Alpha Photography Blog

This week I’m trying out some more Photoshop filter effects.  This image is from the same location as last week - different subject though.  I liked the chicken as it really stood out against the dark surroundings of the sculptures.  This is the original:

I was going for an other-worldly effect, and first duplicated the background (Layer > Duplicate Layer > Background Copy). Next I converted the image to black and white (Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer > Monochrome).

Then I used the history brush to colour the chicken and bring its colour back into the image, while keeping the rest of the image black and white.  Here is where to find the history brush:

Next I used the Magnetic Lasso tool to select the chicken and inverted the selection (Select > Inverse) so I could change the appearance of the background.

I adding an effect called Ocean Ripple then to the background: View > Distort > Ocean Ripple.

This is the result:

The effect is a little different.  Not too other-worldly, but getting there.

The different filters are fun to play with and see what kind of ‘distortion’ is possible.

Following on from last week’s post, I took a drive up to the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland over the weekend and scoured out some photography subjects.  I ended up looking at things I normally wouldn’t and came up with a few interesting images.

I’ve also had some fun editing them in Photoshop.  I’ll take you through a few of them today, and continue on next week with a few others.

Here is the original image:

Now for the Photoshopped image.  To achieve this you follow these steps: Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer > Monochrome; then, Filter > Texture > Grain.  Intensity = 30, and Contrast = 50.

Chinese warrior sculptures always look so solemn and intimidating.  I wanted to amplify this, and black and white with a grain applied seemed the right way to achieve it.

Now, the next one isn’t quite as dramatic.  Looking at the images side by side you can see that there is a difference, but you might not really have noticed the photoshopped image if you hadn’t seen the original…

It is subtle, but you can see that the craquelure effect in Photoshop makes the image a little grainer.  The Grain effect made too much of a difference, and I wanted it to be subtle.

To achieve this, you go to the Filter menu, then select Texture, then Craquelure.

Have a play with the filter effects in Photoshop - it’s amazing what you can do.

It’s been a bit of a lack lustre photographic week.  I haven’t made the time or effort to go out and find something to photograph, so this will be a pretty dull post.

This week has been one of those where very mundane issues seem to have forced their way in.  That will change this weekend though.  I’m determined to grab my camera, jump in the car and head out somewhere - maybe the beach…

Hopefully it doesn’t rain…

I’m sure you’ve had one of those periods where creativity just doesn’t seem to be as forthcoming.  That feeling change when I recently began reading Edward de Bono’s new book “Think: Before It’s Too Late”.  If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it to you.  What a great read.  He has an incredible mind and explains concepts which seem so obvious once you read about them.

He spends a chapter discussing creativity and how it’s not has devoid of logic as most of us think.  It’s newly inspired me to go out and look at my environment differently and take photos with this new outlook.

So, watch this space!

There’s nothing more glorious than the colours of nature.  Recently I had my film SLR with me, as I had to use up a roll of ISO 3200 colour film.  I hadn’t planned to use the film on nature photography, but I needed to finish the roll of film.

Wandering around the streets I kept seeing these gorgeous trees covered in pink flowers.  Then, as I looked closely I saw…

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