"How This was Done: Digital Watercolor Woman's Portrait"

Digital Watercolor Woman's Portrait

Grabbing a Woman's Portrait from Unsplash Free Photos I began adjusting it in Picasa 3+. I applied the Ortonish tool and was surprised to find a Textured, Vignetted, image. I saved that Large piece and opened it in Corel Painter Essentials 5.

There I selected the Detailed Watercolor setting, Rough Paper, Digital Watercolor Broad Brush, and painted it. I saved that iteration. I loaded it into Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I applied the Curves to add depth to the colors, also ran the Saturation Vibrancy at 33 on the image.

In PSP Pro X3 I loaded a Watercolor Paper from Stockvault's Friday Freebies, which happened to be the same size and portrait shape as the Digitally Painted Woman's Portrait. I copied the Portrait to the clipboard and Pasted as a New Layer to the Watercolor Paper. I had adjusted the Watercolor Paper with Curves as well, more depth to the color. I selected the Portrait and applied the Property Multiply to it. This allowed the Paper to show through with some transparency on the Portrait.

I opened my Signature file and copied and pasted as a New Layer to the two other layers. I sized and placed the signature, applying the property Multiply for transparency. I merged all Layers to one. Still in PSP Pro X3 I selected Image, Picture Frames, and picked a Rose colored frame with the setting outside the picture. I merged that as well.

I saved the Large iteration, then resized for display a 300dpi RGB 8 bit JPG.

"Tablet" PicsArt

Quick update on the blog, I am not feeling well. I hope to post more information and art soon.

Working on a new song,  two actually.  One is CDBaby bound. The other is very long, eight minutes.

Watch this blog for updates.

"Digital Watercolor Homeless Man Four" Corel Painter

Homeless Man Four

I garnered another Homeless Man Portrait from Morguefile and did a Digital Watercolor of it. I opened it in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and applied the Watercolor Sketch tool to it. This auto painted the grayscale image into a sketch to paint with color.

I saved the painting and opened it with Corel Painter 11. There I applied the Flesh tones I wanted to the face. I selected from a colorful palette of flesh tones appended. I added the white in the eyes and beard using a Gouache brush, and painted the knit hat with a version of it as well.

I saved the large iteration and reopened in Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I adjusted it with the Smart Photo Fix, which brightened it up a bit. I made the colors bolder by Increasing the Saturation Vibrancy. I added my signature. Saved again, then resized for display.

My efforts in digital painting are much like using Corel Painter and PhotoShop to arrive at a satisfying image. Although I don't have the most current versions of some of my programs, they still work well in Windows 7 as 32 bit programs. I happily paint away and adjust at will with my current arsenal of Corel Products, I would recommend Corel Painter 2015 as it is a good step up from Painter 11.

I have been a Painter user since its Fractal Design days and highly recommend it to those Photographers who want to learn how to digitally paint their art. A Wacom Tablet is highly recommended as well. They have pressure sensitivity and act like real world brushes. A tablet with a stylus is really needed to paint digitally.

"Garden Lady Colored Pencils" Corel - Canon

Garden Lady Colored Pencils

My son was rearranging a closet for us and found a case with some of my older Freehand Drawings and Paintings. "Garden Lady," is one of those. I got out my Canon Rebel XTi and took some photographs of the artworks. This one is the first one I worked on for display here.

I copied my Medium sized photographs to the Hard Drive and viewed them, deleting a few that were very poor quality (operator error.) I opened "Garden Lady," in Corel PSP Pro X3. I did some cropping, and used Saturation Vibrancy and Color Curves on the photograph. I imported my signature PNG file, which unfortunately it had some pixelization to it.

I added a Polaroid frame and a border to the image. I saved the iteration with Image Information including Copyright, Title, Artist. I then resized for sharing here.

I have a few other images to share in subsequent posts.

"Pucker 1 - Freehand Young Woman" Corel, Canon

Pucker 1

Found images are so much fun sometimes! Here is a "Young Woman With Puckered Lips," ready to give a kiss to someone. Who? I don't know, he is not the subject of the image. I did this circa 1990's and scanned it in with my Canon MP495 into Corel PhotoPaint. I adjusted the Tone Curve for depth and added my signature and saved the large iteration.

I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3, using Saturation Vibrancy on it for a boost to the colors. I saved with Image Information that iteration. Then I resized it for display.

This was a fictional gal, done freehand with Pencil, Pen and Ink and Pastel Pencil. I am glad I ran across her sitting loosely in my files and not still in a Journal. A delightful subject.

"1,150th Post - Retrospective of my Digital Visual Artworks!"

Mr. E. Beatle

Laurie Eskimo

Perceive

Abstract Digital Visual Art

Freehand Circa 1995 Scanned 

These images will complete my Current Retrospective of Archived Digital Visual Artworks. I have shared from 1987 up to circa 1999 images from the archives I rediscovered recently.

All were done with some digital painting or manipulation of some sort. The processes used then are in most cases are not remembered. Some begin as photographs, some freehand drawings scanned in using various scanners.

I am certain I still use some of these processes, but with different programs and different computers come differing styles and images.

I hope that some of you have enjoyed the Retrospective of my Digital Visual Artworks!

Also this is my 1,150th Post to gatzkART! and we are rapidly approaching 121,000 plus Pageviews, a feat that brings excitement to my small offerings on the Internet.

"Red Chair HDR Lomo" Picasa 3.9 - Corel

Red Chair

Scanning through my external archives I ran across this photograph of a Red Chair taken in a retail store. I opened it in Picasa 3.9 and close cropped it of extraneous information that added little to the composition. I liked the experimental angle the photograph was taken at.

I next applied Picasa's HDR feature, adjusting the strength and radius. I then added the Lomo feature for more depth and shadow play.

I took the image into Corel PSP Pro X3 to add Image Information and my signature. I did that and saved the large file. I then resized for display here.

Off the beaten path for my posts and images. But I am still enamored of the grain of wood, and this image does have that.

"Grunge Women Portraits Three Images" Corel PhotoPaint

Triple Play

Single Gal

Dual Flow

Shares and Comments and Pluses are welcome on all my "gatzkART!" Posts! Thank You! Always visit the blog for the images larger view.

I had a anxious day and could not sleep, so I did some Digital Visual Art. Searching my External HD I found some photographs of Women's Faces - portraits really.

I opened them in Corel PhotoPaint. Here I applied the Threshold tool to create black and white images. I adjusted the Threshold on each accordingly.

I have Guitars on my mind, as I listened to Blues on Pandora. So I took the White Spaces and holding down the Shift Key I selected as much of the white as I could.

I opened my window for selecting fills and chose differing wood fills for each face. I tripled the first, kept the middle one single and doubled the final one.

I used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Grunge on each image for texturing. I then saved each iteration as a large file and resampled for display size, after adding my signature in white.

A break from my Guitar motif, but with wood tones reminiscent of the solid backs of acoustic guitars.

Listening to Another Brick In The Wall, nice for creating different Digital Visual Art.

"12-String 6-String Guitars over Seedum" Corel PSP Pro X3

12 and 6 String Guitars over Seedum

Today I took some photographs of our Seedum an Autumn flower. I also had a couple of shots of the 12-String and the 6-String guitars. I opened Corel PSP Pro X3 and layered the three photographs. With both the Guitars I used the Effect Art media effects, Black Pencil also adjusting each with Albumen type color for a touch of brown.

I took the Seedum photograph and rotated it to portrait. I copied and pasted as new layer as the third layer. Before I merged the layers I applied the Saturation Vibrancy. I also used the Art Brushstrokes, More Speckles, to blend the macro into a painting like background. And Curves to adjust the Luminescence.

The soundholes of the guitars almost match up but the necks are clearly at angles. The bridges are not as noticeable but you can see them at the large size on my screen without much difficulty. The guitar bodies show up as curving lines in the midst of the Rose and Green of the Seedum background.

I used Multiply for the Guitars and added the Seedum with opacity changes. I Merged (flattened) the layers, added my signature with the Visible Watermark, and saved the large iteration.

I then resized the image for display and saved with a differing name.

I have been receiving invitations to enter contests or display on differing websites, but I carefully think about such offers. Some cost money to enter per three images, but I am always in a quandary about which of my images are the best.

During your viewing of my blog, if you have a favorite image comment on it or share it with a Google +1.

You would be helping me pick out my best images and that would be fantastic! Thanks you!

"117,000 Plus Pageviews! - Floral Textured Guitars" Corel

Textured Floral Guitars

After a long hiatus, a trip to Iowa to attend a wedding and many days spent with my Grandson, I am posting. We reached another Milestone of over 117,000 Pageviews! Thank you for viewing!

I began with a photograph of our two Guitars and layered a house and trees and muddied sky over that. I then sought a Mayang's Texture of Rust and layered that into the image. I used Corel PhotoPaint to create this image.

I was not satisfied with the image as it had red-orange flowers in the upper third it. So I used an Art Deco color floral image from Dover Publications to layer and adjust and add more flowers with color punch.

I did a lot of adjusting to each layer with properties and opacity changes. Again I tried to create an unusual topical image of guitars with lots of texture. I think I succeeded.

I worked with some smaller images and after I did my creative work I saved that iteration. The I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and added copyright and title information. I enlarged the image to 196 dpi and saved it with another name for a possible print out image.

Those of you who follow my blog I thank you! I offer my work for sale as Posters through Zazzle or as Prints through Fine Art America. If you see a work you would like a print of not currently listed on either site, Please visit my Art for Sale page and write me to request any special order. Orders done this way may garner a discount in my pricing, depending on quality and sizes available. Thank You for your interest!

"Leftovers from the 2013 Dream Cruise" Collage - Picasa - Corel

Vintage Tidbits Collage

I had some more photographs left over from the 2013 Woodward Ave Dream Cruise, I opened Picasa 3.9 and selected four, two with headlights, two back ends, of some of the cars I had photographed.

I picked build Collage in Picasa, made some appropriate selections for the Digital Collage and had Picasa make it. Being that the overall collage was a large piece I opened Corel PhotoPaint and resampled to a workable size.

Once in PhotoPaint I applied the Adjust, Local Equalization tool for texture and an HDR look. Getting back color depth and punch I used the Tone Curve Luminosity curve and pulled it down in the center of the graph. Then I selected Effects, Filter Forge's Photo Effects, Vibrancy for additional punch to the colors.

I saved that iteration and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I applied the Sharpen High Pass Sharpen Overlay. Back in PhotoPaint I added my signature in white, and saved again with some compression for display.

"2013 Woodward Ave Dream Cruise V" Corel PSP Pro X3

Ford Fairlane 500

Vintage Custom DeSoto

I have two more photographs I wanted to share with you from the Detroit Metro Woodward Ave Dream Cruise of 2013.

I shot a Red Ford Fairlane 500 Convertible as well as a Vintage Custom Blue DeSoto. I opened the photographs in Corel PSP Pro X3 and made a few adjustments.

1. Digital Camera Noise Removal
2. Smart Photo Fix
3. Saturation Vibrancy for punch to the color
4. Sharpen High Pass Sharpen Soft Light
5. Backlighting light setting
6. Image Information - Title and Copyright information
7. Visible Watermark for my signature

This is the basic workflow I used on both photographs for enhancing them in PSP Pro X3. I have been relying on PSP more for my basic adjustments and try to keep them to a flow that works to make the photographs appear better. Sometimes the original exposures need a little help.

I hope you have enjoyed the photographs of the 2013 Dream Cruise.We saw many cars speeding and peeling out and the noise was amazingly loud as they did. We took a little trip a further down South on Woodward but hit a huge back up of cars and decided not to wait in the jam of it all. So we did not make it down to the MoPar section of the Cruise.

"2013 Woodward Ave Dream Cruise IV" Picasa HDR - Corel PSP Pro X3

Vintage Convertible with Leather Boot

For today's images I return to my selection of Custom Car photographs from the Dream Cruise. Using Picasa 3.9 I selected a Convertible Hot Rod with a Leather Fender Boot on the front.

I Cropped the image to focus on the Convertible. Then I used Picasa's HDR tool lowering the Radius and Strength. I then used the Punch tool and adjusted the colors for the punch. I saved that iteration and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I increased Saturation only a bit and applied the Sharpen High Pass Sharpen tool. I added my signature using the Visible Watermark and saved again. Then I resized for the blog posting.

Short on time today I only did one image, and I have only a few more to select from, I hope you are enjoying these posts about the Dream Cruise and the Custom Cars. Click on the image for a larger view.

"More 2013 Dream Cruise Custom Cars III" Corel PSP Pro X3

55 or 56 Custom Chevrolet

Vintage Lafayette

Custom Pinstriping

Lastnight I used Corel PSP Pro X3 to enhance these photographs from the Detroit Metro Woodward Ave 2013 Dream Cruise. I used a number of similar steps on each image:

• Digital Camera Noise Removal
• 
  
• Smart Photo Fix
• 
  
• Saturation adjustments
• 
  
• Sharpen High Pass Sharpen
• 
  
• Backlighting

These were the basics I used with some other adjustments on each. I used PSP Pro X3 exclusively for these images adding EXIF copyright info and titles and using the Visible Watermark for my signature. Each image was saved as a large iteration then resized for display here. Click on each image for the larger view. Enjoy!

"2013 Woodward Dream Cruise, Various Cars I" Corel PSP Pro X3 - Paint.NET

1979 Monte Carlo

HDR Wine Coupe

Chevelle SS

I was able to attend the Detroit Woodward Dream Cruise for 2013 and garner some photographs of automobiles. I used our Canon Rebel XTi camera with a tripod for the photographs.

I will be sharing sets of these images, after my working on them for differing effects in my next number of posts. I will try to explain that workflow.

With this 1979 Monte Carlo, belonging to my Brother in Law, I used Corel PSP Pro X3 for some adjustments. I used the Digital Camera noise removal, and the Smart Photo fix. I also boosted the Saturation with the Vibrancy set at about a third.

The Wine Coupe I also did in PSP Pro X3. I used two exposures to create one HDR image. I also used the Noise Removal, Smart Photo Fix and the Sharpen High Pass on it.

The Carmel and Black Chevelle Super Sport I opened in Paint.NET and applied a light Ink Sketch to the image. I adjusted the Curves for depth and increased the Saturation a bit. I applied KPT Collection's Lens Flare for some color as well.

As I took quite a few photographs of the cars in my area I will be posting more Automobile images in my posts. I hope you enjoy them!

"Digital Painting 12-String and 6_String Guitars" Corel Painter - Plus

12-String and 6-String Guitars

I browsed my guitar photographs and opened this one in Corel Painter 11. I digitally painted it there and used the following steps. I used my Wacom Tablet to paint with.

• 1. Corel Painter 11
• A. Brushes
• 1) Two Airbrush variants
• 2) Two Digital Watercolor Brush variants
• 
  
• 2. Picasa 3.9
• A. Warmify
• B. HDR 
• C. Cinemascope
• 
  
• 3. Corel PSP Pro X3
• A. Fit to window
• B. Effects
• 1) Speckles Brushstrokes
• 2) Texture - Hatching
• C. Adjust
• 1) Saturation - Vibrancy

I added my signature in Corel PhotoPaint in White, resizing to display size for this post.

"Yellow Floral with Ground Cover" Corel - Plus

Yellow Floral with Ground Cover

From our Garden another floral photograph. I browsed to the folder in Picasa 3.9 and then opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

I applied the Smart Photo Fix feature, increasing the color. Added some punch to the color using Saturation Vibrancy at about a third. I then applied the Sharpen High Pass Sharpen Soft Light.

I saved that iteration. I resized for display and saved again under a differing name. Then I reopened with Corel PhotoPaint to add my signature in white, something my PNG files haven't let me do yet in PSP Pro, my fault no doubt.

I saved for gatzkART! and did this blog post for your enjoyment.

Guitar wise I was playing my 12-String Seagull and had it tuned in Open C Tuning. I made up some chords and rhythm and "Nonsense Words" and titled the song that.

Even though my amplifier is shot I can reroute my headset line through my PC Stereo Speakers; into my Line 6 Toneport UX1 and I recorded it in Audacity. I recorded the guitar first and then the words and made up the melody as I went. I saved as a project for further adjustments and exported as an MP3. I may put it on SoundCloud, but it was just for fun.

"Myself and 12-String Self-Portrait - Ink" Corel - Paint.NET

Myself and 12-String Self-Portrait - Ink

I was working with my Logitech C260 Webcam today and snapped this Selfie. I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and adjusted with the Smart Photo Fix, some color and sharpening. I used the Skin Smoother on the image. The I added the frame and signature. I saved that iteration.

I opened with Paint.NET and applied the Effects Artistic Ink Sketch. Boosting the color a bit and increasing the Ink size to 70. This gave me the line work in the piece. I would say that the only thing I may have done different is the signature, as it has ink "artifacts" all around it. But not so many I am that concerned.

I still have my Seagull C12 tuned to Open G and will be trying other open tunings soon, perhaps today for a time of practice and fun.

I have found an Alt Tuning website at: http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/tuning/drop-c/ for alternate tunings, in this case Drop C. I love to experiment with making up chords from other tunings by sampling the sounds within the alternate ones. Or I even make up chords, and play scales by ear for the learning experience. It's a challenge I really enjoy on the guitar.

"Ground Cover, Black-eyed Susans and Stones" Corel PSP Pro X3

Ground Cover, Black-eyed Susans and Stones

Another photograph from our garden taken with our Canon Rebel XTi. Ground Cover, Black-eyed Susans and Stones, are the subject.

I browsed with Picasa 3.9 to this folder and picked this photograph for today's post. I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

I used the Smart Photo Fix feature, increasing the color and sharpness. Then for a punch to the color I used the Saturation tool Vibrancy setting at about a third. I applied the High Pass Sharpen tool for details.

I kept my approach simple for my adjustments in digital processing, the Blue of the wall in the background stands out as well.

I saved the large iteration after using the Visible Watermark to add my signature. I then resized for display on gatzkART!.

"Stones Dirt and Flowers" Picasa - Corel PSP Pro X3 - Plus

Stones Dirt and Flowers

Stones Dirt and Flowers, is the title of today's image. Another floral photograph from our garden. The purple flowers just planted themselves there and grew next to the Black-eyed Susans.

After I selected this shot I used Picasa 3.9 HDR tool and adjusted the radius a bit. Then I applied the Lomo effect in Picasa. I saved that and opened the photograph in Corel PSP Pro X3.

Here I adjusted the Curves for depth, and Saturation for Vibrancy (about a third.) It really brought out the purple flowers and subdued the yellow of the Black-eyed Susans.

I saved that iteration. I opened with Corel PhotoPaint to add my signature in White. I saved that and reopened in PSP Pro X3 to adjust the size for display and add some information to the EXIF data. I saved again.

The Guitar motif will have to wait until I get the bug again, which won't be long.

On an interesting note gatzkART! has surpassed 110,500 Pageviews this week! Thank you for your views and interest in the workflow.