"How To: Dead Branch and Abandoned House" PE5 Plus

Dead Branch and Abandoned House

Pretty much done with my Pathways Series, I perused Morguefile for some interesting photographs. This particular one caught my eye. "Dead Branch and Abandoned House," looked very intriguing. I downloaded it giving it a new name for my file searches. I created a New Folder for more of my new works, including this one.

I opened the large file in Painter Essentials 5 (PE5) and first I applied the Effects, Equalize to lighten some of the colorings, knowing that I would add depth later. I saved that iteration. I selected Use Open Image to select it for painting. My Choice was the Watercolor Sketch (one of my favorites in PE5.)

I went to the Photo Painting Brushes and selected the New Simple Water Brush, and auto painted the image. I then selected the Soft Cloner Photo Painting Brush to add back in some of the Dead Branch Details. I saved the large file again with a new name.

I used Corel PhotoPaint for a few adjustments. I applied the Image, Tone Curve lightening the depth of color. I opened my signature file copied it to the clipboard and layered it onto the main painting. I sized and placed the signature using the property Add for transparency. I saved the large file once again.

I used Resample to make the piece ready for display. 72dpi, 1220 X 813 pixels with Anti-alias and Maintain Aspect Ratio to keep the picture clear.

I decided to punch up the colors and add a frame like look to the piece. I selected the plugin Filter Forges Photo Effects. Here I used the Lomo effect lightly to add some interest to the final display image. This darkened the colors and added a vignette to the image.