"The Lone Street Musician" PE5 Plus

The Lone Street Musician

Another photograph of "The Lone Street Musician." I liked the image from the beginning. A Street Guitarist, possibly a singer as well, presenting himself in a corner of a plaza.

I opened the file in Corel Painter Essentials 5 (PE5.) I began by applying the Pen and Ink Drawing settings. I tried one brush but it was not very clear, and I wanted a clean, bright Pen and Ink look. So I set the Brush to the Dry Ink and painted again. This gave me a better drawing.

To add to the Ink Drawing, I selected the Detailed Watercolor setting. A soft light brush was chosen the New Simple Water Brush. I digitally painted again. This gave me a Pen and Ink Watercolor image.

The next step was to increase color depth of the piece. I selected Equalize from the Effects. There I set the Black Point to 21.2% and left the White Point at 100%. I altered the Gamma to 60%, and this punched up the color. I saved this large file with a new name.

Next, I opened the file in Paint.NET. I selected the Line Brush at 3 points, with a Backwards slash setting. I hand painted a light border with the brush. I opened my signature file, copied it, and added it as a new layer. Using the property Multiply, I then merged the layers. I saved this file at 100% compression.

I now only needed to Resize the piece for display. I adjusted it to 72dpi, 1220 X 1049, with 75 as the compression. I saved this file with a new name.

"Street Musicians" PicsArt App

I downloaded a number of great photos from Pixabay today.  I have been using my Tablet to create images with the PicsArt App. I did at least four images that I posted to PicsArt and Facebook.

This image was one of those I created. I used a number of filters one called Comic Effect. I also increased the Saturation of the piece adding depth with the Curves tool.

I highly recommend both Pixabay and PicsArt App. They are among the top features on the Internet.

I searched for "Street Musicians," on Pixabay, also for free to edit content on the PicsArt community.  They have many choices for doing digital artwork.

I have found that PicsArt has many tools for layering, drawing, and other things that make it a great app.

Some people who want to may get the latest version of PicsArt App for Android devices on the Google Play Store. It is currently free to download and install.

Join Pixabay for the larger image download. I have been very pleased with the content of photos and textures there.

You can also use Pixabay from a browser.

Street Musicians 

"Street Musicians Three" Painter Essentials 5 Plus

Street Musicians Three

“Street Musicians Three,” is one more of my Music Themed images. I first used Picasa 3+ HDR tool on the photograph, Radius Medium and Strength Medium High. I saved the beginning iteration.

I opened that in Painter Essentials 5 and used the Watercolor Sketch set with a Dry Wash brush. This gave me a good watercolor image. I hand painted with the Soft Cloner Brush and added back in the faces, instruments, clothing and the guitar case and bicycle details. I smoothed out some of the Clouds and blue Sky, I added some detail to the trees, and the Red Building in the background.

Saving that iteration, I used Picasa, which was still open to add a Black Border to the piece. Saving that I opened in PhotoPaint and added my signature layer. I merged the layers and increased the Saturation by 21 then saved again. I had about an 8.3MB file at 120dpi.

For display here I Resampled the file to 1220 X 861, 75 Compression and 25 Smoothing, still at 120dpi, an Optimized JPG file, with a new name.

"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.

"Street Musicians Two" Painter Essentials 5

Street Musicians Two

"Street Musicians Two," began as another one of the Guitars and Music, free to edit, photographs I found recently. I opened the photograph in Painter Essentials 5 and applied the Effect Sharpen first, this brought out details that were slight.

I next selected the Colored Pencil Drawing set, using Pencils, Pens, and Markers Oily Variable Pencil and Digitally Painted the image. In the enlargement of the image you can see the lines of the Pencil used. Just before it completed I stopped the effect. I then selected the Watercolor Sketch set, with the Oily Variable Pencil as the Brush setting still. This was a good combination of styles and lead to lines as well as watercolors added.

I then selectively hand painted back in some details to the Instruments and the Musicians using the Photo Painting Brush Soft Cloner. I saved that large iteration.

Now in Paint.NET I selected some Adjustments namely the Saturation boosting the colors from 100% to 110% for a punch. I also added my signature layer and merged the layers.

In Irfanview I added a Black Border, and saved that, then Resized/Resampled at 72dpi for display.

"Street Musicians" Picasa - Painter Essentials 5 - PaintDotNET

Street Musicians

I gathered up a few new Guitar and Musician based themed free photographs. "Street Musicians," is the first piece I Digitally worked on. I opened in Picasa 3+ and applied the HDR effect, Radius was Medium, and the Strength or Value was Fair.

Saving that I opened in Painter Essentials 5. Here I used a Modern Painting set with Acrylics and Oils Real Wet Brush. After Digitally Painting that I used the Photo Painting Brush Soft Cloner to add detail to each of the Musicians and a tad to the background trees. Back in Picasa I applied a Black on Black Border and saved again.

Opening it with Paint.NET I applied Adjustments, Curves to add depth, and added my signature layer with the Property Lighten. I then merged the layers. I saved the large iteration at 120dpi.

I Resized /Resampled in Irfanview at 72dpi for display with another name.

"How this was Done - Musicians Digital Collage" Corel - Picasa

Musicians Digital Collage

As a Musician I enjoy seeing them working their craft. I garnered a few photographs of Musicians from Morguefile and selected four of them to present as Digital Visual Art. The selected four of the photographs I had downloaded from the Free Photos on Morguefile. I decided to do something a little different with them. I chose a Fiddle Player, Banjo Player, Acoustic Guitar Player and an Electric Guitar player. I had a Band without drums, not unheard of for Folk Rock Bluegrass.

I opened each one separately in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and digitally painted them. The settings were the Watercolor Sketch, Rough Paper, Saturate Color, Dry Bristle Brush. I did each of the photographs with these settings for uniformity of execution.

After I saved each one I opened Picasa 3+ and selected them individually to use to create a Digital Collage of all four. I applied Picasa's Collage tool and set it as 8.5" X 11" format, Mosaic setting. I shuffled the photos until I had a balance of the four painted images. I generated the Digital Collage in Picasa. It was saved automatically as a large JPG image.

I opened that Collage in Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I applied the Smart Photo Fix tool, upping the color and the highlights just a bit, with a suggested brightening setting. I then used the Saturation Vibrancy tool on the Collage. I thought about applying the Curves to it but the colors were just right, so I did not. I added my signature as a layer and sized it and placed it with the Property of Lighten, merging the layers. I saved the large iteration.

As is my custom I next resized the piece for display in PSP Pro X3, 72dpi and full color.

So I am a Producer of Bands now! I created this group and they sound great! Well, if you could hear them like I do in my head, I am certain you would appreciate them.