ALTERED STATES PART 3?

Might as well continue this for the week. The last two entries have been taking flawed images and working to make something a bit more painting-like out of them. It's a process that by and large is nothing more than a way to exercise my skills on Photoshop, and make an effort to create something above and beyond what was captured in the photographic image.

The below was shot in the early morning on Baie St Jean on the Caribbean paradise island of St. Barths. It's a wonderful little island with a French flair and a casual but uber-wealthy vibe. 

Something about the composition has appealed to me for years, but I haven't taken the time to play with this image to try to create something better. The original is flawed in that it's too stark, with the peninsula cleaving the shot in half. Even lightening up the shadows reveals too little definition to really soften the image.

It occurred to me that some cropping and heavy color enhancement might make a more interesting image. While it looks like a black and white original it's not. Full color, but it's all washed out by the chiaroscuro*.

Let me know what you think.

The original image. It almost seems like two separate shots combined between the boat floating on a morning bay and the sun rising over the island.The sun's light completely washes out almost all color.

By boosting the color and pushing the shadow intensity up considerably we get a little of the texture of the island and clouds, but the color is completely off.

For the final image I boosted the reds and cyans up considerably, getting more of the clouds and water, and enough of the island to give it something less than the monolithic blackness of the original. Then, playing with a dry brush filter I gave it just a very slight texture which brings out more of the clouds against sun's sphere. There's also a reflection of the sun's light more effectively framed in red on the water.

I'm still not happy with the sickly yellow color of the sky and the tell-tale white strip along the top of the hill, but that will have to wait until I have a bit more time. I'll post that in the future.

* (Contrast between the dark and light sections of the picture). 

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF IMAGE ALTERATION

No, I'm not going to be offering a Masterclass here, but wanted to share a bit more of the process.

In this case the image is a pretty good one, it just needs a bit more contrast and perhaps a color boost.

This is a windswept shoreline along Maui's northeastern shore, just off of the legendary "Road to Maui". This is a beautiful little cove and town, with a dramatic and spectacular lava rock shoreline.

Very picturesque. This little composition seemed evocative of the works of one of my favorite contemporary artists, James Coleman.  His early commercial works are beautiful and romanticized paintings of tropical settings.

So I was led to experiment on my own images to see if I could create such a work starting with one of my images. You'll need to click on each image to see it in more detail than the thumbnails below.

The original is a nice composition, but in need of color enhancement I think.

This is the enhanced image, which I think is rather nice and could easily be an illustration, perhaps for an article on dealing with inclement weather in paradise.

The final image is a creation using a dry brush filter to give it the appearance of a painting, with small tweaks to color and contrast.

Would love to know your thoughts. Please comment below.

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.