"Digital Collage How To: Lighthouse with Slight Murmuration of Birds " Corel

Lighthouse with Slight Murmuration of Birds

I started this Digital Collage with three photographs from Unsplash Free Photos. I opened them one by one in Corel PSP Pro X3 and began the collage.

First I took the two photographs of Flying Birds and used the Crop tool on them to narrow in on the birds themselves. I applied the Threshold tool to each one, this made for black and white images to overlay. I placed the first one and sized to fit the Lighthouse Sky. I used the layer property Multiply and merged the layer. I did the same with the second birds image. This gave me a small murmuration of black birds. I merged the second layer of birds. I added my signature layer with the property Multiply as well, and merged all layers.

Still in PSP Pro X3 I applied the Smart Photo Fix with increased color, decreased shadows and highlights. I then applied the Saturation Vibrancy for a pop to the colors. I changed the image to a 16 bit RGB and Exported it as a JPG. I saved that large iteration with a light compression ratio. The higher I set the ratio the more pixelated the image became. So, I lowered it making for a larger file size. All this before re-sizing for display.

The download of the Lighthouse did not give it's location, and I am not certain where the original photograph was taken. Like many, I like Lighthouses as I live in the Great Lakes Area, and we have many of them throughout the State of Michigan.

"Gilded Butterfly Woman Portrait Lomography" Corel

Gilded Butterfly Woman Portrait

I was listening to some unusual Blues Music from the New York Times article about Elvie Thomas. Great old and mysterious Blues.

I was drawn to this Vintage Paper Texture from StockVault and I added a Woman's Portrait in Corel PhotoPaint. I flipped and cropped the Woman to fit the Texture. I also used the Threshold tool on it for transparency.

I went to my Dover Publications Samplers and selected a Butterfly coloring page and added it. I fitted it to the portrait making it an oval instead of a circle.

I merged the three layers, and went to Filter Forge's Photo Effect Lomography settings and played around with the settings. I found one I liked and applied it to the full image. I added my signature in white and saved that large iteration.

I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and upped the Saturation Vibrancy by 33. Then I added Image Information: Title, Programs used, Source, etc. Saving that I resized for display here.

"Journey Through My Journals Continues" Corel, Canon

Freehand Young Lady Pencil Drawing

Three Freehand Faces on Colored Paper

Stone Village Evergreen Trees Printout

I keep finding differing images in my Journals. I have a Portrait of a Young Lady, done freehand in Pencil to share. Scanned in with my Canon MP495. I also have Three Freehand Faces on Colored Paper, the paper being dark red but the scan went pink on me, go figure scanners and settings. The last one is a photograph of Evergreen Trees taken at the Stone Village in Jackson, Michigan, years ago.

I used Corel PhotoPaint and Corel PSP Pro X3 for these. I did some slight adjustments for clarity. I am enjoying this trip through my Journals and am constantly surprised at what I find. I had completely forgotten the Freehand Pencil Drawing of the Young Lady. I was glad I found it again to share. Such a simple exercise in drawing, and such a nice result, in my humble opinion.

After some adjustments I had done to these cropped images (cropped during scanning,) I saved the large iterations after adding some Image Information in PSP Pro X3. Then I resized them for display.

Notice anything different? No 2013 Signature, These were done circa the 80's and 90's. I would not care if anyone shared them. But would request that credit be given to me as the Artist, thank you.

"Grunge Bird of Paradise - Oil Pastels" Corel - Filter Forge

Grunge Bird of Paradise - Oil Pastels

Another Journal image I located, I did this freehand drawing, a fictional "Bird of Paradise in Oil Pastels." I took the scanned in image and cropped it in Corel PhotoPaint. I opened Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrancy and boosted the colors a bit.

I then used Photo Effects Grunge tool to add some texture and a grunge frame. I added my signature and saved that larger iteration. I then opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and added Image Information, Title, Artist, Copyright, etc.

I resized for display here.

"2013 Detroit Metro Woodward Ave Dream Cruise II" Paint.NET - Corel PSP Pro X3 - PhotoPaint

1957 Chevy Bel Air

Vintage Chevy Pickup Truck

Vintage Custom Carmel and Brown

I opened Picasa 3.9 browsing to my Dream Cruise Car folder. I selected my next Photograph, a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. Cropping it I focused upon the Chevy, I saved that crop. I then opened with Paint.NET where I applied the Effects Artistic Ink Sketch with full color and lessening the Ink pen.

I upped the Saturation and I Sharpened the image a bit. I then saved it again. I reopened with Corel PhotoPaint. Using the KPT Collection's Lens Flare to add a flare touch. I Inverted my signature to white and added it and saved the large iteration.

I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and I Sharpened with High Pass Sharpen. I also added the title and copyright to the EXIF image information using Image, Image Information.

My next photograph, Vintage Chevy Pickup Truck, I opened in Picasa and applied the HDR tool. I decreased the Radius and Strength. I saved that iteration and opened with PSP Pro X3. I applied the Digital Camera Noise Removal. Then I used the High Pass Sharpen tool on the image. I increased the Saturation by a third. I added my signature with Visible Watermark tool.

From the Organizer in PSP Pro X3 I next chose a close up of a Carmel and Brown Coupe, of which I know little. I cropped this as I took the photograph because the owner had a McCafe cup on top of the roof. But I really liked the Harley Davidson Eagle parking lights.

I used the Digital Camera Noise Removal, Smart Photo Fix, and High Pass Sharpen on the image. Then I applied the Saturation Vibrancy for a punch to the color.

I hope you enjoy the photographic images I have from the 2013 Dream Cruise. I have more to post and will be away from the Guitar motif for a while yet. Thanks for looking! Remember to click on the images for a larger view!

"In The Spotlight" with Christina Cecrle Picasa - Corel

"In The Spotlight" with Christina Cecrle

"In The Spotlight" with Christina Cecrle

Hosted by +Artists In The Plus Interview by +John Voshell

Full Screen Capture in Picasa 3.9 as .BMP converted to .JPG

1. Cropped
2. Warmify
3. HDR
4. Lomo
5. Museum Matte
6. Signature added in Corel PSP Pro X3

Wonderful show you may have missed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voIZD0Phg4w#at=78

"Artists In The Plus 'Studio Sessions' Myrna Braza" Corel - Plus

Myrna Braza Artists In the Plus

I was not able to watch the Live HOA on Google+, but I caught the show on YouTube. I did a full screen capture of the band playing and Myrna Braza singing.

I took the clip into Corel PhotoPaint and cropped it then saved it to my first iteration. I used Picasa 3.9 to Warmify and also applied the HDR tool there. I saved again and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

In PSP Pro I applied the Skin Smoothing and a slight Soften to the image. I also adjusted the Saturation and the Lightness  in PSP Pro. I applied the lighting Effects Color Balance Fluorescent Standalone. I added my signature with the Visible Watermark and Resized the image to 300 pixels 1220 x 633. I saved that iteration for display. Before I displayed I added a Museum Matte and frame in Picasa saved and displayed.

Thanks to +Artists In The Plus +John Voshell and of course +Myrna Braza and her fabulous band!

If you missed the show here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr14zavPZ4E

"Let's Talk About Music with 'Tom Baillies' as Guest" Picasa - Corel - Plus

Tom Baillies Playing his Dobro

I watched the YouTube version of "Let's Talk About Music with 'Tom Baillies' as Guest" Tom was playing his Dobro guitar and played some slide style as well as sang. It's his guitar of choice for song writing.

I opened Picasa 3.9 and did a screen capture. From there I cropped the image manually in Picasa. I applied the Warmify feature for color.

I used the HDR feature for effect, and then applied the Lomo tool. I then looked at Cross Processing but did not like that so I reversed it to the Lomo image. I then selected the Museum Matte frame and altered the matte color to a warmer color.

I saved the file and opened with Corel PhotoPaint and added my signature saving again.

Here is the link to the YouTube HOA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_yWcd-jOok&feature=c4-feed-u

A fine show!

"SXSW Wheeler Brothers and In The Spotlight with Frank Palangi" Picasa 3.9

SXSW Wheeler Brothers

Singer Songwriter Frank Palangi

These images are both from Google+ Hangouts On Air. I was able to watch the YouTube streamed videos and screen capture them.

I used Picasa 3.9 to capture them and convert from BMP format to JPG. I also used Picasa's: Cropping tool; the Warmify tool and the HDR tool on each image. I then added the frames with the Museum Matte feature again in Picasa. So I kept my workflow easy and right in Picasa 3.9.

Here is the link to the Wheeler Brothers:

http://wheelerbrothersmusic.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyranENx9k

Here is the YouTube selection of Frank Palangi "In the Spotlight" with +Artists In the Plus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bFZbmbClbXo

You can find Frank on Google+ and Facebook.

"Woman Playing Violin" Corel - Plus

Woman Playing Violin

I received some new Dover Publications Clip Art today. This image of a woman violin player struck me with it's flowing lines. I selected a Mayang's Texture in Picasa and I opened it in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it with the Simple Watercolor setting, Rough Paper, and stopped it before it finished. Saving the background I opened Corel PhotoPaint.

I copied and pasted New from Clipboard the simple watercolor. Using the rectangle selection tool I moved the background to a position where I liked the colors and brushstrokes. I cropped that and opened as a new file. I rotated it ninety degrees to a portrait setting.

I when to my Dover Clip Art folder in Picasa and opened the image of the Woman Playing Violin and copied and pasted it onto the painted background. I resized it to fit and used the property Color Burn on it for transparency.

Back to Picasa I selected another piece of Clip Art of music. I cropped to just a portion of the beginning score. Copied it and pasted onto the background, used the Color Burn and resized to fit in PhotoPaint.

I then looked for a Flourish symbol in Dover Clip Art. I copied and pasted that onto the picture. I rotated it to flow horizontally and also placed with Color Burn.

I then merged all and saved the file. I added my signature inverted to white, to the image. Saved that with a new name.

"LIZZY SPIT goes "Into The Plus" East Coast USA" Picasa - Corel

Singer Songwriter Lizzy Spit

I watched " +LIZZY SPIT  goes "Into The Plus" East Coast USA" on the YouTube stream and the show was Pleasant and delightful! Lizzy is a Singer Songwriter and does a marvelous job of performing. Lovely vocals and good accompaniment on guitar. Enjoyed it very much. The show was hosted by +Artists In The Plus .

I took a screen capture from the show with Picasa 3.9 and I used it to crop the image. I applied the Warmify tool and then used the HDR tool as well. I framed and matted it with Museum Matte tool adjusting the color and size.

I saved that file and opened with Corel PhotoPaint. I did a bit of cloning out artifacts and I added my signature, inverted to white.

Here is the link to the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsNrCw43edo

Here is Lizzy's blog:

http://iamlizzyspit.wordpress.com/

"Digital Abstract in Red and Yellow" Corel Painter - Plus

Digital Abstract in Red and Yellow

I took a photograph of some colored glass objects and played around with them to create this image. I first opened it with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it using a Modern Painting setting. It resulted in a large digital file that I wanted to mush and warp.

After saving it I opened in Corel Painter 11 and applied the Effect, Blobs to it. This gave me the white spaces on the image. I painted upon it with Amazonia brushes I had gotten from PainterTalk's forum a while ago before Painter 12.1 came out. I wanted to do more so I used the Warp tool to smear the paint in multiple ways. And the Quick Warp tool also. I added texture to it by using the Apply Surface Texture, Image Luminance and then using a differing light source I applied the Paper texture to it. The resulting image was very large. I saved the large iteration.

I reopened with Corel PhotoPaint and I moved the painting around till I found the colors and brushstrokes, texture that I liked. I cropped out a piece of the larger image. Not satisfied yet I rotated the image 90 degrees to a portrait position. I did add my signature here.

Saving that I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and added Vibrancy to the colors with the Saturation tools. I finished by adding the golden frame and resizing for display.I don't do abstracts very often but sometimes they just feel right!

"Guess the Artists In The Plus" Corel - Picasa 3.9 - Plus

Five Artists in the Plus Performers

Today is a guessing game image. I have five +Artists In The Plus  performers in my Digital Collage. You can guess who is whom and make comments below if you recognize any of them. The face recognition tool could not pick them out at all!

Take your best guesses by looking at the larger image on the blog gatzkART! To make this Digital Collage I followed the workflow described below.

I grabbed one of my Mayang's Textures this afternoon and opened it. Using Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 I auto painted the background texture. I saved that large file and opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the Smart Photo Fix on it and rotated it to Portrait. I saved that iteration.

From Picasa 3.9 I opened the file in Corel PhotoPaint. Then while in Picasa I went to my folder of screen captures of Artists In The Plus performers. In Picasa I cropped, used the Warmify and HDR tools. I then applied the Pencil drawing tool to each of the performers images.

I did each one individually, and copied and pasted onto the background in PhotoPaint. Then I sized them to fit, placed them in no order of importance. Using the property Multiply I made them transparent, except the pencil sketches. I merged them after I was happy with the composition and placements. I saved that iteration.

I used the plugins from Filter Forge Photo Effects for Vibrancy and using Frames I added a Grunge frame to the image. I inverted my signature to white from black and added it to the large file.

I saved that, then I opened in PSP Pro X3 and resized to display size for the blog.

Take your best guesses and comment on Google+ or my blog page. Pluses and Shares are welcome.

"Concerts In The Plus!" Shani, Brent Michelle, Devyn Rush - Corel and Picasa - Plus

Singer Songwriter Shani

Singer Songwriter Brent Michelle

Singer Songwriter Devyn Rush and Andrew

I watched the "Concerts In The Plus featuring Shani, Brent Michelle, and Devyn Rush" Curated by +Artists In The Plus  on Google+ Hang Outs on Air on YouTube today.
I missed the live show but having it available on YouTube made it accessible later. John Voshell's +John Voshell 's Channel, from Artists in the Plus is making these Concerts available to watch later if you miss them live.

The show was incredible and each performer sang their songs, each one a singer songwriter in their own right. You can click on the link below for the entire concert.

I took screen captures of each performer and between Picasa 3.9's tools and Corel PSP Pro X3 as well as Corel PhotoPaint I adjusted each capture in various ways.

First I would crop in Picasa and then adjust the brightness and contrast also. I might apply the HDR-ish tool (which I did for two of the images.) Then apply the frame and mat tool in Picasa as well.

I used PSP for Saturation Vibrancy and Skin Softening on one image. But did the most work in Picasa. I did some cloning out in Corel PhotoPaint and added my signature in each there as well.

Shani's website:

http://shanirose.com

Brent Michelle's site:

http://www.brentmichelle.com/

Devyn Rush's site:

http://www.devynrush.com/

The Concerts In The Plus is to be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_HyLKsV2vTQ

Tune into the Concert and enjoy!

"Diesel the Min-Pin HDR Experiment" Corel - Plus

Diesel the Min-Pin

I recently took a photograph of my Son's dog, Diesel, that is a Min-Pin. He's about four years old, and is at his full grown size, which is small. He is a great cuddler and is a food driven dog.

I opened the photograph taken with my Canon Rebel XTi and cropped it. I then saved the cropped image. I reopened from Picasa 3.9 with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and painted it using the Impressionist setting, Rough paper, and the Watercolor brush. I saved that iteration after a bit of touch up with the Soft Cloner brush.

I opened it with Corel PSP Pro X3 and tried an experiment. I used the HDR tool to load two photographs, one painted the other not. Using the HDR tool I aligned both images and output the HDR result you see.

I saved that and added the Picture Frame in PSP Pro X3. Saving that I opened with Corel PhotoPaint to add my signature. It turned out to be a decent image of little Deese. Detailed but having that painterly look and feel.

"Lisa Marshall In the Spotlight" Artists in the Plus - CorelDRAW - Plus

Lisa Marshall

I was able to attend the Artists in the Plus "In the Spotlight" the other night on a Google+ Hangout on Air. I viewed it from YouTube live stream. The Guest was +Lisa Marshall , and she was not only interesting in her background but amazing in her singing and guitar.

Her singing was like a silver throated Janis Joplin. Punching out emotion and soul. I truly enjoyed her performing. Her guitar playing was strong and punctuated her songs with rhythm and great accompaniment.

Using Picasa 3.9 I took a few screen captures to work with and decided to join two images together. I opened Corel PhotoPaint to crop the images and then unified them to size in CorelDRAW. In DRAW I converted to bitmap and Traced to a Vector image with CorelTRACE. I was able to copy to the clipboard the traced image and in PhotoPaint I opened with New from Clipboard.

I saved the large bitmap file with the Vector artifacts to disk. I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and punched up the color with Saturation Vibrancy. I did that after I applied the Smart Photo Fix. I applied the Polaroid frame and a black border in PSP Pro X3.

I added my signature in PhotoPaint and resampled for display size there.

Here are some links to the show and Lisa's website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU9a6_khnz8 hosted by Artist in the Plus +John Voshell

http://lisamarshallmusic.com/

If you haven't tried a Hangout On Air yet on Google+ try one out by joining Google+ through your Gmail email address, you will be glad you did.

"More Old Times Montage" Quadtone Corel PhotoPaint

More Old Times Montage

Another Picasa 3.9 Montage using the Picture collage creator. I scanned in these old times photographs into Corel PhotoPaint and created blue Quadtones out of them using the Duotones settings loading a Quadtone blue color set.

In Picasa I used the Collage creator and made them superimposed upon one another. These are old photographs from our surrounding area here in Michigan. I saved each scan individually, making them Quadtones prior to Montaging them. I used the Tone Curve in PhotoPaint to give depth to the color, after I changed their mode to RGB images.

I used Filter Forge Frames film frame on the finished display sized piece. I enjoyed using these photographs of times almost forgotten circa 1900. I especially liked the school portrait that seems to dominate this piece.

"We Sing Karaoke" Corel - Plus

We Sing Karaoke [click for larger view]

A change of pace for me today. We had gone to a Graduation Party last summer and they had Karaoke there. Both my wife and I sang some songs together. One of our friends took photographs with my Canon Rebel XTi of us singing.

I browsed in Picasa 3.9 to that folder and found those photographs. I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and I cropped the photograph to a portrait size. I applied my PSP workflow of the Digital Camera Noise Removal, Smart Photo Fix, and Unsharp Mask soft focus. I also boosted the color with Saturation Vibrancy.

Saving that iteration, I opened in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and applied the Watercolor Sketch setting with the Wash brush. Auto painted, I took the Soft Cloner brush and added back in some detail to the faces and hands. Saving that I reopened in PSP Pro X3 and added the Ornate Picture Frame, and my signature. I resized to a display size for here.

I may not be a performer of my own music but I do enjoy some Karaoke once in a while. Other songwriters songs and lyrics and melodies are some how easier to sing than my own works. So we had an enjoyable time with friends.

"In the Spotlight with Tim Behrens" Corel - Plus

Tim Behrens In the Spotlight [click for larger view]

I watched the "In the Spotlight with Tim Behrens" on YouTube and made some screen captures with Picasa 3.9 of his performance. This show is put on by +Artists in the Plus as a Google+ Hangout and streamed to YouTube for viewing after.

The interview was as full of information about Tim's many activities and, of course, his music. He is an accomplished guitarist and pianist, as well as experimenting with Tech gear. His songwriting expertise was featured as he played to the Google+ Hangout audience.

I took one of the screen captures and opened it in Corel PhotoPaint where I cropped it and save as a working jpg file. I reopened from Picasa with Corel PSP Pro X3 and resized the file to a larger work file.

I applied the Digital Camera Noise Removal and the Smart Photo Fix tools to prep the image. I added some Vibrancy with Saturation boosting the colors about a third. Saving that iteration I opened with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and used the Classic Oil setting with Canvas paper. I auto painted the image. Then I used the Image Luminance to add in Surface Texture. I saved that iteration and from Picasa reopened with PSP Pro X3 and added my signature and a jagged edge to the image. Finishing it off with a black border.

If you would like more information and/or to watch the show here are the links:

http://timbehrens.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob6Qq3Bbe3g

"Singer Songwriter Deni Gauthier" Corel PSP Pro X3 - Plus

Singer Songwriter Deni Gauthier

Yet another Artists in the Plus "In the Spotlight" Interview and Singing with Deni Gauthier A Singer Songwriter, caught my interest. I did a screen capture of Deni performing and opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 where I cropped it. I also used the Digital Camera Noise Removal and Smart Photo Fix on the image.

I then saved that large image and opened with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4. There I applied the Detailed Watercolor auto paint with settings for Rough Paper, and the Impressionistic Brush.

I used the Soft Cloner to bring back some details in the face. I saved that and through Picasa 3.9 opened with Corel PhotoPaint and did some free-form cloning to rid the image of artifacts. Saving that iteration I opened with PSP Pro X3 again.

There I added the Polaroid frame and a black border and saved once more at a display size.

992nd Post for gatzkART! Please continue to come back for our almost daily posts as we reach for that goal of 1,000 posts!

http://www.denigauthier.com
http://www.facebook.com/denigauthier