Finishing touch - add a cool border or frame to your photos...

I like adding borders or edge treatments to images. Sometimes it's just the finishing touch an image needs. Here's an image that I photographed in Venice, and added a painterly look with Topaz Simplify. I chose one of my favorite edge treatments from OnOne PhotoFrame to add to the artistic look. Easy and fun! You can use code DEBSANDIDGE for any OnOne Software product, including Perfect Photo Suite. 

For any Topaz Labs products, you can use this promotional code for a discount DEBORAHSANDIDGE. We will be covering cool techniques to work with your images creatively in my August courses, Enhancing Images & Creating Works of Art, and Digital Infrared Photography. Classes are filling up fast, and you can take advantage of the summer sale by putting SUMMER11 in the gift card field. Hope to see you there! ~ Deb

Ford Racing... HDR fun...

Classic cars can be a lot of fun to photograph, even under the hood like this cool Ford racer! The engine detail has highly reflective chrome parts, and wonderful vintage colors. This is an HDR image merged with Photomatix, with just the needed exposures merged to bring out the detail and color in the image. The gas station and classic cars in the background are actually painted on the inside of the hood, which makes for a playful composition. The finishing touch is a edge treatment modified from one of the presets in OnOne Photoframe, made to resemble engine lube or grease. I admit I'm not an expert on that end of an engine, I only know the gas pedal part! You can use coupon code debsandidge for anything OnOne. Enjoy taking pictures! ~ Deb

A touch of Spring - Adding texture to a photograph for a painterly effect...

Layering textures with a photograph can create an expressive image reminiscent of a painting. This solitary tree photograph was layered with several textures from Flypaper Textures which created the brushstrokes of color look. Texture adds a little definition and detail throughout an image. No clouds, no worries, empty skies work well for textured effects!

The key for adding texture is to find a blend mode that will work for the images. Copy and paste (or drag) the new texture layer over your original photograph layer, and find a complementary blend mode by scrolling through each Blend Mode. Here's how you do it... With the move tool active, hold down the shift key and press the plus or minus key to see the various effects Blend Modes have on your image. Soft light was used for this combination. Nik Viveza was used to selectively tone down, brighten up  and add color to areas in the image. The artistic edge treatment that pulls the image together is PhotoFrame from OnOne Software. Make great pictures! ~ Deb

PS - Coupon codes are always in the sidebar, including links to software you might want to try. Totally Rad Dirty Pictures will set up your texture layer (including Flypaper and your own favorites) with your photo automatically, and assign a blend mode, how cool is that? Try it and see!

#South Beach Lifeguard Stands with artistic textures and borders...

This started as a singular long exposure before sunrise on beautiful South Beach in Miami, FL. There are quite a few of these lifeguard stands that are manned during the daytime hours to protect beach goers. Before the sun actually rose, the sky was violet with a pink hue and I wanted to work with this idea a bit in Photoshop to create a fun and painterly look.

I used several layers of texture to create the look in this image. I started with Lavender Skies and a blend mode of Overlay, and used a second texture, Brushed Rose with a blend mode of Hard Light. A Hue/Saturation adjustment layer was added to sway the colors in the texture to a more violet and purple hue, very easy to do from the Adjustment Panel in Photoshop.

The textures were brought out with the various blend modes and complemented the life guard stand nicely. From the Layers Palette, you can scroll through the various blend modes to see the effect each has on your image by making sure the Move tool is active, and holding down the Shift and the plus or minus key. The textures used here are from Flypaper and they are truly one of my favorites of textures to work with. Try them and see why! Click here to visit Flypaper Textures.

This was a lot of fun to create, and the finishing touches work out beautifully by using a canvas looking edge treatment by Jack Davis from OnOne PhotoFrame. This filter set has every edge treatment, border, frame, embellishment, and overlay available, to make the perfect picture.  OnOne PhotoFrame... you can use coupon code DEBSANDIDGE. Interested to know more about enhancing your images? Join me in class next month at BetterPhoto.com  - I hope to see you there!

Creating Beautiful Texture and Borders with OnOne Software...

Textures are a wonderful way to enhance a photograph, creating more depth, drama and interest throughout the composition. Texture can create a very subtle artistic look that draws in the viewer. An image overlay composite was applied to the architecture through OnOne PhotoTools 2.6, a stand alone application and plug-in for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture. Within the PhotoTools interface, the overlay opacity was reduced, and the effect was brushed away from the sky. Very quick and easy! 

For the finishing touch, an artistic edge treatment was applied with OnOne PhotoFrame 4.6. I chose one of the  Guru edges from Jack Davis. This worked perfectly to tie everything together. A quick tip, increase the size of the canvas by 110% before adding the border or edge treatment. From Photoshop's Menu, choose Image>Canvas Size, change pixels to percent, and change the width and height values to 110%  This gives you more space around your photo before adding your frame. I chose white for the extension color, you can choose black or any color you wish. 

Want to learn more about textures and fun stuff in Photoshop? Join me in one of my upcoming courses at BetterPhoto.com, starting in December! Check the sidebar for more info and links.

OnOne Software is offering Perfect Photo Suite, a collection of five software titles including PhotoTools 2.6, PhotoFrame 4.6, and the latest Perfect Resize 7 (formerly Genuine Fractals) at $100 off through December 4th. You can use coupon code DEB6 for your discount. Click here to visit the OnOne website.   Make great pictures! ~ Deb

Add Artistry to your Image with Textures...

A simple way to add depth and drama to your photo is to add a layer of texture or two, or in this case, three. Hover your mouse over the image to see the original. I found several textures that I liked and used them to enhance this photo of palm trees after sunset. The texture layers give the image depth and drama, and make it a little more artistic.

To blend a texture layer with your image, use a blend mode that suits your photo. Adjust the opacity of the texture layer to suit your image. I liked the textures, however one of the colors wasn't working for the image. I used a Hue Saturation adjustment layer to sway the hue to a flattering color. You can also remove the color from a texture, which works well too. Blend modes of overlay and soft light were used with the textures and a beautiful edge treatment from OnOne Photoframe provided the perfect finishing touch. Make great pictures!