each day again, just not of anything you'd like. You should be taking a photo of the same subject... and the subject is yourself! This way you will be obliged to make your imagination work every day to make interesting photos, not just a dumb photo to say "yes i took the photo".

Here is my flickr set of this project:
my 365 days set



and here is the group i send the photos to: 365 Days

And here is another fun blog by Kirsten, who talked me into doing this. Something cheeky. Also she gives more information on 365 self-portrait project and a link to her flickr 365 set here.

photoshop magic - 3 - watercolor and frames

OK so after i finished making the following photo

look like a watercolor, i added a frame.


yes you have seen these photos in the previous post, however you don't know what i used to get that frame. First of all, I installed PhotoFrame Pro v3.1 plugin with its library. there are around 4000 kinds of frames and you can generate any kind of effects. it's a very convenient thing to use!

Of course alternatively you can simply create your own frames, but this plugin will save you much time :)

Now, after getting the watercolor effect described yesterday, i started playing with the result. i hid the 2 copied layers making only the background layer visible. It's the same as opening a jpg file and applying filter -> median with 26px radius and got the following:


after that i applied another filter: filter-> watercolor. And added a frame. see the result:

photoshop magic - 2 - watercolor

Compare these 2 photos:
   

i just turned the original photo into a watercolor artwork using photoshop magic. (no it's not by applying the 'watercolor' filter ;) ). I've learned it from Igor Ulman's (www.compartstudio.com) videolesson.

0. for achieving best results, it's good to have a blurry background and a big object(s) in the foreground with clear outlines. otherwise the objects in the background will add too much noise to your 'painting'. but of course you can just blur the background using the same photoshop :)

1. open the layers palete, and copy the background layer. until the end of this point we will work with the copy.
a. Desaturate the image (ctrl+shift+u).
b. now apply filter -> stylize -> Glowing Edges. suggested params are: edge width: 1 ; edge brightness: 11 ; smoothness: 5. but you can play with them of course. just be sure not to lose details!
c. Now open "levels" panel, and move the white slider towards the black one to enbrighten the image (suggested value: 116).
d. Now invert the image.
e. Apply filter -> artistic -> Cutout. suggested params are: number of levels: 7 ; edge simplicity: 3 ; edge fidelity: 3. Again you can play with the values (but again don't lose too much details!).
f. regulate the levels again. this time move the black slider to right until the dark gray lines of the outlined object are black. and now move the black slider of OUTPUT levels to 50.
g. set the blending type of this layer to "overlay" in layers palete

2. now copy the layer we were working with.
a. apply filter -> blur -> Gaussian blur and set radius to 5 px.
b. in layers palete set the blending type to "screen" and brightness to 50%
c. now create a clipping mask (ctrl + g)

3. now switch to "background" layer (original image)
a. apply filter -> noise -> median. suggested value of radius is 26 px, however it totally depends on the image and your taste :) the bigger the object, the bigger the radius.

The end.

however you can add a frame which will give your painting a final look.
see another example of what i did:

This is the boring original image. I changed the color of the lily to the left, applied this watercolor effect and added a frame. this is the result:



I hope you found this useful :) in the next post i will speak more about the frames.

sun made of glass

sometimes you can look at the world not only through the lense of the cam... but through other objects at the same time. I actually couldn't decide which photo i liked more and decided to post both here. :)

black and white

sometimes color distracts. sometimes if you take a photo in color it will be so trivial, so uninteresting, that you will immediately delete it afterwards. black and white photos to the rescue! it will draw our attention to the object or to the action.


the link


twins


affection


"being a paparazzi again?"


ghost ship




Pisa in cube


spider smile

world of shadows:




Ying-Yang twins

2 more photos that you might have seen before:

    

photoshop magic

sometimes we take photos which are not great for a great many of reasons (light is bad, no composition, too much tilted, etc). however don't hurry to shift+delete them, because sometimes something great can turn out of it. Bad can be material for good :) so here are 2 photos which i fixed today. the first one was kind of noisy, and was a boring photo by all means, also too dark.

the other one is a fragment, which had the shape of a trapezium. I duplicated the image and flipped it horizontally and vertically, to add the upper corner. the lower corner i filled with some other elements.





Just first of all you have to decide whether it's really something good and worth of wasting your time on editing :)