Colorfilled Produce Market - Paint.NET - PhotoPaint

Today I was working on an image and when I went to finish it off with a frame from Filter Forge's Freepack 3 the plugin would not open. I tried closing the program, after saving the image, and reopening it and it still did not work. So, I closed down some programs I had open to free up memory and it still did not work. Disappointed I created my own frame.

I had started with a photograph taken by my son, Keir M. Gatzka, in the Lansing, Michigan area of some produce in the market we were visiting.

I opened the photograph in Paint.NET and applied my favorite painterly filter to it. I resized the image to a working size for the internet. I then applied the Ink Sketch artistic feature to it pushing the color up all the way and reducing the ink lines to allow more color.

I used Curves> Luminosity> and gave the piece depth. I saved this file and opened it in PhotoPaint. Here I upped the saturation by 15 and tried to frame it. Since Filter Forge's frames did not work I created a black border about 90 pixels wide, then a yellow border with a 10 pixel wide black border.

I used the wand to select the yellow and applied Effects> Texture> Plastic> for a 3D look to the frame. I added my signature to the image and finished it. Saved it again for display here.

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Now playing: Edward Sparks - Heartlandtest1182010
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Screen Casting with CamStudio - Vector to Painting - Ink Sketch - Paint.NET - PhotoPaint

As I look at online tutorials that show how to use different computer programs, I began to wonder. If I give explanations here as to my techniques in producing my images maybe I could make up such a tutorial or two.

I did a search on screen capture and found a number of helpful listings. One lead me to a program called CamStudio. It is a free program so I downloaded it and began experimenting.

In a short time I had made a test demo of creating an image. CamStudio is simple in interface and saves your tutorial as an AVI format, which with it's accompanying program SWF Producer can convert it to a Flash playable hi res screen casting. I had a little trouble with audio but I was able to work through that while doing my tests.

I would recommend CamStudio for those with limited budget who need to do some Screen Casting. [click here]

Today's image is an older one I updated. It began as a Vector drawing of a cat from a photograph I took of Misty, who has left us, frightened by a visiting dog. We haven't seen her since.

I opened the large file in PhotoPaint and resampled it to 1024 wide. Saving that I opened it in Paint.NET and applied a painterly filter to it, then I used the Ink Sketch filter on it. I boosted the color all the way up. Back in PhotoPaint I placed a border around the image for use with Filter Forge's Frames. I then applied a photograph frame adjusting the settings for a black mat and a narrower green frame.

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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Bo Diddley Fun
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Bob Dylan - Digital Expansion - CorelTRACE - CorelDRAW - PhotoPaint

Bob Dylan was an influence on my earliest musical experience, as he was for many. He currently has some of his early work out on CD and you can read about it on his site [click here] BobDylan.com.

Mr. Dylan is also an artist and you can see his art online as well [click here]. His work is simple, colorful and extraordinary.

I found this image of him browsing in Picasa 3 and am not certain of the photographer. If you recognize it please let me know so I can credit them here.

I first opened the file in PhotoPaint and resampled the image to 1200 pixels wide. I saved that file and opened it in CorelTRACE and turned it into a traced vector image, which I saved in cmx format.

I opened that in CorelDRAW and ungrouped all the vector pieces and selected some at random and exploded them out from the center of the image. This gave me white space to use for additional color.

Using the rectangle tool I created one larger than the expanded image. I placed this behind all the other pieces and selected a purple color to fill the white spaces. I selected the white of his face and added an outline to it.

I copied this to the clipboard and pasted it into PhotoPaint where I adjusted the size and converted to a jpg file. I opened that file in Painter 8 and used Apply Surface Texture> Image Luminance> for texture. I reopened it in PhotoPaint and used Filter Forge's film frame on it and added my new signature.

If you are a Dylan fan and you have yet to visit his official site don't hesitate to click on the above provided links. His art is a visual treat and his musical history goes on as bright as ever.

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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Mr Tambourine Man Cover
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Teething Time - Art Nouveau - Paint.NET - PhotoPaint

Pain and chewing takes place as young ones begin to teethe their new teeth. Our Grandson now has been working on his new teeth and has some poking through and at times he is miserable with them.

You soon find out that for today's youngsters they have gels and strips for the gums to sooth the process. This is an improvement over all the years we grew up without this pain help.

Today I've done a simple image of Zeke chewing on his hand. I used Paint.NET for the pencil sketch with Curves to darken and add depth to that part of the image.

In PhotoPaint I opened a Dover Publications clip art background with an Art Nouveau style wallpaper sample. I copied the pencil sketch to the clipboard and pasted it into PhotoPaint. I used the Tone Curve again as it was not as dark as I needed, then upped the saturation by 15 to boost the colors.

Adding a watercolor frame in Filter Forge's Freepack 3 I altered the color to a brown. Then I added a film frame to finish. I used my real signature file again today as I am trying it out instead of a digital font.

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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Upper Heights
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1920's - Egyptian - Digital Collage - PhotoPaint

I received some Egyptian clip art from my Dover Public-
ations Sampler email yesterday. I thought they were very interesting and decided to make a digital collage in PhotoPaint.

I opened as the background an image of an Egyptian official on a chariot complete with hieroglyphics. I added an Egyptian woman using object feather and the eraser on the object. I also found a recent 1920's Flapper that I copied in Picasa 3 and pasted it with the object property Multiply. I was thinking about how popular Egyptian motifs were back in the day.

I used Filter Forge's Frames again for framing the piece.

A recent discussion on a forum devoted to digital art the question was raised about using one's signature instead of a digital font to sign ones work. So I made a signature file along with a copyright symbol and year. I used that for this piece. As you can see my signature is not readable. I used that reason in my reply to the discussion as to why I used a digital font. So I tried my signature today. It looks pretty good to me, but I know it to be my signature.

So I may continue to use this form of signing my work in the future.

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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Use It Or Lose It 2
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