Joy

This had to be one of the quickest images to come together in ages.  I am really pleased with one of my own textures I used at 100% overlay.  I did nothing else to my prop work other than a crop.

My resident wild rabbit has been eating these little daisy flowers and I had planned to use them in some way for my photography.  It just came together with a bowl of water and a spoon, a little yellow hankie and I shot away, many views and levels, this is the one I have chosen today to play with.

My texture is a watercolor that I will put on flicker under a folder called textures if anyone wants to try it out.  I call this one sp_oddesy.  Of course I would like credit for it in any work you post and share.  I would love to see how it makes your images pop with Joy.
Sally

Whats old is New

This week in Beyond Layers Class, Kim is trying to get us to take our new photos or old photos and make them more simple.   The idea being that Less Is More!   I truly struggled with this because I like dramatic deep colors full of depth.   Both these photos I have re worked in the less is more idea.  the Texture Kim has us all using is called Awaken.

On the feather I used this texture only one time.  Its a found feather that I have kept for years.

This is one of my favorite subjects.  Old dead flower heads and pods.   This is called Spring Flower Becomes Winters Cloak.  I worked and worked on this to get it soft and delicate, added finally two textures of Awaken.  

Sometimes I use a dry brush filter on my images after I process them but not on these two.

You can view more of my work on my Flicker Photo Stream here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11605172@N05/

How Did You Do That!

I get asked all the time how I get the look of texture on my photos and if its a filter I use.  I do use photo shop, but this is not a stand alone filter. Its many layers of texture I apply on top of the original photo.  Top is the finished example, below it is the original photo, and below two of the textures I used.

There are many places to find textures on the Internet, and these two are from skelletalmess at deviant art.
 http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/textures/?order=9
Most are free to download and so fun to collect.  Problem is you end up with SO many its hard to pick and choose a texture so its like playing a game of trial and error.  Try a texture and a linear burn or multiply, an opacity or soft overlay.

Here is what I did to my photo.  Processed the photo into a dreamy appearance then I added on top of it the blue texture and did a linear burn.  Then I added the light colored texture and applied a soft overlay.   I again added that light colored texture and repeated the soft overlay.  It gives you some cool painterly effects and if you do not like the texture and how you applied the opacity or filter then just delete it!