ANOTHER BEFORE AND AFTER! 

In response to the image I posted on FB this week I decided to show the "BEFORE and AFTER" trying to show you the steps involved to the final stage! Here is the original image...it's not a bad image and certainly does serve a purpose...it leaves plenty of copy space for advertising but I wanted to create something more that told a bit of a story!
 

I created a mask layer for this image then inserted my cloud image (back of boots) in a "hard light" layer and played around with the intensity till I got it just right. I then created another layer with the second image inserting in front of the cloud image...erasing (set around 30 to 40 % opacity) some of the image at the top and bottom ...again putting it in "hard light" and adjusting the intensity.

After tweaking each layer to get the best fit and the right intensity I flattened the image and opened  onOne software Perfect Effects 4  and passed it through the Vintage filter (vintage cool) and played with the opacity...did a little sharpening and that is about it.

Here is the final Image! :)

BOOK COVERS FOR 2012!

Very pleased so far as this is my first year creating imagery for
the book cover Industry. Here is to 2013!
Thank you Arcangel in helping me achieve this for 2012 :)
http://tinyurl.com/8u4avus

 

FUN WITH POTTED ROOTS!

Winter is almost upon us...time to prepare and protect summer furniture, cut down the last of summer's flowers that have died and are brown and maybe if it's not too cold start putting outdoor decorations for the Holidays!
These are some of this week's projects to do and as always my two great sons Chris and Nick are always there to give a helping hand(actually they do most of the work), lol! :)
Some of my plants had over grown their pots and were very hard to remove. The one good thing that happened to my amazement was the incredible design of the roots against the sides of the pots and I had to take photos of them! I did various shots with different lenses...my EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM and  my favorite Lensbaby with Sweet 35 for a distorted creepy look. Here is what the roots looked like unedited:

 

I then stuck some small doll heads in the earth for later photo manipulations. Here is an idea of the layout in Photoshop and the images used for the final image! The doll heads were cut and pasted in an overlay or luminosity layer...I used my favorite program OnOne Software Perfect Effects4 and finally added a couple of textures to give it a grungy vignette.
I know it's a little spooky, creepy but sometimes it's just fun to go and play on the dark side! ;)

Here are some final images of creepiness, lol! Have fun going to the dark side yourself...you may like it!! ;)

ANOTHER BEFORE AND AFTER!

Some people have been emailing me and wondering when I will add something new to my blog!
I have been quite busy as of lately trying to establish some new markets for my work so I've been neglecting it a little lately but I"m very glad to know that people find the blog interesting, Lol! :)

So, I was editing this image Friday and thought it would make an interesting post because I too was quite surprised how this image turned out!
Here are some Before and After images:

(1) I started out with the first image. It was taken about 3 weeks ago in my favorite secret spot in a forest nearby. I used my Canon 5D but with the Lensbaby Composer Pro and the Sweet 35 Sweet Optic lens. I love the look it gives and is a good base for a "Creepy cabin in the woods effect" 

(2) Then I copied and pasted a cabin image I shot this summer...played around a little with it to make the right size and did a little motion blur also to make the crop fit perfectly in the forest and flattened it! 

(3)I then ran it through OnOne software Perfect Effects to get a red hellish effect I was looking for and because the tree background was quite distorted with the Lensbaby to my amazement it gave this hellish forest fire look which I love! Finally, I put a dark vignette around the image to made it darker at the bottom so there would be plenty of room for text. This image was created for RM book-covers and not for RF stock.

That's it...you just never know how an image will turn out and it's always a surprise for me!

Here is the finished image: