"F-Hole Guitar Player" Corel - Filter Forge - Plus

Guitar Player

I was browsing in Picasa 3.9 through my images and photographs. I discovered this badly blurred photograph of a Guitar Player. I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and applied the Digital Camera Noise Removal and the Smart Photo Fix. Then I used the Unsharp Mask on it. After it looked a bit clearer I saved that iteration.

I opened with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted with the Pastel Drawing. After I did that I selected Simple Watercolor and set it with the contrast very light in color. I auto painted over the Pastels.

I selected the Cloner brush and added back in some detail around the face, guitar and arms and hands. I also painted some background lines around the darkened images hanging on the wall.

I saved that file with a new name and opened with PSP again. There I upped the Saturation with the Vibrancy tool. I added a loose white border. Using the Filter Forge Frame plugin I added a Grunge Frame to it. I added my signature with the Visible Watermark tool. I saved the large version then resampled for display.

I have painted a different version of this photograph quite a while ago, but wanted to attempt a newer version of it.

964 posts and counting to 1,000!

"Singers and Their Guitars" Colorful Grunge Digital Collage

Singers and Their Guitars

Returning to a Guitar based motif for a time I went for a colorful Digital Collage of Guitars and Singers. I browsed to Mayang's Textures and selected one that I auto painted in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 using the Illustration feature.

Saving that large file I opened from Picasa 3.9 with Corel PhotoPaint. Here I assembled my Digital Collage pieces. I browsed in Google for free images and found two guitar images and three singers. After saving them I copied from Picasa and pasted them onto the textured background. I resized each one to taste and applied the property of Difference. This created the colorfulness of the collage as they blended and mixed with each other.

I used Filter Forge's Frames Film frame for the large image. Added my signature in white and saved the large iteration. I resampled for display in PhotoPaint.

 Listening --- Eric Clapton --- Crossroads

Dualing Gibsons

I'd love to own a Gibson guitar, but then again I'd love to own more than one guitar, which includes many styles and types. Original photograph by John Weigel - used by permission.

Here I created a version of dual Gibsons in computer colors, using PhotoPaint. This f-hole hollow body electric is a beauty of a guitar. It reminds me of one of the first guitars I learned on, it looked a lot like these but was a different make.

I remember that the action was terrible, the strings were so high on it that it hurt to play it. I got it from my Uncle who had never gotten the action adjusted. I was really happy except for that, I had a fancy guitar that was all that mattered.

Later my parents bought me a Harmony Acoustic guitar as a gift. That was the first guitar I had brand new. It's action was marginally better and I still had to press down on those strings pretty hard to play legit chords. Only later on did I get a Woody pickup and a tube amplifier. Man did I like feedback and tremolo in those days! Much later I bought my first 12-string, it was a Crestwood, the action was much better. I used to use GHS heavy gauge strings for the big sound, and I think this ultimately ruined the neck because of the stress of those strings.

In those days I did not tune down to a lower pitch, so I was very stupid about guitar care and keeping. I sold that guitar for a few dollars to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. I had also purchased a 6-string Fender Acoustic that had been through a fire but was fine to play. I remember that we needed money then as the economy was bad and we were so tight we sold both guitars and a fiddle my wife had. I was sad to see them go and it was quite awhile before I had another guitar.

All in all I have had a few good guitars but the Seagull 12-string I have now is the best of the bunch. My Takamine 6-string acoustic was a good guitar, but I had to sell that one and an amp too, times were tough again. I have been able to keep the Seagull for a long time now. I did have the action adjusted on it. And I now tune it down to a lower pitch even though I don't use those heavy gauge strings anymore. It is a good guitar.

But as I said I'd love to have others. Martin, Fender Electric, Epiphone, etc. I'd like an electric 6-string for learning more about playing lead guitar and blues and slide guitar. Someday maybe I'll win one in those online contests I keep entering.

Perry Foster - Bluesman

Second to the last post of portraits from the Blue Front Blues Room. Photograph credit goes to John Anderson. I have been enjoying this series and I hope you are as well.

Here is Perry Foster performing with his guitar and singing. I used Paint.NET to create the line work using it's Artistic> Sketch filter, I saved it as a separate file. I opened both in PhotoPaint altered the saturation of the original by about 25. I added the line work as an object and changed it's properties to Multiply, dropped it to the background, changed the Gamma to lighten up the dark areas. I saved the file after I added the frame and my copyright, then opened it in Painter 8 to add the texture to it. Each step adding a little something to the finished piece.

I have added my blog to FeedBurner to make it easier to subscribe to for many. I checked my listing in Google's blogsearch and I come up about 4th or 5th in the listings for 'Digital Visual Arts'. Not bad.

I am increasing the blogs I follow, adding art blogs, but I am keeping the number down to keep my time under control. I am very specific as to who I want to follow as well as what my interests are, Art and Music.

I have improved my blog heading. I also added a picture at the end of the my blog which I may change infrequently. It is an image that began as a photograph of Onions grown in our garden on the kitchen counter with a red towel. I altered that image so the colors were predominant. I added images of guitars and a couple of guitar players to make it more of a digital montage/collage.