First attempt starting from a drawing



Picture started life as a blue circle with a red 12 sided spiders web in the centre,increased the line thickness to 10 pixels then distorted the image and altered the colours

I really like that Gees63, it has a calming feeling.

That's booooootiful Gees. Very Celtic feel to it.

Some good creations being turned out here! I downloaded and tried 'Shape Collage' Jakeroo. Interesting to play with.

Thanks for the kind words. The imaging programme used is IrfanView free to download for personal use with some free Photoshop filters and effect downloads from the web. A Scot to the end using freeware



The same starting point as number1 thumbnail top left of image

Gees: It's amazing how just about ANY image can be "warped" into something COMPLETELY different (apologies to Monty Python lol) isn't it?

Here's a couple of links where you can "play with art" online, without having to download ANYTHING (or potential viruses/annoying cookies):

FotoFlexer

Pizap (ignore everything else on the page, just click on the big green "start box" to play with images)

You also have the ability on those to upload your OWN photos as well as to save your finished products to your own computer, without signing up for ANYthing. They're kind of fun and there are several other possibilities out there on the www : )

Jakeroo: thanks for the links.At first look FotoFlex seems to have the same photoedit as Photobucket I am finding I use different programmes for different effects.

I am wondering if I am spending too much time working with images on the computer


Or maybe its just old age

You might also want to check out Iaza. It's got some useful features.

Thanks Guru some interesting effects
I had a picture of Mollie that was a little out of focus as she moved too close to the camera. Using Serif PhotoPlus X4 cropped the image and used a pencil sketch effect and have ended up with an appealing picture



The lack of sharpness does not matter and no longer distracts from the cute puppy expression

That is gorgeous! Sweet puppy

I took the thired image from this page (created by The_lioness33) and turned it into this:



Steps of creation (with fotoflexer):
1. Uploaded the original image twice.
2. Flipped one, lined the two up.
3. Using the cutter tool, I separated the iris from the rest of the right half of the image.
4. Changed the hue of the right iris.
5. Made all but the iris of the right eye grey scale.

I also cropped out the frame lioness included. Hope you don't mind me using your image!

Tellywellies posted a photo of last week's supermoon in the Photo a Day thread - to save you looking it up, the image is here:

http://tinyurl.com/6g6t3xx

I really liked that, and I wondered what would happen if I merged it in some way with another image. Hmm... A while ago I took some pictures of the West Pier (what's left of it) at Brighton & Hove. Here's one of the photos I took SOTC (straight out of the camera):

http://tinyurl.com/6yxnwq4

So I put the two together and what I got was this:




What I did:

1. I got Tellywellies' permission to use his image.
2. Using Photoshop, I opened my image of the pier and converted it from being a "background" to an ordinary layer.
3. I pasted the moon on top of it, as layer 2.
4. I selected the moon layer and chose the drop down blend option "Difference" - this compares the colours in both images and removes some based on brightness, and black/white content.
5. I then added a gradient map at 10% opacity just to add a warm tint (layer 3).
6. I merged all three layers, and set the selection tool to circle - then holding down the Shift key I selected the "moonblend" as a perfect circle and made a copy of the selection (CTRL+C) which I then pasted (CTRL+V) on to the image as layer 4.
7. With the circle still selected, I added a 3 pixel "stroke" around the edge, partly because the edge of the moon wasn't sharp (because in real life the light of the moon is diffused) and partly because it acts as a frame to hold the image together. The stroke used a colour selected from the blended image. Then I deselected the circle. (If you deselect circles too soon it can be a nightmare to do another one with exactly the same dimensions - been there, regretted that.)
8. Then using the "eye" in the layers menu, I deselected the merged image (i.e. the original three layers that I had merged into one, not the moon on its own) so that it didn't show and added a new transparent layer underneath the blended moon. I then picked a darker colour from the blended moon and used the paintbucket tool to fill the transparent layer.
9. I cropped the image so that it was square and saved it as a JPG file.

Et voila!

Very good flopsymopsy. It shows that there really are seas on the Moon.

Recycled Flowers



Simple change a picture of the heads of 2 daffodils in PhotoPlus X4 using Kaleidoscope in the Effects menu. Adjust number of images and angle to get desired effect then flood fill background with chosen colour

My posting "More Spring Flowers" from March Photo-a-Day kaleidoscoped and then edited in the Photobucket editing suite. Mainly just rotating the colours.

I've been playing with a graphics program called 'RealDraw Pro' tonight. I did this with it. It's got a tool in it called 'Push Down' that can give the effect of interlocking rings. This can be done in other drawing programs but the specially dedicated tool makes it easy in RealDraw:

very nice effect! love the background as well.

A Xara Xtreme graphic:

did you know that if you stare at that one the "right way", it is stereographic? lol

I hadn't noticed that, only that my eyes go funny when examining the graphic closely. I have to blink and do a second take on it.

I should maybe say how it's done:

* One ring was drawn in Xara Xtreme and a bevel added.

* Three copies of the ring were made (4 total).

* Three rings were placed equidistant and made to look as if they interlock.

* The rings are joined into a group and then duplicated.

* The duplicate set of rings is made much smaller and placed exactly in the middle of the larger set of rings.

* An 11 step blend is made from the larger set of rings to the smaller set.

* The colour and size of the remaining bevelled ring is changed and put to the back of the others.

* Lastly, the frame is drawn and put to the back of everything.

Has Terry considered that for a new logo? Nice!

think of the royalties LOL

A Great Horned Owl...

This one's a total fluke, Precious, snapped using some odd setting whilst I was fiddling with the camera. I like it anyway

My goodness, that's the best image art of all.. one that's a "happy accident" LOL. Very cool colours too!

In MSpaint, a boring photo, so inverted colours.

Japanese Maple........

You may remember the photo I took of the entrance to the Northampton Arm on the Grand Union Canal. It's here.

I've been fiddling with it today to make it look old, added a texture, applied a 'aged' edge, and as well as removing the colour I added a faint tint.

And now it looks like this:



I'm not sure why I did it other than to see if I could, but as I didn't have a new pic to upload today I recycled one!

Trying to get a different look for Christmas




Cannot decide quite whether it works