Autumn Rose

[King Terrier]

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/10-Nov-2002/roseBlackCrop.jpg
PS>crop>Isolate roses>new layer>black background>rough pastels>texturizer>rough pastels>resize for WC>flatten>texturizer

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/11-Nov-2002/roseBunch_wCr.jpg
SOOTC, shot against overcast sky. Crop marked.

[haggis63]

Now that's nice - Very rich looking!

Alan

[jsr88]

K.T. I *am* impressed. This is completely beautiful! I love the black background and the "sketchy" strokes across the rose. You did an unbelievably GOOD job!

You guys are ALL making me so happy today.

Thanks for participating, K.T.
This is *simply*GORGEOUS!

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[madster]

King Terrrier,

You have managed to SO effectively produce such an easy to follow tutorial SO elegantly!

Very simple, yet very, VERY effective. Thank you!

[jsr88]

THAT'S IT!!!
NO MORE SHARING!!!
:D :D :D

MADDY! That is totally GREAT! And SO fast!
(memo to jsr88...MUST do one before bed! Can't be THAT hard...open the PS and GET BUSY!!! ...end of memo.) :D

[madster]

Julie, like I said, King Terrier is a MASTER!

10 steps, and BOOM! I could not believe how easy it was!
I wish ALL tutorials could give such instant gratification!

[jsr88]

I QUIT!!! It's too hard...there's no way I can figure out how to do this with K.T.'s directions...:rolleyes: cuz I don't have any idea what he means by "isolate roses"!
(jsr stomping off to the kitchen to do dishes, cuz she's really p.o.'d at herself for being SO dumb! :mad: )

Don't worry...she'll be back...probably with BOOK in hand.
:D
:cat:

[jsr88]

:o
I stayed right here did something. I couldn't tell you how I did it...but here are the results.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/10-Nov-2002/jsr88-Dahlia-rough_pastel.jpg

I don't think I got to the place where I was supposed to add a new layer. :D

[madster]

Okay Julie, This one's for you! (I lucked out tonight, the hubby made "clean out the leftovers" dinner tonight, and I have a little bit of time before tackling the mess he's left the kitchen in!:D )

1. Open image and crop selected focus.
2. Isolate from background (depending on the background, this might get a little complicated). Use the Magic wand, or the lasso tool, or the Magnetic Lasso tool to create a selection of just your subject, and then use Ctrl+X to cut it out of the image.
3. Create a New layer. The fastest way to do this, is to just hit Ctrl+V, which will paste the item you just cut out in step 2 onto a new layer, centering it.
4. Make your background black. Now, this is probably the layer you cut the focus image out of. Hit Ctrl+A to select all, and then hit G for the Fill Tool, or Shift+G if it is the gradient instead of the bucket, and then click in the layer. It should fill with black.
5. Rough pastels. I used the longest stroke I could, but you'll make the settings that look the best to you based on your subject image.
6. Texturizer (Filter>Texture>Texturizer) set to your selected textures. I used the canvas, but for the first time, the sandstone looks good too.
7. Rough Pastels. Run the filter again, check out different light directions, too.
8. Resize for WC (Image size, 500 wide by 600 high is max)
9. Flatten Image. Make a duplicate image in case you want to play some more. Then hit Ctrl+Shift+E to flatten all your layers into one.
10. Texturizer. Again, I used the Canvas, but play around for the effect you like the best.

Save your work as a .jpg, and Save for Web if you plan on posting here to keep the file size down...

And that's all there is to it! Truly, it's not hard at all. You'll have fun, trust me!

Later, Gator!
Maddy

[jsr88]

You must have been typing your little heart out while I was dinking around doing something I still can't explain. All I know for sure is I'm GLAD you wrote that "translation." If not for me, for anyone else who might be lurking in the basement with us...you know who you are...probably someone like CHOOKYBROWN! :D

Maddy...you're a real sweetheart! I'm going to rate this thread as 5-EXCELLENT so we can find it later on.

Thanks K.T. Yours is STILL my goal! (It's so pretty that it's hard to leave once I start looking at it. ;) )

Thanks Maddy...I really appreciate you putting words to what I managed (sorta).

[madster]

My thanks to King Terrier for the wonderful inspiration, and enough of a road map that I could expound upon it for the "not PS geeks" hanging out down here...

I too, Love starting at the beginning of the thread to look at K.T.'s beautiful rose!

So, Julie, you think you can crank out one more before bed???

Madster

[jsr88]

I think I just might be able to DO that!
:D

[geckonia]

Those are wonderful you guys! Thanks for the tutorial. :D I think I did it right.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/10-Nov-2002/geck_10_pastels.jpg

[jsr88]

OK...I didn't make back last night to get another done. Too much to do to get ready to go back to the "home house" and work this morning. :D

But that didn't stop me from thinking about K.T. had acheived such a strikingly beautiful image. No matter how carefully I followed the directions, I could not get that "wispy" delicate look for my strokes. I don't know whether you guys (Maddy and Geck) were able to get the look but didn't want it, or whether you had the some problem I was having.

One thing about the photos that I used is that they were far less delicate in composition to begin with. Maddy's BOP is a perfect image to work with (or appears to be) to get those fine lines. It has a LOT of black area and would seem to me that it should be able to get the same look as K.T.'s rose. (Maddy, did you have them and decide to change the look?)

Geck, your's and mine have a lot less black area surrounding the flowers and, while both have GOOD pastel appearance, neither of them have the lines like K.T.'s.

I *can* get lines but there are so many of them, and so thickly placed that I didn't care for the outcome. Is there a secret about the settings on the Rough Pastel filter I need to know about; or was K.T. good enough at the skill to improvise (possibly the eraser in between first and second filter applications?)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not frustrated, or unhappy with this technique in any way. I LOVE it! But I like it so much I'd like to be able to simulate the appearance of K.T.'s masterpiece. :D

I'll be at work today, maybe checking in from time to time but I won't have time to try anything until tonight... (IF I'm not too tired and fall asleep in my chair when I get home. ;) )

See y'all later.

[King Terrier]

Thanks, guys. Nice work! This was fun.:)

[jsr88]

As the thread was scrolling by after that last reply was sent, I thought of something.

Geck...HOW LARGE was the original image you worked on? And did you have to reduce it for WC! ? *THAT* would make all the difference in the world. I did my dahlia at 500 wide to begin with. If you reduced yours, Geck...the detail that I was looking for would have been lost to my eyes.
:D

[King Terrier]

Hey Julie -
I was just about to ask the same, or at least point out that I was working an a very small part of the original shot, so when I reduced for WC, the detail was still there.
Later.

[madster]

See, or maybe you didn't see...:D

That's why reducing in size for WC didn't come into play until step 8. You want your image as large in your field of focus as possible for the composition. My Bird of Paradise was 6 1/2 inches across at 72 dpi. Only after all the playing was basically done did I resize it...

Geck, I gotta admit, I LOVE the detail of all the petals. It truly is astonishing the effect you achieved...

[jsr88]

K.T. How *did* you get such a delicate appearance? Does it just depend on the photo you choose to use, or are there special settings that would produce the wider placement of the lines?

Thank you again...this is a great thread...and I've rated it! ;)

Maddy, I was wondering about that reduction placement in the directions...thanks for pointing it out. AND I will be trying this out on a larger image later this afternoon...*after* I manage to find something a little "airier" than the dahlia. :)

Thanks guys! This is great...and you'll never believe ALL the things I'm learning ASIDE from what goes into the specific instructions! :D

[King Terrier]

Okay, I tried this again, but with a full frame image 2048x1536, no cropping. By the time I resized for WC, I lost most of the detail, and had to re-apply the pastel filter. ... and it's still not as nice as the first rose, I think. Of course, every image is different - there's really no set recipe for any of this- only rough guidelines.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/11-Nov-2002/single_rose.jpg

[geckonia]

Julie, I hear ya.... when I tried to get those beautiful wispy long lines, which I was assuming came in the second pass of the filter, my image became very heavy and pixelated... I'll take another whack at it though. Thanks, KT!

[VeldaJ]

They're all super.