THE JOY OF PLAY: AN INVITATION

I remember the first discussion I heard back in the mid 90's about digital collaboration with other artists. I was involved in a collage group back then and one of the women in the group was just beginning to explore working with her art digitally. I think her husband worked for one of the first local companies that offered computer assistance to other local companies using PC's for the first timein their offices. "So you'd scan your collage and then email it to another artist who could play with it too, but it takes forever to send that email." It sounded wonderfully exciting to me, except who had a computer and would I ever want one?

Well, things have sure changed since then. Fast forward thirteen years where there is really nothing to stop anyone on line to capture whatever they want. Hopefully, most who do or might have good manners and remain respectful with integrity of other artists' intellectual property. Most of you who read my blog on a regular basis already know the good fun I've been having with John Mora who Im feeling good considering an online friend and colleague. I think we compliment each other's styles well. Great Grannie Bobbie suggested a round robin challenge, and so I am offering up these images for others to use as a creative exercise. My only request is that they not be used for financial gain without speaking to either John or myself, lest you be plagued with years and years of bad karma bugging your computer.

John's original image can be viewed here. His image was created from a sampling of Babaloo's which can be viewed here. I took his image into Photoshop, put it on a dark purple background, reduced the opacity, blended it with overlay and oversaturated the colors using hue/saturation using an adjustment layer



This mandala emerged, and I thought it was ok enough, but a little too busy with too much detail. When I create my mandalas, the source images and resulting mandalas are high resolution (240 ppi) which I later reduce to 72 ppi for use on the web. The excessive detail is created from reduced pixel content.


A year ago another online friend gave me permission to use his photographs of crystals, which I played with but was never satisfied with the results. The image on the left below is an amethyst captured in slow motion (I think the light trail was a flashlight beam). The image on the right is a photo I took of a cactus growing not to far from where I work. I created mandalas from both of these images and layered them, used different blending modes, adjusted with hue/saturation and curves, to create the final image seen below.






















Emerald Isle Mandala - (Circles of Fun) - collaborative energies 2/2008

I hope you will consider playing with us and letting us see what you do next. No awards, no fanfare, just good fun. Isn't that what art is really about, anyway?

PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL: CLIPPING MASKS

Well, it has been a while since I've done a Photoshop tutorial. But as I promised in my post yesterday, I said I would deconstruct how to make a mandala prayer flag. I have covered most of the steps I used to create one of these flags in previous tutorials, but I have never talked about clipping masks. Don't worry; they are easy as can be!

So first I drew a doodle and colored it using crayola and caran d'ache neocolor II crayons and scanned it to my hard drive.

For those of you who have followed my blog for a while, you probably know by now I use the templates on this website to create my mandalas. I feel a debt of gratitude to Komra Mokiro for her visionary approach to using Photoshop in this process.

This is the basic mandala I created using the five wedge template found on the Earth Mandala website.
I duplicated the image (Ctrl/Cmd+J) , pressed D to set the colors to default, applied the photocopy filter (filters>sketch>photocopy), setting the detail at 2 and the darkness at 27. Then I set the blending mode to Multiply, which created the dark outlines in this image.
I thought the image looked a little dull, so I decided to use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to boost the intensity a bit. I only wanted it to affect the layer with the photocopy filter. Otherwise the adjustment layer would affect all of my layers! This is an important concept to understand when working with adjustment layers and considering their placement in your layer palette.

In order to create a clipping mask hold down the alt/option key, press the adjustment layer icon and select Hue/Saturation adjustment.

Tick the box that says:"Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask" As you can see the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is indented. This show it relates to only the layer underneath it. A regular adjustment layer affects all layers below it.

Using Hue/Saturation, set Hue at 2 and Saturaton at 26. The yellow center is most noticeably more vibrant.
I created a new layer and chose the elliptical marquee tool. Holding down the alt/opt key and pulling upward from the center of the mandala made the selection I was creating into a perfect circle. I wanted the circle just a little larger than the circle of the mandala. Go to Edit>Fill and fill the selection with yellow.

Double click on the background layer, change the name to Layer O and fill it with black (Edit/Fill). Create a new layer, and reverse the order of the layers in the layer palette, so Layer 2 is on the bottom and Layer 0 is above it. Highlight Layer 2 in your layer palette. Select Layer 2 using the crop tool (Ctrl/Cmd+C) . Hold down the alt/option key in order to expand the size of your square so it is equal on all sides.
Fill Layer 2 with a bright turquoise color.
Here is the finished image.

If you have any questions about this tutorial, be sure to let me know. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. I will return with more Photoshop fun in 2008. Thank you all for continuing to inspire me in this journey of creation.

Happy Photoshopping!

© Sue O'Kieffe 2007

PHOTOSHOP: HUE/SATURATION COLORIZING

For today's tutorial I thought I would show you a simple way to convert color photographs to greyscale and then colorize them using a hue/saturation adjustment layer.


This is a photograph of the entrance to a retro used clothing store where I live.


Click on the adjustment layer icon button and select hue/saturation. Drag the saturation lever all the way to the left to totally desaturate the image to grayscale. Tick Colorize window.
Play with hue/saturation levers until you are happy with the results. This setting is Hue 76/Saturation 24
This setting is Hue 329/Saturation 93.

Have fun playing with another way to colorize photographs. How could you integrate this technique with others I have demonstrated here? (When you figure that out, please share them with me!)

Also, in case you've never noticed my links to the right, I also have a list of resources for photoshop tutorials you might find useful. Most of them I think are geared to newer versions of PS, but you never know what you might learn.

Happy Photoshopping!

© Sue O'Kieffe 2007

COLORIZING PHOTOGRAPHS

When I first began to work in Photoshop, I became interested in the field of photo restoration. It's something that still interests me and I may some day go back and look at it again.

For today's tutorial I thought I would demonstrate one way to colorize photographs that builds on skills learned in other tutorials I have posted. We will also use quick mask mode and adjustment layers in this tutorial. You can review those tutorials here and here (I will be honest and tell you that I am borrowing the instructions for this from an assignment written by my photoshop instructor Jim Pegoda.)

I started with this photograph of a cute little girl (guess who?) in her flowergirl dress. In order to colorize a photograph, it must be in RGB mode. This particular photograph was already black and white, so when I scanned it to my hard drive, it was in RGB mode by default. If you want to convert a color photograph to black and white and then colorize it, this is how to do it:

• Go to Image>Mode>Greyscale
• Then, since your greyscale image must be in RGB mode, go to Image>Mode>RGB

With quickmask mode set to Color Indicates Selected Areas,(double click on quick mask mode button) paint black paint with a soft brush over an area that you want to colorize. Switch to Standard mode (press Q) and with your selection active, create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click the colorize checkbox and adjust the Hue/Saturation sliders as needed.
For this particular adjustment layer I set Hue at 331 and Saturation at 31.


Use this method to create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer for every color you want to apply to an image.

Below is a capture of the entire layer palette for the colorized image


Once the adjustment layer is created, you can adjust the opacity and/or blending mode and change the color by double clicking on the adjustment layer icon.

If you have a question about Photoshop you would like me to address, please be sure to email me or leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you.

That's it for this Sunday. Have a great week!

WHAT ARE PHOTOSHOP ADJUSTMENT LAYERS?

I'm glad to be back after a week's hiatus to offer another tutorial in Photoshop. Today I thought I would talk a little about adjustment layers and the concept of non-destructive image editing. Please feel free to copy this photograph I took of lobelia in order to follow along.


1) There are many different ways to edit your images. First be sure to duplicate your image (Ctrl/Cmd+J) so you will have an original of the image you are editing. Go to Image>Adjustments; you will access a long menu of different adjustment tools. For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to use the Hue/Saturation adjustment tool.
I wanted to see if I could give the flowers in the photograph a little more pop, so I set Hue at -3 and Saturation at +52 and clicked OK. But what if, after working on this image for a while, I wanted to make another adjustment to the color? If you click on the Hue/Saturation tool again, you will see that the settings have all returned to 0. Any further adjustment would be destructive to the layer you are editing. What to do? Let's start over.

Go to Windows>History> click on Open. This will take you back to the beginning. Duplicate the image again.

2) If your Layers Palette isn't open, do it now (Windows>Layers). The Layers Palette also contains many different tools. The button I have circled in red creates new adjustment layers. Click it now and you will see the same menu of tools you did before. The difference with adjustment layers is that you can go back and re-edit your adjustments, turn them off and on, delete them, re-create them. This gives you an amazing amount of flexibility in your work.


3) Once again, select Hue/Saturation and once again set Hue at -3 /Saturation at+52 and click OK. Now click on the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer again. You will see that the H/S settings are -3/+52. Change them to -8/+42 and click OK. As you continue to edit this image, you can go back and make adjustments to these settings as needed.


4) Click on the adjustment layer icon again and select Curves. It's OK if you have never used Curves before; for the purpose of this tutorial enter the following adjustments: output 55/input 64.
5) Now turn off the Curves adjustment layer by clicking on the eyeball column on the left. Do you like the image better with or without the Curves adjustment?

Have fun playing with adjustment layers. Try other adjustments. See how they look. Try them with different blending modes. Experiment. See what happens if you mask out part of the adjustment. Remember that my screen shots might look different from what you see on your monitor, depending on what version of Photoshop you use. The concepts remain the same.

Let me know if you enjoyed this tutorial and how it changes (if it does) the way you edit your images.

Happy Photoshopping, everyone!

© Sue O'Kieffe 2007

SUMMER DAYS

Dance with Summer Light - (Circles of Light series) - © Sue O'Kieffe 2007

Shadows are lengthening and there is a chill in the air. It seems like the daffodils were just beginning to bloom, and now apple harvest is right around the corner. Two of my favorite flowers, dahlias and gladiolas are blooming in grand profusion right now. Their colors are firey and soft.

I have enjoyed the spirit of play generated by Rima's Digital Art challenges. I sent my contribution directly to Madame Curator. I want to thank Rima as well for showing us how she used Lighting Effects, which I was eager to try, and did with very subtle results in the center of this image.

In the days to come, I hope to post some short tutorials on adjustment layers and layer masks. These nondestructive methods of editing images add a new dimension of flexibility and wonderment to digital art. Stay tuned!