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Friday, March 28, 2014

"Woman's Profile Grunge" Corel

Woman's Profile Grunge


I was invited to download another Free StockVault Portrait of a Woman's Profile. I saved the large file and opened it with Corel PhotoPaint. I still have some Grunge Rust Textures from the Free Friday Textures downloads, I selected one with a lot of gray in it along with rust. I opened that in PhotoPaint as well.

On the Woman's Profile I applied the Local Equalization tool, then I took the wand tool and selected a large area of her hair. I created an object of it and then deleted it from the layer, this allowed the Rust Texture to show through in her hair. I fit the Profile to fit the full Texture. I used the Tone Curve to up the color depth. Then I saved the large iteration.

I next resampled for display size, and saved that. I closed PhotoPaint and opened the medium file with Corel PSP Pro X3. There I applied Saturation Vibrancy at 50 for more punch to the colors. I added Image Information, Title and Copyright, Programs used, etc. I also gave it a black border and saved that iteration.

I see that Corel is offering another upgrade to it's CorelDRAW Graphic Suite X7. The new version is unfortunately cost prohibitive for me (fixed income.) But I highly recommend Corel Products for the Windows based Graphics environment. Full Featured Corel products like CorelDRAW and PhotoPaint are great tools and lower in price than other Graphics programs out there.

Find it here: http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod5190074

Monday, March 24, 2014

"Rust Grunge Practicing Electric Guitar" Corel

Practicing Electric Guitar Grunge Rust


I dug through some of my photographs and I got this one today from my External HDD. An Electric Guitar Player Practicing. I opened in Corel PhotoPaint and then selected a Rust Grunge Texture for This image.

Similar to a recent image, I took the photograph and after flipping it to face the opposite side, I applied the Adjust, Threshold to it, upping the white space considerably. I then opened a large Grunge Rust file and set and placed the Guitarist on the rust. I applied the property Multiply and the transparency allowed the rust to show through.

I saved that iteration, after applying my signature in white. I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3. Now I adjusted the Saturation Vibrancy to add punch to the colors. I added Image Information, Title, Copyright, Programs used, etc.

I then resized the image for display. I added a Daguerreotype Frame and I also added a Black border to set the image off. I saved that file and began to blog.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

"In The Plus Ft. Chuck Johnson" Corel

+In the Plus Ft. Chuck Johnson


Today I reviewed some videos from Google+ In The Plus. I listened to interviews and music presented. I took a Screen Capture of Chuck Johnson as he performed. I opened in Corel PhotoPaint via New from Clipboard. There I cropped out all extraneous background. I took the resulting image and worked on it.

I applied the Local Equalization and then added color depth with the Tone Curve. I applied Filter Forge's Photo Effect Vibrancy to boost the color. I resampled the image to enlarge it a bit. I saved that iteration.

I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 and added Image Information, Title, Copyright, Programs used, etc. I also used the Depth of Field lasso to focus on the Singer/Songwrite. I boosted the color again with the Saturation Vibrancy in PSP Pro X3.

I added a frame and black border to the piece, and saved again. Here is the info for the show on YouTube.

In The Plus ft. Chuck Johnson @ Scratch Track Studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsahVtz8OKc&list=PLeWxvAjGbdfeow8a56OwYFODD8ZRSuplo

This link may include other performers +InThePlus featured. Enjoy the Interviews and the great Indie Music.


Friday, March 21, 2014

"Grunge Young Lady Portrait" Corel

Grunge Young Lady Portrait


I have been on hiatus for a period of time, not doing too much creatively, unfortunately. So I got this photograph of my Daughter, prior to marriage, and scanned it into Corel PhotoPaint. I was determined to share a post today!

I resampled the cropped photograph to a larger size. Then I applied the Adjust, Transform, Threshold to it for some white areas. I adjusted the threshold to show her face fairly well.

I took one of the stone textures from the Free Texture site I have used before. I opened that and fit to screen. Going back to the photograph I copied it and then pasted and resized on the texture image. I altered the property to Multiply and this allowed the texture to show through. It gave a grunge appearance to the piece.

I cropped again, and used New File from Clipboard copy. This gave me the image I was striving for. I added my signature and copyright in white, using invert on my signature file.

Using Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrancy on the image to add some punch to the colors. I saved that large iteration. I resampled for display.

The T-shirt, though hard to read says, "Brunettes Actually Have More Fun." The whole image turned out well in my humble opinion.

Friday, March 14, 2014

"Grunge Rust Texture Man Portrait" Corel

Grunge Rust Texture Man Portrait


A short post for today. I was able to get a free Portrait of a Man from StockVault. I also used a Free Texture from the TextureVault blog. I opened both in Corel PhotoPaint. I applied the Threshold tool to the Portrait. Then I used the Rust Texture and opacity for transparency. So you get the full impact of the Portrait and the impression of the Rust Texture. I added a small black border to the image and saved the large iteration.

I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 where I added a layer of my signature. I merged both and saved with Image Information; Title, Copyright, source materials, etc. I then resized for display here.


Monday, March 10, 2014

"Grunge Golden Eyed Woman Portrait" Corel

Grunge Golden Eyed Woman Portrait


I started with a Free Texture background from the web and added two other images. From Stockvault's Free Images I took the Golden Eyes Woman's Portrait. In Corel PhotoPaint I overlay the Portrait as a layer. I adjusted the Local Equalization and the Tone Curve to create contrasting color values and more texture. I adjusted the Opacity of the Portrait to allow the beginning texture to show through.

Searching my Dover Publication' Samplers I found a Score of Music and copied and pasted and fit to size on the merged grayscale Texture and color Portrait. I then used Effects, Distort, Wire Mesh to make the Music Score to flow over the Portrait. I applied the property of Multiply to the Music for transparency. I saved that 300dpi iteration.

I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the Saturation Vibrancy tool to boost the colors. I added my signature as a black and white layer fit to size, then applied the property Lighten to hide the black, for transparency.

I added Image Information Title, Copyright, etc to the image, saved it again, then I resized for display with a black border.

I want to thank StockVault and the Free Texture blog, as well as Dover Publications, for the images used to create today's piece.



Tuesday, March 4, 2014

"Woman Portrait with Earrings and Necklace" Corel

Woman Portrait with Earrings and Necklace


Today's image is another Colored Pencils Freehand Drawing treated Digitally. I scanned in the Woman's Portrait and also the Jewelry Sketches last night with my Canon MP495.

I opened them in Corel PhotoPaint and cut out the Jewelry pieces (also designed by myself) and copied and pasted them onto the Portrait. I used the Tone Curve to deepen the colors of the Colored Pencils. I also resized the Jewelry pieces and rotated them to fit as Earrings and Necklace. I saved the large 300dpi image to disk.

I opened in Corel Painter 11 and added a watercolor background in Yellow and Green. It brightened up the entire image. I had selected the green from the eyes. I then selected a Blender Brush and blended some of the Hair and the Face and Shoulders. I merged the layers with Drop All and saved the large iteration.

Back in PhotoPaint I added my signature and saved the large image again. The finished image still had some paper texture from the scan.

I opened this file in Corel PSP Pro X3 and boosted the colors with Saturation Vibrancy. I saved the large iteration with a new name and then resized for display.

My background in Jewelry design goes back to High School pre-1969. I designed a number of pieces and cast one with silver, a ring. I did these designs in today's image circa 2005.