She Left Who?

[TByrne]

http://homepage.mac.com/byrneprintmaker/.Pictures/Storage/woodedpath_srgb_web.jpg

And who was left standing on the oh-so-perfect swirl of elegantly ancient brickwork - peering down the path that swallowed her? A lover? A parent? A dearest friend? Or was it another, civilized, life?

• • •

Didn't know where to post this image found along the Brandywine. Okay here? BTW... jpg compression's crumbled up the foliage sharpness here. Sorry.

Ted

[wesuggs]

beautiful colors and imagery

[Stav_98]

Love it Ted. How do you bring the colours up like that? Maybe a silly question but to be honest I've never really played with post processing to that extent.

[TByrne]

Love it Ted. How do you bring the colours up like that? Maybe a silly question but to be honest I've never really played with post processing to that extent.

Actually this one was so simple that I am embarrased to tell it.

1. Create a hue/saturation layer above your original
2. Crank the be-jing out of the saturation.
3. Mask it to black
4. Paint in the colors as you want to emphasize them.

And if you want to be really complex and cool...

1. Create a curves or levels layer above your hue/saturation level
2. Darken the darks - lighten the lights to ridiculous levels
3. Mask it to black
4. Paint in the highlights and shadows as you want to emphasize them.

Want more?

Flatten that layer
Copy it to a layer higher
Increase its contrast then
Add a lot of Filter->Blur->Gaussian blur to that layer (and or Filter->Noise->Median and play with that setting)
Mask it completely
Paint in misty areas, thingees, and highlites/shadows to your heart's content with white onto this top black mask. Use low intensity brushes and build up the misty effect.

For a real trip, use the saturation blendng mode on this top layer and bring it down to about 10% of opacity before you do your painting. Then play with that opacity when your're finished. Nice thing about the masks is that you can't make a mistake that you cannot correct.

You can use any or all of this stuff and just have plain fun. You will feel like a kindergartener with crayons and best yet.... You don't have to stay between the lines!

The hardest thing I had to do with this image above was to decide how to crop it. Otherwise... it was about twenty minutes of play. Unfortunately I can become obsessed with playing around with these things and consequently can waste A LOT of time on an image. I try to limit myself to an hour from the opening of my RAW image to finally posting stuff on my daily blogsite below. Then it takes what? Five minutes to post it here as well?

Enjoy....