Touring York

It's hard to believe it has been well over a year since I last posted here!!  Somehow I've gotten out of the habit, and now I have a huge learning curve to remember all I'm supposed to know to get a post up and seen.  

Rich and I have been working with some photo buddies to try and learn some of the many photo apps we've put on our iPhones and iPads.  We all acknowledge that although we've downloaded several apps, that's just not going to do it.  We need some motivation to get us to play around with the apps and actually see what we can do with them.  Our solution?  Food!  Works every time.  Oh, and deadlines helped too.  We decided to meet once a month for lunch, and at our lunch "meetings" we would all share a few photos that we had processed using our "app of the month."  So far, it's been a great success...we've spent a month each on several apps including the Lone Star filter in Camera Awesome, the Brush Stroke app, Leonardo, iColorama, and we're now working on HaikuHD.  The results have been mixed, but we've all created some very cool images using photos we had already taken and stored in our computers.  Last month's app, iColorama, was a particular favorite for Terry and Judy, and they shared some really cool stuff.  I really liked a technique Terry had perfected, so she gave me some step-by-step instructions so I could practice later.  Then, Rich decided it would be cool if he could figure out how to do a similar treatment in Photoshop on the computer, thinking that would then make the resulting image of a quality suitable for offering for sale on our Fine Art America sites.  And that's what I'm sharing today.

Each image involves masking, then "painting" over with a brush to reveal part of the original photo.  Then the edges of the original photo are isolated, masked, and revealed to whatever extent you want.  I can't say that I totally understand what I'm doing yet (still using a tried and true step-by-step approach), and thank goodness I'm married to a man with infinite patience, because I certainly wasn't the quickest study today, but I did end up with a couple of images that I really like.

The original image at the top of this post was taken a few years ago when we visited York, England on a cruise that took us to England, Scotland, and Norway.  We were walking in a park when I saw this small group and tour leader near some ruins.  I loved the "professorial" look of the the group leader as well as the beautiful stone ruins.

Here is another photo from the same park in York.  This was a pretty little floral setting tucked away in a corner of the park.  I love the way the edges or sketch part of this process continues the "idea" of colorful flowers and weathered stones without actually having the color.

This photo was taken near Kristiansand, Norway.  I totally fell in love with the sights of Norway, and these wonderful red boathouses were everywhere!  I love color, and I love boats - so this scene is a win-win for me.

A barn in the Palouse area of Washington state.  I guess maybe I'm a sucker for the color red!  This was my first attempt at using this sketch technique, and while I like this image OK, I think I did a better job of selecting images suited to this treatment as I went along.

These little lambs were on a farm near Inverness, Scotland.  Cute little guys.  Again, this image is OK, but perhaps not as well suited to the treatment as the first three.  At any rate, I had fun learning this, and I really like the way the first two images came out.

Which image would be your favorite?