"How I Did This: Clouds Over Road" PE5 Plus

Clouds Over Road

Selecting an enjoyable Cloud Strew Sky with Road and Fields photograph I opened in Corel Painter Essentials 5 (PE5). I first of all applied some Effects, Sharpened High, Adjusted Color with the Image Luminance - Saturation set to 72%. I saved the file with a new name.

Still in PE5, I chose the Watercolor Sketch set. I decided to use a Digital Watercolor Brush the Coarse Water Brush. After Digitally Painting the image I added back in, with the Soft Cloner Brush, trees, house, details.

Next I Applied a Surface Texture of a Rough Handmade Paper. I used Light controls, selecting Naples Light Yellow as my light, with Simple Lighting Checked. I saved the large piece with a new name.

In Corel PhotoPaint, I added my signature layer, merging it, and added some color depth with the Tone Curve tool. I saved the large file and Resampled the file for display. I set the file for 72dpi, 1220 X 818 pixels, Anti-alias and Maintained the Aspect Ratio, saving with these settings and a new name.

I used 75 Compression, 25 Smoothing, with Optimizing the image upon saving.

Artist's Page Link: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/KirkMathewGatzka

I need you to visit my CD Baby Artist Page, Listen to each of Twelve Tunes in whole (Free Full Previews) and PICK YOUR FAVORITE!

Comment on this below and the Song I will select will be from the total of what ones you VOTED for! That is correct Listen for Free, Vote on your favorite and the one with the most votes will be set as a Free Download $0.00 cost.

This song will be available after February 2016 to allow time for you to select and post (in the Comments) the one you vote for as your Favorite.

If I don't get votes needed to select the song I will examine the TOTAL song plays on CDBaby for each song and select the MOST PLAYED SONG  to make the FREE Downloadable Song. 

Please vote by your listening or by DMing me on Twitter, vote on Facebook or right here. The voting will end on February 29, 2016. Listen for Free and pick YOUR FAVORITE for a $0.00 cost download on CDBaby.com
 

"How To: Hills, Mountains, Cloudy Skies Oils Plus" Corel

Hills, Mountains, Cloudy Skies

These are the Programs and settings I used to create today's image. I am still experimenting with the outline format. Please let me know if you prefer this format or a Narrative Style format explaining how to use the stated Programs. Comments welcome!

• Corel Painter Essentials 5
  • Landscape – Hills, Mountains, Cloudy Skies
    • Effects
      • Tonal Control
        • Increased Saturation
    • Select Oil Painting
      • Acrylics and Oils
        • Real Wet Brush
        • Size 25
        • Opacity 100%
        • Freehand Brush setting
        • Artists Rough Paper
        • Paint with these settings
    • Select Detailed Watercolor
      • Still using Real Wet Brush
        • Size 10.2
        • Opacity 82%
        • Straight Brush
        • Same Paper setting
        • Paint with these settings
        • Stop before complete for just light effect
    • Select Colored Pencil Drawing
      • Pencils, Pens and Markers
        • Dry Ink Brush
        • Freehand Strokes
        • Size 31.5
        • Opacity 24%
        • Grain 100%
        • Same Paper setting
        • Paint with these settings
        • Stop before complete for just light effect
• Corel PSP Pro X3
  • Adjust
    • Smart Photo Fix
      • Brighter 32
      • Shadows -10
      • Highlights -5
      • Saturation 50
      • Focus- Original 47
    • Opened Signature
      • Placed as new layer
      • Sized to fit
      • Merged all Layers; Added 10 pixel Black Border

This photograph was from the Morguefile Free Photos. I truly appreciate their sharing some very good compositions for Digitally Painting and adjusting.

"Boats and Skies" Corel

Boats and Skies

I received a photograph from StockVault's Freebies of this wonderful scene. I opened it in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and watercolor sketch painted it. I used Intense colors to highlight the skies and reflections. I saved the large iteration and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

There I added my signature and a frame with Picture Frames. I used Image Information to add Title, my name, date and sources.

A very simple and straight forward way to create a acceptable Digital Watercolor.

Please Don't forget to listen and consider buying my new single, "Open Secret." Thanks for your kind attention!

"Brick Building - Broken Windows in Peak" Corel - Plus

Brick Building - Broken Windows in Peak

An additional Broken Window photograph from our trip to the Park. I opened from Picasa 3.9 with Corel PSP Pro X3. I applied the Digital Camera Noise Removal and the Smart Photo Fix features. I attempted to straighten the photograph but it cut off the Peak of the roof and so I discarded that tool.

I saved that large iteration. from Picasa I opened with Corel PhotoPaint. From PhotoPaint I selected the Fill tool and it's tile fill Load. I found a sky and cloud image and selected that for the fill tool at full size. Back with the photograph I selected the Wand tool and masked the white cloud filled sky. I used the fill tool now to add the Blue and partly cloudy sky. Then I removed the mask.

I then used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrance on the image to give depth to the colors. I added my signature and resampled to display size after I saved the larger file.

After I saved the medium sized image I used KPT Collection's Projector to straighten the photograph just a bit. As It was take from the Ground Looking up I thought it was a bit off.

I used my Canon Rebel XTI DSLR for the original photograph, each photograph I took I'll take credit for and give credit to my son Keir M. Gatzka when he is the photographer.

After processing the photographs I'll add a my signature with the copyright date, as I am doing all the processing myself.

Ren Cen Knight Ink Print - Gouache - Watercolor - Painter 11 - PhotoPaint

Here is an Ink Print of a Renaissance type Knight from my Dover Publications samplers. I selected this from the same group the Troubadours, came from.

I opened it in PhotoPaint and resampled it to 96dpi to enlarge it for painting. Saving that file I opened with Painter 11 and selected a Gouache brush to begin on the horse. I switched to Karen's Watercolors and changed the opacity of the brush and used varying sizes to paint the rest of the piece.

Lots of detail in this ink print so it took some time to finish, but I enjoyed every minute. I saved the file of the painted horse and it's rider and reopened in PhotoPaint. There I used the wand tool to create a mask, masking out the Knight and horse and ground. I selected a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope for the fill. It placed the star, quite by accident on the knuckle of the fore leg of the horse. Which gives it some pizazz.

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Now playing: America - A Horse With No Name
via FoxyTunes

Alaskan Mountains Motif - Painter 8 and PhotoPaint

Continuing with the Alaskan Mountains motif today's image is a bright piece of mountain scape. I took this photograph with my Canon Rebel North of Anchorage on our first day trip.

The sky in the original image was so white I painted it out and added a piece of the sky and pasted it in. I opened the painted image done in Painter 8 with liquid ink brushes with PhotoPaint and used KPT's Collection Pyramid Paint filter. I added some light detail with the Thredgeholder filter. I had also adjusted the saturation and brightness of the colors for impact.

These mountains are beautiful and impressive. Not as rugged as some mountains are, the gentle slopes are relaxing in real life and I hope some of that is conveyed in the painted image.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Can't Find My Way Home Cover
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A Man and His Dog

A man and his dog on a cutoff in the mountains. I tried to make a better image with the addition of a sky but it appears that the Pyramid Paint filter made it look too dark.

So I think it looks doctored up. But it was fun to do and so I am sharing it.

I've been working on a mapping project with a friend. So it is an interesting challenge to formulate the maps from resources. It is mostly cutting and pasting and adding street names that don't appear on the resource map.

I've been listening to music, too. Some of my older songs that I may remake using the Toneport to see if I can add an edge to them, or soften them a bit. I may add background vocals as well as some lead playing, although I'm not your best lead player! It's all in fun anyway. And there are always covers to do of other songwriters works.

I've received an invitation to an Opening Reception for the Michigan Plein Air Painters exhibition coming up on November 7th. http://www.michiganpleinair.com/ The show runs until Nov. 29th. It's being held at the Huron Valley Council for the Arts in Highland, Michigan. Not too far from us. The invitation was a large sized postcard with six images of plein air paintings, all very well done. We hope to go to the reception but if not we may go to the exhibition at a later date.

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.