Digital manipulation of images in photoshop:4

Another one in the series of work based on my daughter and her belongings.

Digital Manipulation of Photographs in Photoshop: 3

This one was done purely from photographs - but with lots of layers and stages, most of which I've now forgotten!  

It involved a photo of my daughter changed with effects like Find edges and sumi e , drybrush, paint daubs and erasing parts and combining it with a wall hanging she had of dolphins, which was also changed a bit - possibly with drybrush.

Digital Manipulation of Photographs in Photoshop 2

Another in the series of digital manipulations of photographs of my daughter, done a few years ago.

She has a habit of running her fingers through her hair.  I photographed this Rosetti painting, cropped it,  used several effects on it to simplify it such as dry brush, and possibly sumi e.   I copied and flipped the crop I'd made, doubled the canvas size and pasted it to join as a mirror image and then integrated the photo of my daughter, applying the same effects to make the images gel together as one.

Lots of use of layers and techniques to unite the 2 very different images to make a cohesive finished piece.

I'll post more in the series.

Digital manipulation of photographs in Photoshop

These photos were part of a larger series I did a few years back.  

The subject is my daughter.  I took a lot of photos of her and her belongings and surroundngs.   These wine bottles stood in the kitchen with the light of the window shining through.

I layered a photo of her at varying opacities and then applied effects, simplifying shapes and adding graphic elements, layering +++ as I went.

Other images combined her with rugs and hangings and windows - I'll show some of those in days to come.

Close up photographs: Dandelion clock

Dandelion clock, Vivien Blackburn

Aren't dandelion clocks beautiful?

Remember blowing the seeds away to 'tell the time'?

Rosebud in my garden

A rose in the garden.   Using the 10x magnifying lens.

Sea of Poppies

Crimson Tide

I haven't seen a field with so many poppies in since I was a child - it was amazing.   I only had my compact camera and took this in a hurry and messed up the exposure  - I must go back with my Fuji.

Summer blues

Flowering now in my garden.   More here

Narrow Cornish Lane

The car nearly touches each side - fingers crossed that nothing  comes the other way.

The Harbour, Sennen Cove

The harbour, Sennen Cove

Across the bay sunset and afternoon light

digital manipulation, flowers, using Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro

Not a great photo but I decided to play with it in Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro

The original photo - a sunny day so high contrast against the background, taken with a close up filter (10x magnification)

The oriental poppies are starting to open, I can't see the dramatic centres clearly yet but they'll soon open.

The first image is the untouched photograph

This one is a combination of the original and the black and white version below, only a subtle difference but moodier? a little more dreamlike?.

Black and white version

I simply pasted the black and white version on top of the coloured version and used multiply in the layer options - then tweaked the colour a little using the hue and saturation, levels and contrast.


And on the final one I duplicated the layer in the black and white image and used edge effects, dodge and burn a bit, and upped the contrast.

Each programme has tools that I like - but oh Corel can be slooooow! and it isn't a matter of my computer speed/memory because Photoshop doesn't. Does anyone else have that problem?

more spring flowers

early spring flowers in the garden

There are signs of spring in the garden after a rather vicious winter that killed off some plants so I nipped out with the camera on macro setting.

Mini daffodils, hyacinth, winter pansies and wild violets that self set everywhere - I love them and have a running battle to stop my husband pulling them out as weeds. 90% of the winter pansies died in that awful weather before Christmas :>(

Glacial caves

Look at this link for some amazing photos by Eric Guth of a cave deep inside a glacier

aren't they beautiful?

Resident tiger was very very jealous of new black kitten - doesn't it just show?

shame it was a bit out of focus

A bigger splash

A bigger Splash, Vivien Blackburn

I don't think I've shown this one before here?

evening light, January

Winter fields in evening light - skies are so gorgeous in the early morning and evening.

experimenting with a new (to me) pocket camera

Groby Pool, Evening Light. phographs by Vivien Blackburn

My much loved Fuji camera is big and fairly heavy, like an SLR, and for ages I've toyed with the idea of a pocket camera for times when I wouldn't carry the Fuji.

Last week I bought a little Panasonic Lumix from a friend who had upgraded and this is it's first outing - some very very quickly snatched photos on the way back from a family visit.

I have to say I'm really pleased with it. There was a scary bit when my computer wouldn't talk to its HDSC disk - but that was solved when I dug out the card reader that I don't normally need. Phew! relief.


The light was very low, subtle colours in the sunset and I haven't had time to absorb all of its possibilities. These were taken with aperture priority and a wide aperture, flash switched off. No tripod, just hand held - so I'm quite pleased with how they came out. The speed would have been lower than ideal for hand held in that light. The sheen of the water was beautiful.

This is an old flooded slate quarry with a very very old manor house on the other side which belonged to the Grey family (the family of Lady Jane Grey, the 9 day queen). There are deep still-working quarries on the other side of the road too, hidden by the woods.

Considering it was having a lot asked of it in low light, I was really happy :>)