Turtle Soup

I have finally gone and finished mom's other book, Turtle Soup.
I'm not entirely sure what it will be about...
She wanted me to do it like I did The Privateer.

The resolution on the image she has for this is way smaller than the other... This one actually fits on the screen... I cut the size of the original Privateer in half, and it is still significantly bigger... strange...

Luckily, This one was much better quality.

Here's her piece about it from her website...

Sea turtles may be endangered but after an encounter with marine biologist, Jack Brandon, nothing will stop Sara Hart from naming her deli, Turtle Soup. When Jack takes a job at the nearby Georgia Aquarium, Sara finds the environmental poster boy at her door, hungry and carrying a chip on his shoulder. Neither thinks the other has what it takes, until a scuba class reveals what lies beneath the surface. It will take food, friends, and a little help from Mother Nature, to help them see that making a difference isn’t all numbers and glory. It must begin with love.

I did it basically the same way I did the other...
I love the gradient I found for this...
I took the one from Happy To See You and I shifted the hue down halfway toward green and orange.

If you're curious about the method, it's relatively the same, so see The Privateer.

I must note, though, that moving the text to the spine was way harder, particularly the title.
I had to sit and rub with a tiny clone stamp, brush, and eraser for ages after I used select>color range... Where it touches the turtle, the colors are too close and it gets nasty.
I had to modify the spine lots, too. I couldn't just stretch the edge of the image. I did, but I had to battle hair and turtle to make them the right color, and make it all shades of green.

I love this one... I'm proud of it. I think I'm getting better.

Old memories, New Creations

Years ago I read this article on how to do a cool abstract work in Photoshop.
Today's piece, Greenery Light, is based upon it - I dug it up again.
It's simply applying the technique of brush shadowing and highlighting on a layer selection and setting it to overlay. Playing with opacity is also important. I started with a special noise gradient background.

This one in my eyes is an abysmal heart-breaking failure. The geometry is a nightmare. I messed it up big time. I tried to half-follow the tutorial, and got neither what he wanted or what I wanted.

Still, the colors are pretty. I'm sure it's not as bad as I make it out to be. I'm thinking of re-doing it, though.
It's a sign that my life is getting better, anyways. Lately my from-scratch work has been a lot darker.

The tutorial on how to some of this and better can be found HERE.

Gradient Maps!

Today will be more show than tell.
What is a gradient map might you ask?
Just the most awesomest thing in the world!
Awesomest is my new favorite, word. lol...
If you go layer> new adjustment layer> gradient map...> you can apply a gradient map to an image. A gradient map takes the brightness of an image from darkest to brightest and lays a gradient over everything based on that. If you set its blending mode to soft light, when you change the gradient map you'll see all kinds of different "lightings" or "moods" to an image. A gradient map is like a photo's mood ring... lol...

This one has a purple-green-orange gradient map. I personally colored the sky red.

If you make a new layer on top and set the blending mode to hue, you can manipulate colors as you wish.


This third one I changed everything this way, on multiple hue layers.













To get the surreal glowing look to each of these, at the beginning I duplicated the background, and used filter> blur> surface blur on it, with a radius of 8 and a threshold of 97. I set its blending mode to screen.
On the second of these I used a blue-green-yellow gradient.

Shadowed Scarlet

This time I decided to go find a picture I took myself and edit it.
The results were good, but I spent more time on it than usual.
Here beside me at the top is the original. This is from years ago at my old house. It was either from our garden or our neighbor's - I can't remember which.
One of the things I've learned with photography is sometimes the great one come to you - you just have to get out there and take lots to find something worthwhile.
That's where this one came from.
This one is today's piece, though it took a few days. I like it - it's better than it looks. It came out rather blurry when I uploaded it. I learned that if you select individual colors and turn them into layers, you can make look like anything . I used layer masks and noise gradients to make the light and dark. It took practice to figure out how to make the light not look lame.
Today's tip: When imitating perspective lighting, duplicate your "light" and erase different parts of each. having different light layers for different areas is key.

Forest Downpour

While this isn't an incredible piece, it's a beautiful proof-of-concept.
My new trick: Gradient Difference.
If you take the gradient preset of red, blue, and yellow, and you set the mode (at the top) to Difference, you can use it repeatedly over itself for a wild little multicolor effect. If you take that effect and cycle the colors with H/S/L (ctrl or cmd+U) or with Levels... (ctrl or cmd+L), there's lots of exploration to be done. This one was made by a layer of verticals set to difference mode and 50% opacity laid on another random one colorized green. I like it, though it's nothing incredible.

Energy Transfer

That's the title of my latest piece. It uses the blending mode "screen", a layer blending option, "outer glow", and a new technique, noise gradients.
It really wasn't that hard to do; I just started with filter> render> clouds like I often do. I used green and black. It looked dirty, so I downed the brightness and upped the contrast.

Using the mode "screen", i used a series of green-to-black gradients; the "screen mode" makes black transparent, giving me the noise grad stripes&circle and the normal-grad beams of light.

I used a random circle brush.
I also used some plus brushes I had. I divided everything into separate layers, so I could manipulate things individually -- i had four "plus" layers. I gave them all a green outer glow.

I later manipulated the colors, making the circles teal and moving the angled pluses toward yellow.

It was an easier project than you would think. My advice for today: experiment!

Differencing Gradients

I experimented with gradients recently, and discovered a neat way to mix them.
If you create a series gradients, each on its own layer, with blending mode set to difference, you'd see them combine with each other. They kinda inverse where they overlap, and experimenting with different ones you can make all kinds of neat things. This is one I
did in studying gradient. There are probably far more complicated and more interesting designs; I just gradually gained an aim with this one, so I didn't stray from what I had begun to envision.

Image>Adjustments> Levels... is a powerful tool if you practice using it. It can help you give cool colors to abstract art. Try changing the red, green, and blue values (from the RGB dropdown menu) in relation to each other. You get flame red,orange, and yellow if you give red 0-85, green 85-190, and 190-255, without moving the gray bias arrow.
I've previously talked about how levels can imrove quality; it can create something entirely new, too. I'll probably add some stuff to this pic later- you can always fine something neat to add; just don't limit yourself to a specific tool/technique or part of the image. Do random stuff; after a while, go back to old things and see if you have new ideas!