Making graphics with FF ... my Gallery

Another kind of boring bland photo. This is a photo of a Mississippi River bridge. It could be anywhere, they all look pretty much alike. The most interesting part of the picture is the clouds.

While HDR filters can produce some unusual image effects, they are also good at just simple image improvements. I think this photo is of thistles, I‘m not a plant expert. I liked the blue over the green.

Cool stuff here. I like how you turned the first cloudy beach scene into a sunny one, and yes I also noticed the shadows under the trees in the second beach scene.

I live in the country and there are a bunch of different wildflowers in my yard. There is always something blooming that I can take pictures of. The oddness about this image is that I took the photo near sunset and that created some weird coloring in the image. Even in Kentucky grass never looks this blue.

My last few post have shown examples of using HDR type filters. HDR is cool but hard to accomplish. My filters are fake. They attempt to increase the dynamic range, detail, and color saturation of images, but they don’t come close to obtaining the kind of effects that can be accomplished using multi bracketed raw images and dedicated HDR software. I call them Pseudo-HDR because in truth they are fake. But, some things they can do pretty good.

I chose this example image of me and a banyan tree on Oahu’s North Shore because it is pretty crappy. I could say that is because my wife took it, but when we travel we take thousands of photos and a whole bunch of them are kinda crappy no matter who took them. That is the beauty of digital. You can fill up a SD card and some of them are bound to look pretty good. But what to do with an overexposed, underexposed backlit image? Use HDR of course.

When I got FF V2 I tried HDR again and came up with my Pseudo-HDR Color filter. This was not a version of my first filter, but a rework from a different approach. It was a bit better. This image was produced using one of the filter’s presets. It is somewhat better but the halo fogginess that is often part of the HDR effect takes much of the reality out of the picture..

With this last image I used my Pseudo-HDR Illustrator filter. I darkened it a bit with layer multiply in Photoshop as well. Detail and color is brought out in almost all areas of the image. Like in many HDR effects this image took on a somewhat unreal or as I say super real look. It becomes like a illustration rather that a photo, not perfect, but I like it.

My T-shirt site ... Captured Image Design

I wanted (as usual) some nice strong color and texture in this picture. I applied my Colored Dirt filter. It layers in a dirty overall surface to the image. The dirtiness is not muddy black or gray, but pretty strong in color. The picture looses detail in the process, but as I often do, I included an outliner to bring the detail back and give the image a more graphic look. I think some folks may think that the final result looks kinda like a photo with bad jpg noise. But I like the way the colors break up and become more intense. What is art to some folks is just bad photos to others.

My T-shirt shop site .... Captured Image Design

So I messed with it a whole bunch. First I ran my Color Corrode filter to bring in some out of this world color and texture. Then I ran my Old Book Illustrator to create some outline and bring back some detail. This made the image pretty dark, so I did a layer screen combine lighten. I like strong color so I upped the saturation in Photoshop. It does not look real anymore but the surrealness makes for cool atmosphere and is kinda arty looking. The detail is dark and intense but can be seen quite well in an enlarged version..

My T-shirt web site .... Captured Image Design

Thanks .... and it's a cheap drug too ......

I’m sure I’m really starting to get boring. With me it is all about color, texture, detail, and outline. Again, like the last image of the docks, I used my Color Corrode filter. Like I have said before each photo is a story all it’s own. Filters react with different images differently. I started with a preset and slid sliders until I was happy. That’s what it’s all about, getting happy. Whatever it takes to make it look like something. Using filters is like swinging paintbrushes.

My T-shirt site ... Captured Image Design

As I have said, you can get many different looks from one filter used on different images. Like the last couple of pictures I used my Color Corrode filter on this image. Playing with sliders came up with a very different look this time. I did add a little extra saturation in Photoshop and then ran my Broken Tile Mosaic filter. I faded it back a bit. The result breaks up the flatter color areas, giving some extra texture to the image.

My T-shirt shop .... Captured Image Design

I really feel that while I have created some filters that I very much like to use, I have rarely been super happy with what they were capable of doing, as opposed to what I would like them to do. I have made several filters trying to get the same effect as I could get with Buzz Simplifier, but have not so far been able to duplicate the simple but detailed look of that filter. I have looked through the filter library trying to find a similar looking filter with no luck. I find that Tone Curve nodes and Median nodes are useful in simplifying an image. Sometimes I combine the two to try to create a poster simplify effect. I used my Old Book Illustrator filter on this picture with lots of outline detail and some saturation boost. I like the way the soft background, caused by depth of field, abstracts like an impressionist style painting and the bird becomes sharper and more illustrative in nature. It is pretty much a failure at recreating the Buzz effect, but I do think it stands on it’s own as an artistic effect.

My T-shirt site ... Captured Image Design

I put the image in two layers in Photoshop. On the bottom layer I ran my Soft Crosshatch filter. This creates a soft spooky look like I was trying to get, but unfortunately you lose a lot of detail with it. To bring some of that detail back I ran my Old book Illustrator on the top layer. I had run the filter with the saturation clear down to create a monochrome image. I combined them with multiply. In Photoshop I did a little high pass sharpening and increased the saturation a bit and then did a layer multiply darken. I think it looks sufficiently spooky now.

My T-shirt shop ... Captured Image Design

Sometimes it is fun just spice an image up a bit with a filter that doesn’t do much more than add a texture overlay. I used my Antique Splatter filter on the photo. Because this filter tends to darken things up quite a bit I did some layer screening to lighten it up. This filter adds a paintbrush splatter like effect and dark antique glase over the image. I’m not sure if it’s art but at least it’s not boring anymore.

My T-shirt site ... Captured Image Design

Thanks much Craig .... I must say that I have read the forum way back and many of your comments have been very helpful to me ... I really appreciate that ....

This is a pretty good photo of a butterfly. Now, a smart guy would do a little high pass sharpening and up the saturation a bit. Then he’d end up with a really good image. Who ever said I’m a smart guy. I can’t help it. I got to mess with it.

Everyone takes crappy photos. This is one of mine, an accidental shot of my niece’s shoes in a dark restaurant. Hey, I never throw anything away. I may find a use for it.

Where I come from this what the trees look like in October. Not a bad picture, but it needs some more color.

The lighthouse in Key West. Oh, man what happened to the sky? Gotta do something. Maybe sneak in some clouds with a selection overlay. That would be too normal for me.

Junior High football … The center blocking and the quarterback with the ball are the only two who have a clear understanding of the game. The rest have a lot of enthusiasm but they are just as apt to run the wrong way as not. In a couple of years they will be High School hot shots if they don’t give up by then. At least they are not running all around the field in a state of confusion like six year old soccer players.

I’m back on the forum at last. (Some of you are not cheering) I had a bad month. Went traveling. Got some bad non-secure Wifi on the road. A nasty bug ate my computer. The power supply started going. Lost it all. Bought a new computer. Going crazy getting all my stuff on the new computer. Had trouble moving FF over. Got some good help from the guys at FF. I’ve got enough loaded to go back to making graphics. So, here I am.

One of my new things is carving Tiki masks with sculptris. Yes I have joined a Tiki cult. I finally figured out that if you change the background color to something bright, when you render, it is easier to use the magic wand to make selections.

Living in the Midwest gives me plenty of opportunities for taking pictures of farm scenes, lots of barns and fences and mailboxes. The sun was going down and a mist was drifting in. It would have been a pretty good image with just a little adjustment, but I had to mess.