"How This Was Done - Wooden Corduroy Bridge Impressionistic Style" Corel

Wooden Corduroy Bridge

Another Free Photograph I was given to use. A "Wooden Corduroy Bridge," in the forest. With Autumn here and the colors soon to change I selected this for today's theme. I opened the file in Corel PSP Pro X3 and applied the Smart Photo Fix, increasing the color and adding shadow and deepening the highlights. I used the Saturation Vibrancy tool on it. I saved that iteration.

I opened Picasa and selected the adjusted image. I applied the Ortonish tool to the image, and saved that. I then opened it in Corel Painter 11. There I did a Quick Clone, selected the Artist Brush Auto Van Gogh and auto painted the piece with smaller brush strokes.

Saving that file with a new name I reopened it in PSP Pro X3 and also opened the pre-painted image. I copied and layered that over the painted piece. I then played with properties (using the Overlay property) and opacity. This boosted the detail and depth of it. I added my Signature as a Layer and merged all to one layer (background.) I saved that iteration with a new name. Viewing it full screen in Picasa, I was satisfied with the final piece.

I then resized the image for display and your consideration.

I haven't been working too much on new songs lately. My Son got married, and my wife and I collaborated on a song for the Bride and Groom to sing at the reception for them. "Dream Has Come True," was my first real collaboration with my wife, we both really enjoyed it. It was well received at the reception and we were given a surprisingly enthusiastic round of applause. My Son and his new wife appreciated it and that was very important to us.

It is a simple tune with shared parts and the 12-String for accompaniment. I may share it on SoundCloud if I have enough room left to post. It is only 2:25 minutes long! Long enough to get the sentiment out.

Narrow Overpass - Paint.NET - Painter - PhotoPaint

I wanted to take a look at some older film photo-
graphs from many years of family photo-
graphy so I pulled out the ones that didn't make it into an album.

I found a few that captured my interest and here is the Narrow Overpass photograph after I scanned it in and did some digital work on it.

First I used Paint.NET to make it painterly and then used the Ink Sketch filter on that. I brought that file into PhotoPaint and I masked and added a blue violet gradient sky, as the one in the photograph was overcast and white / gray. From there I took it into Painter and used a small oil brush to paint around the trees and the railing. During this process the power lines disappeared from the sky, not missing them I saved that file.

I added a film frame with Filter Forge's Freepack 3 and resampled for posting here.

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Now playing: Dashboard Confessional - 1
via FoxyTunes

Just a quick stop by the blog to post. I have been looking through my photographs of mountains and I found this one of an old bridge with the mountains in the background.

I opened the image in Corel's PhotoPaint and I made some adjustments to it. First I upped the saturation by 11 keeping the hue and lightness the same.

I then used KPT' Collection Pyramid Paint filter on it to give it a watercolor appearance.

I like the way the old bridge gives the eye a way to move around the image, at a slight angle. But the horizon is level as you move beyond the bridge to the mountains and river behind.

I have other mountain photographs I may post here as well.