Photos with Flare

I love to experiment and I have enjoyed touching up my photos with textures, actions, brushes and more. There is so much to learn. Recently I came across a series of Textures called "Lite Flare" which is a texture that puts light, sunshine and photography flares you get usually by accident! But the results can be extraordinary. I have attached some photos to give you some ideas of what you can do and how much fun you can have. Careful though, you can get carried away as well. Keep in mind how the sun rises and sets, where it rises, and sets. The set was created by Photographer Patti Brown and it is amazing! One of the sets she offers on her Kaleidescope set is Lite Flare. Coupled with layers you can create some amazing photos! It enhances the picture and captures the moment exactly the way you remember it. So give it a try. One thing I learned is that when working with multiple textures be sure and flatten the image as you go. The lite flare won't show up on top of a layer. It needs to be on top of the photo. Have some fun. I promise you will love it.

I've Been Dreaming...

Well, I always dream but I have been trying to learn new ways of working with Photoshop, how to create fine art quality photos with the skill and finesse of someone like Florabella and it has been a fun lesson. I have to say there is so much information and knowledge available to you if you simply look for it. I wanted to find free overlays and textures, I searched for free overlays a textures. I wanted to learn how to create a fine art print from a photo, I search for "How to create a fine art print from a photo". Sure you have to read through, weed through some stuff. Some of it junk, but you do eventually come across the gem that teaches it in the way you need to learn it.

I stumbled upon florabella and while her overlays and textures are not free, she does offer quite a bit of support on her flickr site, and a community of people that are willing to help with information, advice, ideas. But her photos are just so darn gorgeous! I just have to go there about once a day and look at what she had created.

Here is my first practice photo. This photo was taken as an actual photograph of a butterfly. Then layered with various textures and overlays to achieve the dreamlike effect. I wouldn't say its easy to do, because it takes time to figure out what each overlay and texture does, how it changes the photo and different combinations do different things. But the applications are easy. I would recommend learning how to use masks, layers in Photoshop. To get the softer affect I created a duplicate layer of the photo itself, then adjusted the hue and saturation to give it a softer color. Once I applied the layers of color, texture, I went back over the butterfly with an eraser to bring the colors back out a little more. Pretty darn easy, although learning how to create the second layer and the erasing part took a little time learn. The beauty of all of this? You can always start over, take one layer off, put another one on. Let me know what you think.