Friday Find - 16 May 2014

Yesterday I had to take my Mum to the dentist, which gave me half an hour to have a wander around the charity shops, where I found this little pottery jug.  It's just 10.5cm tall, and so sweet.

I haven't done very much to this image....a few tweaks in Lightroom, over to Photoshop and 1 layer of kk_bend at 50% multiply and removed most of the texture from the table and jug.

Texturize - Day 6

The final day of Kim's Texturize class and there were many tips and techniques in the videos.....I shall have to watch them a few more times for everything to sink in.  The following is my variation on Kim's image of pale pink rose in a bottle by a window.  I've used the same words, but changed the textures and font.

Texturize - Day 5

For day 5, Kim demonstrated various techniques with an image of a mauvy coloured chrysantheum in a green bottle on a white chair.....this was my sort of copy of the image, only it's a rhododendron in a green bottle on a table with a white table cloth.

I loosely followed Kim's instructions and used the same words.  The fonts I used were Montez and Chantelli Antique.

Start 2 Finish - Day 2

On Day 2 we were encouraged to find the light in our homes, as well as considering blur in our images.

The front of our house faces east, doesn't have many windows and we have quite a few mature trees, which doesn't allow for much light.  But the back of the house is the complete opposite.....lots of big windows facing west and the afternoon sunshine floods in.  We don't have any windows that face north or south, or rather we do, but the north one faces a brick wall and the southerly one is tiny.

My picture was taken mid morning in the conservatory which faces west, so the sun wasn't shining directly in and the light was just what was there from a pleasantly sunny morning.  I did try bouncing light, but didn't think this shot needed it.

I started off in Lightroom and used Kim's kk_classicwarm preset and cropped to 4x5, then into photoshop.  There I added kk_chase texture at 47% soft light, a gradient fill (hex d6cc91) over the top left hand corner at 45% soft light, a slight hue/saturation adjustment, kk_2711 at 26% soft light, levels to dull down the book a little and finished with some text in "Across the Road" font.

Camera:  Nikon D90, 50mm f1.4mm lens, at ISO 200, f2.8, 1/125 sec.

Props:  Top of a very old picnic table (guessing from 1920's), old book, little pewter pot, some creamy coloured sheer organza (used by florists for wrapping bouquets) and a single stem of wild Columbine.

Texture Tuesday - 13 May 2014

Not long to go now.....Be Still 52 starts tomorrow.  Today for Texture Tuesday the theme was Yellow.  I had thought of arranging some yellow leaves I have in the garden, but this bunch of roses was only £2 in the local Aldi this morning, so who could resist them.

Our house is 101 years old and these floor boards are in a bedroom I'm decorating, so thought I'd make use of them before they are covered by carpet.  It would be too drafty to keep them uncovered, but think I shall have to replicate them somehow, although don't think the other half would be impressed if I asked him to take these up and replace with new!  But at the speed I'm going, they wont be seeing carpet for some time.

Anyways, my image......I had a tweak in Lightroom before moving to Photoshop, where I applied a solid colour fill (hex a4a363) at 100% soft light, followed by kk_simple at 66% soft light and then duplicated that to 17% hard light and lightly removed texture from the roses......sort of following along with Kim, as per the textures, but haven't yet downloaded kk_melancholy preset.  The font is "Bilbo Swash Caps"......I spent a whole evening downloading free fonts.....who would have thought there could be so many.

Texturize - Day 4

There were more techniques to learn on Day 4 and I went through the video lesson, took my photo, and then played through the video again to process my photo.  I used the same hex codes and textures as Kim, but varied the opacity slightly and the angle of the gradient.

Texturize - Day 3

Quite a lot to take in on Day 3, but I've used my own image and roughly followed Kim's adjustments to create the following......

.....I did have to change things slightly, but I did follow each step.  Might have to do this again.....or make a note of the recipe, as along the way it did look a little weird.