"Textured Grunge Guitar Player" Paint.NET - Picasa

Textured Grunge Guitar Player

I have done another "Textured Grunge Guitar Player," for today's post. Last post of 2015, is Music Themed. It was simply done.

I opened the screen capture in Paint.NET. Here I applied the Effects, Artistic, Pen and Ink as a black and white image. I saved this iteration.

Since Picasa was open, I cropped and added a black border to the piece. I saved again with a different name. I switched back to Paint.NET and opened that file.

Next I located a Grunge Texture and opened it in Paint.NET. I selected all and copied to the clipboard the Texture. I closed the texture file. I then Pasted as a New Layer onto the Ink Guitar Player image layer. I moved around the Texture until I found the most color in it. Using the property Multiply I added the now transparent texture to the Guitar Player merging the layers down.

I upped the Saturation by 115 in Paint.NET's Adjustments. I opened and selected, copied to the clipboard my signature file. I closed that file. I Pasted the signature as a new layer, resizing and placing it onto the image, deselected it and merged down all layers. I saved that iteration as the final image.

I don't have a Retrospective look at some of your favorite images of mine for 2015, but you are always invited to come here and look through the Label Cloud, or search for images to view again. Or to Listen to my Music Previews and buy what you would like to own.

Thank you for your Patronage of gatzkART! during the year! I look forward to additional Music and Digital Visual Artwork to share in 2016!

"Grunge Textured Acoustic Guitar Player" PhotoPaint

Grunge Textured Acoustic Guitar Player

I received a suggestion that I try to reinstall my Corel Graphics Suite 12 with "Troubleshoot Compatibility" The Install worked with a WinXP Service Pack 3 compatibility. So I now have the Suite running under this setting complete with CorelDRAW and PhotoPaint, and the other Suite programs.

I tested the program PhotoPaint only to have it crash as I had too many Large files open. I learned from that to keep my files down to a minimum while working in PhotoPaint. And to save frequently!

I opened an "Acoustic Guitar Player," free to edit photograph, in PhotoPaint. I applied the Threshold tool for white space and minimized colors. I saved this file. Then I opened a Grunge Texture file from the Freebie Fridays Textures I receive from Stockvault. I copied the image to the clipboard and then deleted it from my workspace. I pasted it over the Acoustic Guitar Player image. Here I used the property Multiply and I merged the layers.

I increased the Saturation of the colors a bit and then save this iteration. I now only had a single file open in PhotoPaint. I added my signature layer with open, copy, paste as layer, then deleted the signature image. I resized to fit and used the property Add for transparency. I merged the file and saved again.

Going to Image, Resample I decreased the piece for display, 96dpi, 75 compression, and 25 smoothing, Optimized JPG.

I was happy that I had no further problems with too many large files open in PhotoPaint. That seemed to allow me to be creative yet frugal in my image creation, frequent saving of files as one goes along is very wise.

"How to - with outdated Corel Products - Grunge Guitar Player" Corel

Grunge Guitar Player

I took this photograph at a Taylor Guitar Show at Motor City Guitar quite a while ago. I decided to work at this piece in a way I have not worked in quite a while. First I opened in Corel PhotoPaint 12 and used the Posterize tool set on 4 on it. This gave me plenty of color to work with for the next step.

I saved that file and opened it in CorelTRACE 12 and Traced it into a Vector file with the Advanced Outline tool. I saved this iteration as a native Corel CMX vector file. I then opened it in CorelDRAW 12, here I Ungrouped all the traced Vector elements of the image. I began to play with downsizing by eliminating some parts grabbing them with the selection tool and deleting them. I then selected some of them and changed the colors with the Gradient (using both Radial and Linear gradients) and Fill tools.

Taking the selection tool I grabbed what was left of the image and Grouped the entire Vectored pieces back into one Group. I Converted it into a Bitmapped file and copied it to the clipboard. I reopened PhotoPaint and opened the New File from the Clipboard, at 300 dpi. I then adjusted some of the other parts with the Wand tool to select, and the Fill tool for colors and textures. I applied myself to this until I was satisfied the image no longer looked much like the original photograph.

I used, next, Filter Forge's Frames for a Grunge look and feel to the image. I selected a setting after trying out different variants of a Grunge frame, settled on one and applied it. I saved the image with my signature added. I resampled for a display size.

My recent disappointment was to find out that the Corel Products I use to create much of my Digital Visual Artwork is NOT compatible with Windows 10, my reserved package of Windows 10 will not even download onto my computer. I checked and it indicated that it was my Corel Products that were stopping it. I did want to try Windows 10 later this year before the free version is turned off, but it won't download.

I even went to the point of uninstalling all my Corel Products, but with Windows 7 hiding someplace in the Programdata folders were pieces of Corel still there. Windows 10 would not download! I know this is the problem, it is not a hardware problem, it says I meet that standard easily.

Lets face it I am a Disabled Artist on a very tight budget. I am not able to upgrade my Corel Products at this time. So I am continuing to use Windows 7 Pro and my Corel arsenal of graphics programs.

So I suppose that sometime in the future I will have to find those remaining hidden files and folders, uninstall my prized Corel programs and maybe be able to download my copy of Windows 10!

"Taylor Guitars Six Textured Grunge" Corel

Taylor Guitars Six Textured Grunge

I reverted back to my photographs of the Taylor Road Show at Motor City Guitars for today's image. I shot this photograph with my Canon Rebel XTi during the demonstrations of their 800 Series Guitars. 

I opened the photograph in Corel PSP Pro X3 and I added four layers,

1. The photograph itself of the Guitarist
2. A Texture of Rusted Paint
3. A Texture of a Concrete Wall from StockVault
4. The layer including my signature.

I blended these using a variety of properties for each individual layer. I applied Saturation Vibrancy to punch the colors. I saved the Large iteration and then resized it, I then used a Plug-in from Filter Forge's Photo Effects on the smaller image. I selected a Grunge Framing with more texture for the white space in the image. I saved this iteration.

I opened this in Corel PhotoPaint and saved it as an Optimized jpg with 50 set as my compression. I recently have found that many of my images I save to post on this blog are not compressed enough and are causing a slower load time for the initial view of the blog. So I will be compressing and Optimizing my image in PhotoPaint (or another program) in the future to improve load times.

Those of you who regularly visit gatzkART! will appreciated this I am certain, and for my new viewers (first time visitors) it will encourage them to come back and view my Artwork again.

"Grunge Family Foto - Gustav, Christina, Unidentified" Corel - Mayang's Texture

Grunge Family Foto

I was looking for a Texture in my Mayang's Texture folder and grabbed this Grunge Green, Blue, Rust image for my background. As I searched through my images and photographs I found this one that is repudiated to be of my Family Ancestors Gustav and Christina, with an unidentified young lady. 

I opened all layers in Corel PSP Pro X3 and did some cropping and resizing of them to create this Grunge themed piece. I used Hard Light applied to the family photograph for transparency. I added my signature layer in white, using the property Lighten for the background making it transparent allowing the signature to show by itself. I merged all layers together.

I added Image Information, Title, Copyright, Programs used. Then, saving that, I resized for display.

I mentioned I was moving away from the Taylor Road Show Photographs for a time. Back to Grunge Textured images and Digital Collage for the present.

"Grunge Textured Close Up of a Six-String Guitar" Corel

Grunge Textured Guitar

I had recently gotten two images, one of a group of grayscale Textures, and another of a close up of a Six-String Guitar. Both the Guitar and the Textures I got from StockVault as free images. Using Corel PSP Pro X3 I created today's image.

I used the Texture as a layer with the property of Multiply and blended it with the guitar. After merging the layers I used the Saturation Vibrancy to give punch to the colors on the guitar. The rosettes around the soundhole having coloration in them made for a great focal point.

I added my signature in white as a layer and used the Additive property to get rid of the background of the signature layer. I again merged all. I save a large iteration and then resized to display here.

If you desire to see more of my Guitar images go to the bottom of this page and select from the Labels Cloud what you would like to see, or use the search tool also found there. Thanks for looking and don't be shy about searching my other images. You will find quite a bit of Digital Visual Artworks of varying styles here!

"Milestone Reached - Over 140,000 Plus Pageviews for gatzkART!" Corel

Skewed Grunge Woman Portrait

"gatzkART!" has reached another Milestone, over 1,200 images and now over 140,000 Pageviews! Thanks to many of you who regularly visit and my occasional visitors. I truly appreciate your interest in my Digital Visual Artwork and Music.

Beginning with a Woman's Portrait from the MorgueFile I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and then I adjusted the Threshold for white space. It is a simple portrait taken in the backseat of a car. So I Skewed the image.

Selecting a Grunge Texture from StockVault's Free Textures I added it as a layer and used the property Multiply to add it with transparency. I also applied the Saturation Vibrancy for added color.

Looking at the image I wanted additional color so I used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrancy, this boosted the colors to a punchy state. I then used Filter Forge's Frames Grunge Frame to add additional edginess to the image. Using PSP Pros X3's Picture Frame I layered in a Golden frame.

Adding my inverted signature to the file I saved it as a Medium sized piece for display. In the Image Information I included some Creator information Title, Copyright, Program and Sources. I left in some of the EXIF information of the original Woman's Photograph.

It is my pleasure to share my Digital Excursions with so many of you, and it is gratifying to have reached another goal I had not anticipated.

I did have some bad news this week. My Line 6 Toneport UX1 of about 5 years is no longer working correctly. So I am not able to use it and the Gearbox or PodFarm software with it to record my music.

I have made adjustments to my on board sound system with RealTek hardware so I can record and playback, view videos, listen to Pandora, etc. But have a higher learning curve with multiple tracks in Audacity due to latency problems. I need another newer Toneport and some new DAW Software to record with, but it may be a while before that happens. Until then I will be endeavoring to simplify my recording with the on board system and my Shure PG58 microphone, along with Audacity.

"Vintage Ford Rust Orange Truck Four" Corel

Vintage Ford Rust Orange Truck Four

Today I selected this Head-on photograph of the Vintage Ford Rust Orange Truck. I opened it in Corel PhotoPaint and created the image here. I used a different approach than the more straight forward photographs I shared in posts prior to this.

I first rotated the image to portrait, then fit to page. I applied PhotoPaint's Local Equalization for an almost HDR look and feel. I took the Tone Curve tool and added depth to the colors.

Applying Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrancy I added Punch to the colors as well. I selected a Texture from my Free Friday Texture collection of a panel of wood. This I copied and pasted as a layer upon the image. I adjusted the property of this texture and also the opacity of it. You may see the vertical lines it added.

Back to Filter Forge's Frames I added a Grunge variant Frame to the whole image. I then added my signature in white to another layer and merged them all. I saved this iteration as a large file.

I then opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the Smart Photo Fix on the image, lightening it up slightly. Using Image Information I added Title, Copyright, Camera (Canon Rebel XTi) and Programs used to the information. It appears that PhotoPaint strips all EXIF data from the image when altered. I resized this image for display here.

"Grunge Steampunk Woman Portrait" Corel

Grunge Steampunk Woman Portrait
Vintage Paper

I decided to create a similar image as the recent posts I have done. I chose another Digital Visual Collage with StockVault Woman Portrait and Dover Publications SteamPunk coloring page, along with a Vintage Paper Texture background.

I opened the Young Woman photograph in Corel PhotoPaint and applied the Threshold tool for the white space. I cropped the portrait to fit the Vintage Paper Texture, selecting only a close up of her face.

I then chose the Dover Publication coloring page of a SteamPunk Octopus-like creature with a great border. I applied the property of Multiply to this and fit to the image.

I next used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Grunge on the merged image and that added a great patina to the image. It also deepened the colors creating additional mood.

I added my signature in white and saved the image at 300 DPI. Re-sampling to fit my post I concluded my workflow.

"Old Window Grunge Concrete" Corel - StockVault

Old Window Grunge Concrete

I am truly enjoying the Free StockVault Photographs and Textures I am getting from them. I received this Old Window photograph today and immediately set forth in creation. I opened in Corel PhotoPaint and applied the Threshold tool to the Window image. This allowed me to create more white space for my Texture choice to show through.

I selected a Grunge Concrete Portrait sized image from the Free Friday Textures I have been gathering. I also opened it in PhotoPaint. Using it as the background layer I went to the Window image and copied it and subsequently pasted it upon the Grunge Concrete background. I resized it to fit. I used the property Multiply for transparency and merged both layers with my signature in white.

Saving the large iteration, I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and Adjusted the Saturation Vibrancy by 50, to add some punch to the Window colors. I saved with Image Information: Title, Copyright, Programs, and source. I resized for display here and saved that as well.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"Amiga 80's Self Portrait" Corel

Updated Amiga 80's Selfie

As I stated yesterday I found some film (35mm) photographs of Screen Shots of works done on my Amiga 1000 in the 1980's. I had this Self-Portrait Video scanned into the Amiga and enhanced in Deluxe Paint. I took the older photograph and scanned it into my PC with my Canon MP495.

I opened in Corel PhotoPaint the 300dpi scan. I applied the Tone Curve and Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrancy for a boost to color. I also boosted the color Saturation in PhotoPaint. I used Filter Forge's Frames Grunge Frame for the grunge effect. Here I added my signature and resampled for display.

Notice the 80's glasses I am wearing in this image. Very large lenses and style for those days.

"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.

"Portrait of a Blonde and Green Haired Young Woman" Corel - Mayang's Textures

Blonde and Green Haired Portrait

From one of my Journals I garnered this Portrait of a Blonde and Green Haired Young Woman, Scanned in at as large as I could get the image, I then went to my external drive and searched for a Mayang's Texture. I found a peeling paint with rust texture and layered it with the scan. I used the property of Subtract to merge these with the texture showing through.

The original was done with Pen and Ink, and Pastels, freehand. A fictional woman's portrait. I did only a small bit of work on this piece digitally. I added the texture, even when I saved it, it show's a note and origin date from Mayang's Textures. So this image's digital date is from 2005! Not, I just put it together this evening. I used Corel PhotoPaint to create the digital image. I resampled the large iteration, after saving it, to display size. Adding my Signature to it despite the Mayang's Texture note and date of creation. Honest!

I truly appreciate Mayang's Textures and their willingness to share, but am chagrined at the notation and the lack of the proper creation date of this digital image. I will have to experiment with their textures more and make certain the date and credit is correct for future images. I am now using Windows 7 and perhaps this is something new.

"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.

"1,100th Post! Grunge Guitars" Paint.NET - Corel - Plus

Grunge Guitars

For today's image I selected a photograph of our two guitars upright, leaning on the couch. I opened from Picasa 3.9 with Paint.NET and used the Ink Sketch tool on the photograph. I ended up with a pen and ink, black and white, image.

I browsed to my Pictures folder on my external hard drive and went to Mayang's Textures. I selected a metal rust texture and loaded it as another layer. Still in Paint.NET, I resized the texture to fit, used the layer property Multiply, and merged the layers, saving that large iteration. I opened the file in Corel PhotoPaint.

I next went to the Internet to find some fonts of paint splatters that I could use for adding to the grunge look and feel. I found Split, Splat, Splodge and WTC Rhesus TT fonts for free use. I applied the paint splatters, and used the Distort, Wet Paint tool for the drippings. I changed the opacity of the splatters showing the background through them for effect of aged splatters.

I used the Filter Forge Photo Effects plugin for Vibrance to add some punch to the colors. Added my signature in white and resampled for display.

I played my 12-String Seagull last night and practiced for a couple hours. Some new chord progressions and a few tunes. Green Day's "Warning," Coldplay's "Clocks," and Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Lucky Man," (without the synth.) As I get older my calluses don't take long to begin hurting after only a short time, well I blame it on age and FMS.

All in all I really enjoyed my practice on the guitar, and the singing, too.

"Grunge 6 and 12 String Guitars Digital Collage" Picasa - Corel

Grunge 6 and 12 String Guitars Digital Collage

With today's digital collage I started with Picasa 3.9. Using the CTRL key I selected individual photographs of the 6 and 12 String guitars photos. I used Picasa's Collage maker feature and selected a mosaic of the photographs. The touch of red comes from our dining area that is a sittings area now. and I used the couch as a background for the photographs.

I saved the collage automatically in Picasa and then opened with Corel PhotoPaint. I applied the Local Equalization tool, for the High Contrast with a full 255 setting. I then used the Tone Curve tool for adding depth to the colors.

I like what I had but decided to add just a touch more Grunge to the image. I saved the original large iteration, resampled to a display setting, adding my signature. I used Filter Forge's Metal Rust to that. I used a rust addition that added only a small amount of metal rust to the image. I saved that digital collage.

With this collage I have just about used up the 28 or so photographs I did with my recent Guitars Photo shoot. I may use them in other images but I think it's time to practice on my 12-String, I could use some practice!