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"Three Irises" Digital Impressionism - Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 - Plus

Three Irises

I selected another older photograph of "Three Irises," rather close up and cropped for today's image. I browsed my external hard drive and found this photograph already cropped to focus on the 3 flowers.

I opened with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and selected Impressionistic auto paint and kept the default settings; Full image, Impressionistic colors, Basic paper, and Impressionistic Brush.

I saved at 100%, highest quality jpg format. I then opened with Corel PSP Pro X3. There I applied Hue and Saturation, Vibrancy to give the colors more punch.

I added my signature using the Visible Watermark, Lower-right corner. And then added the Golden frame with Image, Picture Frames. I saved that iteration.

I did not resize because of the cropping done to the photograph, plus the frame, was almost 1000 pixels square, just slightly more. So the image was large enough, yet small enough to display here.

I'm still investigating those discovered Postage Stamps, some of which I shared yesterday. I really need to spend some time sorting them as they are not all in an album. There are a few duplicates as well and differing countries, too. Like putting together a puzzle, this is going to take some time.

"Stamps in a Cigar Box" A Discovery - Corel PhotoPaint - Scanning Canon MP495

We have discovered an old cigar box filled with postage stamps from the USA and Worldwide. I used my Canon MP495 All in One and Corel PhotoPaint and scanned in these that you see here.

They come from the Mystic Stamp Company and I have written them about any value to these in particular, referring them to our blog. 

If nothing else these stamps may prove to be useful in creating textures in Corel Painter 11 for collage work. Click on the appropriate image for a closer view.

Listening --- Kirk Mathew Gatzka --- I Love You So Much

"Return to Grunge Guitars 2" CorelTRACE - CorelDRAW - Plus

"Return to Grunge Guitars 2"

"Return to Grunge Guitars 2" began as a photograph of our two guitars. I opened in Corel PhotoPaint and rotated the photograph to portrait. I cropped it slightly and saved the large file.

I opened CorelTRACE and turned the piece into a grayscale photograph and traced the Outlines. I saved the image to a Traced folder. I opened CorelDRAW and selected this image.

In DRAW I Ungrouped all the traced parts into individual pieces. I then selected some basic colors for the majority of them. Red, blue, cyan and yellow. I then regrouped all the pieces to one image. I copied that to the clipboard.

I pasted that into Corel PhotoPaint with a height of 2500 pixels at 300 dpi. I used the Adjust, Local Equalization and the Tone Curve for differing depth of colors. I then applied Filter Forge's Photo Effects Grunge, trying different variations, under Settings, til I found one I liked. I saved that large file.

I next opened the image with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4. I tried a couple of auto painting styles and finally settled on Gouache with the programs settings. Auto Painting the piece gave it more character, brushstrokes, and some abstraction. I saved that iteration.

I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and added my signature using Image, Visible Watermark, Lower-left corner. I added a 25 pixel black Border and saved that. I then resized for display saving my final iteration.

Listening --- The Beatles --- Help! CD

"Return to Grunge Guitars" Paint.NET - Corel PhotoPaint - Plus

Grunge Guitars

I browsed to my guitar photographs on my external hard drive and selected this one. I opened with Paint.NET and tried out a few features and settled on making a copy of the layer and using the Find Edges on it. Layering with Multiply I merged the two layers with the color showing through. I saved that file.

I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and applied the Adjust, Local Equalization tool, then increased the depth of color with Tone Curves. This gave me a High Contrast image.

I used Filter Forge's Frames Grunge and applied variants til I found one I liked, increased the texture and tiled. Saving that file I reopened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

I Fit to Screen, applied Adjust, Hue and Saturation, Vibrancy to boost the colors. I went to Image Borders and added a 25 pixel black border to the piece.

Saving that I opened in PhotoPaint and added my signature. Here I resampled for display as well.

Listening to the Television News