Utilizing blend modes and layers in Photoshop
For me, layers and blend modes along with masks are the true power of Photoshop. Blend modes are mathematical equations that determine how the pixels
For me, layers and blend modes along with masks are the true power of Photoshop. Blend modes are mathematical equations that determine how the pixels
I market myself as a lens-based artist because all of my source material comes through the lens of my camera. After that, all bets are
Fireworks displays are glorious, and also a common occurrence in the U.S. over Independence day. If you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself in a great location
In creating my lens-based art pieces I will often find textures form many places, including art museums. You can find strokes and color palettes with
The latest update to LuminarAI adds Photoshop-like layers to this already-powerful editing suite. Accessed in the Local Masking section of LuminarAI, now you can upload
If you haven’t seen part one, which talks about using Photoshop brushes, click here. Skies change and clouds come and go all the time. It’s
As the snow begins to fall (like it is as I’m typing this), I always like to go back and look at my past winter
You might be thinking, wha?!? How is this even possible? Well, with a little bit of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop magic by blending two exposures,
How do you get the signatures in the center of the image above into the final art piece? Photoshop has many hidden uses that come
Photoshop has lots of tools available to both photographers and designers. One of those is Blend Modes, which allow you to control how things like
For this composite, my goal was to produce a version of my galloping wild horses image that looks like it’s been drawn and woodburned onto an old board. Not sure why, I just thought it would look cool, the inspiration behind many my composites. Having an idea of what you want to make before you start usually produces the best results. But, don’t be so in love with your idea you can’t change as you create your composite.
At this point, I have my horse picture processed and saved as a high resolution TIF file, and have found a nice wood texture I want to use as the background texture. Ideally you want these texture files to be high-resolution also, so that you can print your finished piece later. Using a 400 pixel wide texture will result in a blurry grainy mess, it’s too small to print it big later.
In the digital darkroom, we can take two paths with our images. The first is to use your photo processing software to get your image looking as close to what you saw when you took it. This is your standard digital darkroom workflow, adjusting your exposure, getting rid of spots, cropping, etc., with more of a focus on realism.
The second path is to take that photo and transform it into something completely different. It may be combined with other photos as a composite, have various effects applied, and generally will look completely different from what you started with, but in a good way! Here the focus is on creating something new, using your original image only as the first ingredient. This is compositing, combining multiple images and effects to produce an original piece of art. In this article I’ll take you down the second path, introducing how to use Skylum’s new Luminar 2018 to start doing your own composites. Â