"The Wall" Revisited - Textures - Corel PSP Pro X3

The Wall Textured 1

The Wall Textured 2

These images of "The Wall," Revisited were created in Corel PSP Pro X3 with an assist from Picasa 3.9. The original photographs were taken by Keir M. Gatzka near Plymouth, Michigan. 

I browsed to the photographs in Picasa 3.9 and opened with PSP. There I adjusted them with the Smart Photo Fix altering highlights, shadows, color, focus. I also adjusted the Color, RGB increasing red and green. I had recently gotten two textures offered free from the web and I selected one in Picasa 3.9 and Pasted as a New Layer into the photographs fitting them to the size of the images.

I took the new layers and used the property Lighten to add the texture to the walls and superstructure, and light. I found that it made the texture dominant which I found to be a pleasing to the eye and intriguing result.

I used the Image add watermark for my PNG Signature adding an Image Border of black to the photographs. I saved the large images then resized to fit here on the blog, saving those iterations.

Listening to House on television

"Guitar Player Chording D" Corel Painter 11 - Corel PSP Pro X3

Guitar Player Chording D

I took an older painting that was sized quite small and was not fully finished, opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 to resize it to an 8" x 10" image at 300dpi. I saved that and opened with Corel Painter 11 and using the Watercolors Brushes painted the background of the image.

The "Guitar Player Chording D," is a favorite subject of mine. So I wanted to see it fully painted. Thus what you see that I am sharing today. I took the saved file and re-opened in PSP and added my PNG signature, enhanced the Saturation Vibrancy and added a border and the gold frame.

I saved that file and resized to display size for the blog.

Listening to some songs I did with Mixcraft 5

"Contours Ice Sculptures" Corel PSP Pro X3

Contours Ice Sculptures 1

Contours Ice Sculpture 2

Browsing in Picasa 3.9 I grabbed two photographs of Ice Sculptures and opened with Corel's PSP Pro X3. I quickly adjusted the color and saturation of the photographs (individually.) I decided to try some of the effects of PSP and found that the abstract designs of the sculptures lent themselves well to the Effects, Contours feature.

I had taken my signature file and opened it in another graphics program, Fireworks MX, and with some experimenting I made a transparent PNG file for the watermark. I added my now transparent signature to the photographs. Then I added a 25 pixel black border and a simple black frame.

As usual I saved the largest files and resized for display here.

Listening to the television News right now

"Daughter and her Doll" Grunge Digital Collage - Corel PhotoPaint Plus

Daughter and her Doll

This is from an actual 400 ASA Black and White film photograph taken years ago of my "Daughter and her Doll," sitting in a little rocking chair. I had scanned it in and saved it. Some time ago I used Corel's Painter to create a woodcut image of her. I've had it for a long time and decided to play with it a bit.

I located it in Picasa 3.9 in a People folder. I had recently downloaded two grunge backgrounds, this one of rusted materials. I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and fit to screen to see the entire texture. I copied and pasted the woodcut into it. I used the property Multiply on it and adjusted the Opacity to 78%, allowing some of the background to seep through.

Browsing in Picasa 3.9 again I went to my Dover Clip Art folder and selected some Victorian corner embellishments for the top right and left corners. I used the Tone Curve on them to increase there depth of black color. I also found an antique Grandfather clock and some floral designs and added those to the bottom, to the right and left of the woodcut. I again used the Tone Curve and the property Multiply. I slightly cropped the image for size.

I saved the large file, and reopened it in Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I increased the Vibrancy with the Hue and Saturation features. I added a gold mat and a simple black frame to complete the image. Saving that iteration, I resized for display here. Back in PhotoPaint I added my signature and saved both the large and medium sized duplicates.

"The Wall" Photo-manipulation - Corel PSP Pro X3

"The Wall," or facade was found near the Ice Sculpture show in Plymouth, Michigan. Again the photographer was my son, Keir M. Gatzka. I did the photo-manipulation on them.

I used Picasa 3.9 to browse to the folder containing all the photographs from the outing. I selected the photographs one by one and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3. I started out with the fit to screen to see the entire photograph. Then I selected Adjust Smart Photo Fix feature and made changes to the Brightness, Shadows, Highlights, Focus, and Color.

As the day was very overcast each photograph had a lot of blue in them, shot at 1600 ISO. I attempted to adjust the bluish cast by using the Color, RGB tool increasing the red and green a bit. Tried to pull out the brick color in each one. I also added a twenty-five pixel border to each photograph for display.

With my son's inventive approach to photography, and my skills at manipulation and the good Corel programs I have, we make a really good team.

I did resize in PSP but I am learning the placement of watermarks in that program and don't have it down yet. I believe that I need to make my signature a PNG file, transparent except for the signature itself. Maybe that will work, I end up with a white border all around my jpg signature file. Can't have that - need to experiment with PNG.



So I added the signature in Corel's PhotoPaint for three of these four images.

Listening to Blues Rock on Pandora

"Ice Sculptures at Plymouth, Michigan" Photo-manipulation Picasa 3.9 - Irfanview

I am sharing some photographs of "Ice Sculptures," taken by my son Keir M. Gatzka. They were taken at the Plymouth, Michigan show over the weekend.

I used Picasa 3.9's HDR tool on each photograph, to bring out the details of each sculpture. He took many photographs so I may be sharing more in the near future. I used Irfanview to Batch convert the sizes to 75% the size of the original photographs. I still don't have a handle on all Batch conversion features in Irfanview, even these images are larger than I usually share.

Listening --- Amazon Cloud Player --- Various Songs

"Three Narrow Dress Ties" Photo-manipulation - Picasa 3.9 - Corel PSP X3

Narrow Ties 1

Narrow Ties 2

I wanted to play with photography today. I decided to take some photographs of some older narrow dress ties that I have in my closet. No, I can't remember the last time I wore these ties. The narrow tie is back in style, I think, so I thought I would work with them as subject matter.

I tied each one in a single Windsor knot style and hung them on a hanger using safety pins for the two on the outside, draping the center one from the hanger loop. I got my Canon Rebel XTi out, mounted the ties and hanger on the wall in my studio office and shot a few photographs with differing settings. I did use the flash, though the room is pretty bright.

After I took them I loaded them onto my computer and opened Picasa 3.9. I used that to browse the new folder of tie photographs.

The first photograph I selected is the one with the black signature. I opened it with Corel PhotoPaint and adjusted the saturation by 15 for more color punch. I used the Tone Curve just lightly for a bit of depth. I saved both the large file and a medium size file.

The second photograph I picked has the white signature. I used Picasa 3.9's Lomo on it and also saved the large file, resampling a medium file in PhotoPaint.

I brought the medium files into Corel PSP Pro X3 and added black borders of 25 pixels each. I played around with some of the Picture Frames but did not like the end result. I resized to 300 dpi and made to fit my blog.

Now I feel like wearing these narrow ties again. Go figure.

Listening to Acoustic Blues Guitar on Google+

"Shhhhh!" Digital Collage - CorelDRAW - PhotoPaint

Shhhhh!

Scanning fun with my Canon MP495 and various old magazines. I used pieces of advertisements and news items Icons for today's image. I created the main image in CorelDRAW using Acquire from the scanner. It was all a bit unconsciously done I just selected images that were attractive to me and placed them as I scanned.

I used the bar code maker in DRAW and that is where I placed my signature. I had grouped all the scanned pieces in DRAW and copied them to the clipboard then I opened PhotoPaint and pasted New from Clipboard into the program full size, Approximately 8"x10".

I used the wand to select lines of white and filled them with the fill tool, black. Using Papersize I added a black border, then switched to a red one to frame the completed image. I used the Tone Curve to add depth and upped the saturation by 9 for a color boost.

Listening to Blues Rock all day on Pandora

"Peacock and Paisley" Digital Collage - Corel Painter 11 - Corel PSP Pro X3

Peacock and Paisley

I opened a Photograph of some bamboo papyrus and used Corel's Painter Photo Essentials 4 Gouache painting style on it, creating the background.

I saved that file and opened it with Corel's Painter 11 where I added guitar, florea, iron textures in chalk. I browsed in Picasa 3.9 and went to a recent sampler choice of a peacock poster. I had saved that iteration now opening with Corel PhotoPaint. I added the peacock erasing and pasting with the property Subtract.

I had also picked some paisley sampler from Dover Publications, like the peacock. I added it with copy and pasted after I had used Color Replace to change the black to a burgundy Pantone color. I resized the paisley to a size corresponding to the peacock. This balanced out the composition. It almost looks like a large 69, which is the year I graduated high school, 1969. I know I'm dating myself but age in art doesn't' really matter does it.

I saved the file yet again and opened with Corel's PSP Pro X3 added the ice blue mat, drawing on the blues of the image. Then finished it off with a golden frame and my signature. One thing I have to learn is how to resize the signature in PSP, any suggestions from our readers would be appreciated. I saved the large file, resized for display here.

Listening --- mylittlebrother --- Nosedive EP on Soundcloud

"Acoustic Magazine No.6" Fake Cover Parody - Corel PhotoPaint

Acoustic Magazine No.6

I'm ill with a very bad chest cold so I won't write much today. Another one of my Acoustic Magazine parody pieces, done using Corel PhotoPaint and Picasa 3.9. Multiple scanned photographs gave me the pieces I needed to create this image. I also used a Dover Clip Art Victorian corner pedestal for the theme. I went with a grunge background.

Not Listening to anything right now - I feel Yucky! Hope you like the piece.

"Stained Glass Birds" Digital Collage and Painting - Corel Painter 11 - Corel PSP Pro X3

Stained Glass Birds

Opening Picasa 3.9 I made a collage of Flaming Pear's textured squares. I used the Neon filter on the collage and adjusted the color to a bronze like tone.

Saving the large file I opened with Corel's PhotoPaint (I resampled to a slightly smaller file size.) Browsing to my Dover Clip Art folder I found two "Stained Glass birds" images. I placed and resized them to fit the textured image.  Saving again I opened with Painter 11 and used a simple watercolor brush to paint the birds. Then I selected a Liquid Ink layer and painted the backgrounds of the bird images.

I saved the file again and opened with Corel's PSP Pro X3. There I adjusted the saturation Vibrancy and the Curves adding depth to the color. Then I added a soft mat and the simple black frame. I saved the file once more and opened with PhotoPaint.

I added my signature and resampled for display here.

Listening --- The Beatles --- Blackbird

"Cars Continued" High Contrast Photo-manipulation - Corel PhotoPaint - Picasa 3.9 - Filter Forge

High Contrast 1

High Contrast 2

Short post for this day. Here are two photographic manipulations done in Corel PhotoPaint, using Filter Forge's frames.

I first applied Local Equalization to them and then used the Tone Curve for depth of color. I framed them with a simple border in Filter Forge's frames.

I do enjoy good images of my Grandson as is evident by my last two posts. He is growing fast as they say.

I had browsed in Picasa 3.9 to the folder that contained the photographs, as this is a frequent part of my workflow on my current PC.

Listening --- The Beatles --- Yellow Submarine

"Playing With Cars" Infrared Photography - Corel PSP Pro X3

Take 1

Take 2

One of my favorite pastimes is visiting and photographing my Grandson. I took these photographs recently with my Canon Rebel XTi with the ISO set on 1600 and in Program mode. As you can see, at just short of 2 years, old he is interested in playing with Cars. The Pixar movie "Cars" is one of his favorites, he gets very excited watching it.

I opened Picasa 3.9 and went to Corel's PSP Pro X3 with both photographs. I always fit to screen and then make my adjustments. I applied the Decrease Digital Camera noise on both images first. I cropped the photographs. Then I used the Infrared feature for both. I applied the Unsharp Mask for sharpening. Then I added the film frames. Saving the large files I reopened in Corel PhotoPaint.

Here I added my signature and resampled for display. I could have used Picasa 3.9's Infrared feature but I like Corel's PSP Pro X3 a lot for image manipulations.

Listening --- The Beatles --- Baby You Can Drive my Car

"Love Is All You Need" Corel PhotoPaint - Corel PSP Pro X3

"Love Is All You Need"

I browsed in Picasa 3.9 for some Victorian style clip art. I located some in my Dover Publications folder. I began with the stylish scrolling frame as the background.

I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and added the lovers clipart then created a Duotone giving it a bronze cast. I converted back to RGB and Using Replace I added the color of a golden cast.

I browsed some more and found the image in the center. I cut it out of an advertisement using only the young man and woman. I pasted the piece and feathered it a bit, shrunk to fit the center and pasted it into the background.

I used the theme of "Love is All You Need," with the font "Newveau." That, of course, is from the Beatles song. I added my signature in brown. I saved the large file and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

There I added a Daguerreotype frame and resized for display here.

Listening --- The Beatles --- Love Is All You Need

"Yellow Burnt Guitars Steampunk Grunge" Digital Collage - Corel PhotoPaint Plus

Yellow Guitars Steampunk Grunge

Today' image is built out of a number of pieces. I started with a scratched Yellow metal paint texture from Mayang's Textures for the background. I added a quad guitar piece, which I used the Color Burn property on. Then I added some sheet music that I got from my Dover Publications Sampler folder.

I also found a scrolled Sign in the Dover Clip Art and added that using the property Multiply, enlarging it to be prominent. I went to my Leonardo folder for the Head and cut and pasted that into the piece. I added an old camera, a sausage hand cranked tool, a measuring tool and the couple at a table. These also came from my Dover Clip Art.

I added my signature and saved the large file, resampled for display here all in Corel PhotoPaint. Of course, I used Picasa 3.9 for browsing and selecting the pieces for the image.

Please feel free to read my new additions to the blog, my "About" page, which is an upgraded discussion explaining who and what I'm about. And the "My Art For Sale" page which describes how you can collect a piece of my artwork printed as a poster or on products. Thanks for your interest!

Listening --- Edward Sparks --- I Won't Go There

"It's A Mannequin" HDR Cinema - Picasa 3.9 - Corel PSP Pro X3 - Corel PhotoPaint

HDR Cinema Mannequin

Browsing in Picasa 3.9 I saw this photograph of a mannequin's face that I once had painted in Painter 8. I was the original image before I painted it. I decided to play with the image. In Picasa 3.9 I applied the HDR effect and made some adjustments to it in strength and radius. I then applied the Cinema effect which gave me this narrowly focused view of the face and it's angular features. I ended up with an Art Deco appearance to the piece.

I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and resized it to a larger size then used a film frame and then the ornate frame features on it. I saved the large file and opened with Corel PhotoPaint. Here I added my signature and used the Tone Curve just a bit for depth. I resampled the image to display here on the blog.

I really like Picasa 3.9's newer features and it makes it simpler to get a good HDR effect, as well as other effects. I did find out that as long as my external drive is connected I can add the My Pictures folder to be searched by Picasa and it would add all my saved photographs and images. I don't leave the external drive connected at all time so I have not done this as of yet. But it is a possibility to do so.

Listening --- Guess Who --- She's Come Undone

"Acoustic Magazine No.5" Fake Cover - Corel PhotoPaint - Picasa 3.9

Acoustic Magazine No.5

Yesterday I worked on this piece. "Acoustic Magazine No.5," is another parody of a faked magazine cover. It is essentially a Digital Collage that pretends to be a magazine cover. I browsed in Picasa 3.9 to my Mayang's Textures folder for a background texture. I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and began browsing for more pieces to make up this cover.

I used scanned in images from my Canon MP495 All in One. On the background I used the Tone Curve for depth and a bit of increased saturation. I copied, pasted, erased and placed the images. I gave the main guitar player Elvis Costello like glasses and eyes and added the shoulders to the arms and guitar.

I used bright colors as accents to the blue in the background for my text boxes. I used the fonts Bleeding Cowboys, and Arial, as well as one I believe was Avantgarde MdBt. I centered by eye and dragged the text to fit the box sizes for a elongated style.

Listening --- Otis Taylor --- Mexican Cowboy

"Art Nouveau Grunge" Digital Collage - Corel PhotoPaint - Filter Forge - Dover Clip Art

Art Nouveau Grunge

Earlier today in my workflow and posting. Using Picasa 3.9 I browsed to my Dover Publications Sampler folder and looked for some Art Nouveau clip art. I found a great floral background and opened with Corel PhotoPaint. I adjusted the size by increasing to 128dpi and used that for the background.

I browsed some more and found a couple of pieces, one of a woman's face in a circular style, and the second an embellishment, both Art Nouveau. I copied and pasted them and used the property Multiply on them for transparency. Then I applied Replace Color on both using a purplish or puce color.

Before I merged them I applied Filter Forge's Photo Effect Grunge variation changing some of the settings to enhance the stain, lessen the grunge. I merged all pieces and added my signature. I saved this large file and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

Here I added a wooden like mat and the golden frame using the Picture Frame feature. I saved that iteration and then resized it in PSP for display here.

Listening --- Rusty Truck --- Cold Ground

"Oriental Grunge" Digital Collage - Corel PhotoPaint - Dover Clip Art

Oriental Grunge

Late in the day, I love this floral grunge piece I used for the background. I opened with Corel's PhotoPaint and built this "Oriental Grunge," Digital Collage. After selecting the background I browsed my Dover Publication's Sampler folder in Picasa 3.9. I found the pieces you see here.

I cut out the woman from an image and pasted her after using the Tone Curve and boosting the color saturation of her. I also found the large plant like piece which offsets the woman. I applied the property Subtract to that and placed it in the collage.

I found another oriental lady and placed it as a "picture on the wall." I then, still using Dover Clip Art placed the scrolling frame. I put a black border using Papersize, centering it around the image.

Oh, yes, I must mention I did my clean up of my Hard Drive, making certain I kept the image folders I wanted for such a work as today. Textures, Clip Art, and some other items for inspiration. I saved all the photographs and images on my external Hard Drive and still have them for use if so required, but I regained a good amount of storage back on my work PC's Drive.

My workflow will alter a little to accommodate this change. Now if I can figure a way to have Picasa browse my external Drive, hmmm.

Listening --- Freddy Jones Band --- Better Tomorrow