Roses – Photo manipulation

Roses. Photo manipulation with a photo taken in September 2011

Actually I took a photo of two roses in a vase, looked at the photo and discovered that the photo was a failure. Somehow I didn’t have the courage to delete it from my hard drive. Then later I read a blogpost about photo manipulation in photoshop.

I wanted to try that but needed something to manipulate. I returned to the photo, selected one rose, copied it and inserted it into a new image file. It didn’t look too bad, so I returned to the photo, selected the second rose and repeated the steps.

And here is the result! Something new had developed out of the photo failure. And I was glad that I hadn’t removed this photo from my hard disk…

How to make bookmarks with your photos

Bookmarks with one of my photos. Ulla Hennig August 2011

Tnis is the first time I used one of my photos for a bookmarks template. The image above has been sized down for the web, but I think you might get an impression of the final product.

1. The first step is to create the bookmarks file. This one has 1400 pixel width and 1000 pixels height, with a resolution of 200 ppi. This resolution will produce a nice print. Either fill in a colour or leave it as it is.
2. Then you draw a line in the middle. Make it thick enough to function as a cutting line. Doing this will produce a second layer.
3. Open the photo you want to use and chose a selection which might look good on the bookmark file. Copy and paste. If necessary, scale the selection. You will have got a third layer by then. Repeat until you have got the same part of a photo below and above the line.
4. Now go back to the first layer. Take the colourpicker tool in Photoshop and pick a colour of the photo. I first had a lighter green but then decided to go for the darker green. Take the colour bucket tool and fill the layer with the selected colour.
5. Voila! You’ve got two nice bookmarks on one file. You can now print it out on a photo paper. Cut along the line with a paper cutter, not a pair of scissors!

Playing around with Photoshop Elements

Photo and photoshop creation: Ulla Hennig

I wanted to find out what you can do with those wonderful photoshop filters. Here is one of the results.

Monsters

Monsters. Watercolor pencils and photoshop. Created by Ulla Hennig

Yesterday I unpacked my set of watercolor pencils and played around. You can use them like normal color pencils, and then you go over the color with a wet brush. I did not have anything in mind when I began to draw. After half an hour or so it looked like some monsters wanted to arrive on the paper. When I took photos of them they looked really nice and very un-monster-ous.

So I decided to do some photoshopping with them. There are some amazing photoshop filters, and one of them does kind of liquidify your pic. I did that and now the monsters look a bit more like monsters. I put a final touch of more red color on the pic – and there it is.

I am not sure about the result – but the process of producing that piece of (art?) was fun. I totally forgot the time!

Keep on Trying

This picture is has been created accidentally. I’ve got a black ceramic cat in my flats, and I decided to try out the makro function of my camera. The results were – ahem – more than bad. You could see nothing than a black form standing before a somewhat whiteish background. Half an hour of working on it with Photoshop didn’t do anything good. So I decided to call it a day and to throw all the pics into the wastebin. But then I stopped. Maybe a last try with those beautiful layer masks and layer styles? The next ten minutes you could be see clicking wildly around – and this is the result! (Don’t ask me how I did it – I don’t remember!)

And this is, what I learned: Even when you think you have tried everything – there might be a last possibility, a last way. Try it!