USING PHOTOSHOP TO CREATE A NEW IMAGE

Most of my posts here relate to travel and adventure, but this morning, in a fit of insomnia related partly to my dog, I'm posting this series of pictures which detail some of the things I do with my photographs which don't quite "make it".

In other words, they are somehow flawed and cannot really be used or sold in their original condition. You'll see what I mean below. These images are from a trip I took to Boothbay Harbor in Maine in the mid-90s. Obviously well before the popularization of digital photography.

This shot, on film, has been in my archives for the following two decades and rarely trotted out. Originally it was in good shape, but the years have not been kind to some of my negatives, resulting in color loss. In addition the scanning process to digitize the image results in color imperfections and other flaws.

So this morning I've been playing around with Photoshop to create one of my digital paintings, using the original shot of Boothbay Harbor. I'm happy with the finished image, and will be adding it to my "Digital Painting" portfolio available on Etsy.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on the process and the result.

The original image as scanned in:

Murky. The colors are washed out and tinted.

The image as color corrected:

Much better, but the sky is still distorted and "off". Lots of photographic artifacts (blotches and dots). The image is still a bit dark and the whites are too glaring, overexposed.

The image using a Watercolor Filter, cropped for composition:

By focussing the composition on the red boathouse (actually an artisan shop)  we get the pop of red against the more muted background. The artifacts in the sky now become stylistic elements of a watercolor, and the whites are pulled back into the rest of the composition.

Enlarged this looks quite nice, which is why I'll be adding it to the Etsy store. The use of filters and image altering software to create a completely new piece of art isn't new, but I've only begun really playing with it in the last few years. It's an opportunity for me to create something different from my photographs, with a new artistic outlet.

Let me know what you think.