Photo Art

(imported from my former photo blog)
Manipulating photos brings out the artist in me.  Especially when the photo is not a stand alone work of art.
I love the many functions that enhance details of an image or change its structure completely, when manipulated in a program.

I have four photo editing programs I really enjoy.  I couldn't do all the things I've done with just one of them.  I use PhotoShop 7, Paint Shop Photo, Paint Shop Pro, and Picasa.

For this post I'm going to talk about just two images I have been working on lately.
The first one is this serene setting I shot last Fall of a rare sunny day here in the Pacific Northwest.
I was working at a clients home and just couldn't resist capturing this shot, which of course I took over ten frames of, but this one I used for this project.

  I decided it just didn't have the punch I was looking for, so I experimented with the PS artistic effects.  I chose the colored pencil effect and some sharpening for detail as well as cropping.

I left it like this for a couple of weeks.  Recently I decided I didn't like the gray background, after all, sky and water and hills are not gray.
So I took it into my Paint Shop program and added color here and there.

While some of you artists who know how to paint and draw may gasp with distaste at this, I feel it is all in the eye of the beholder.
I'm still not sure if I'm done with it, but it is fun to play.

Because I love black and white, of course I had to try this in a monotone as well.  I'm not sure which one I like better!

For my next trick I thought I would play with the trees.  (You'll remember these from a previous post).  Same location, same day.

While I actually like this image on its own, I just wanted to apply the same process and see where it would go.

I used the same colored pencil effect in PS, along with some contrast and saturation tweaks.  I love how it brings out the lines and detail in the tree trunks.

Next was to add some color to the sky and water.

Too fake?  Unrealistic?  Surrealistic?  The sky's the limit here (pun intended!).
I visualize this image large, printed on metal with a glossy finish.  I wonder what Picasso would say.

In all fairness to our image of the chairs, I of course wanted to try this in monotone as well.

What projects have you worked on that inspire you?