Photographers and digital artists-make beautiful paintings from photos

I am not a photographer, nor do I play one on TV. I freely admit my technical skills as a photographer leave much to be desired, as far as TTL (Through-The-Lens)  know-how. Much to my everlasting regret, I pretty much forgot everything I learned when I studied photography as a kid.

No, I do my manipulation in Photoshop. It is not depth of field or light through the lens that I play with, it’s using the photo as a blank canvas for a digital painting after the photo is taken. Now, I know, for purists, this is a blasphemous remark. It may even make you shake your head with pity. That’s okay. I am more of  a digital artist than I ever was a photographer.  But if you can get past the “purity” thing, you will definitely expand the depth and breadth of services you offer to your clients by being able to offer them paintings or images with special effects in addition to traditional photography. Or, more importantly, these programs can enable you to explore new horizons for your work in a way you never dreamed.

With a digital program like Photoshop or Painter, there are so many ways to parlay your digital and photographic skills and learn how to make digital paintings or add stunning special effects to your pieces…opening up an exciting new market. In this post, I just want to offer some possibilities for you think about and experiment with. The upshot of it all is this: you will not only find an expanded market for your work, but you might find yourself enjoying yourself tremendously and giving your work a whole new level of depth. In fact, you might become addicted to all the artistic possibilities of no-holds-barred digital photographic manipulation. Whether it’s full blown digital paintings you want to create, or unique special effects that dramatically enhance the images, the main thing is to have fun. Because if you’re not having fun, it defeats the purpose and will definitely show in your work.

Photo to painting by Mindy Sommers.

Now, we all know photographers who run their photos through Photoshop’s native filters–a few clicks and they’re done. And that’s exactly what those pieces look like-a click of a few filter buttons and that’s it. That’s no more digital art than Hamburger Helper is cooking. Here are some filter, plugin and software recommendations to start you off with your experimentation. Hopefully, one or more of these ideas will prompt you to find your own voice and embark on a whole new level of photographic creation. None of these filters are ends unto themselves–no filter is, nor should they ever be. They are, however, means to an end. With them, talented photographers (and artists, too)  can use them as jumping off points to their new creations.

Gertrudis Pro
Gertrudis Pro is a fabulous stand-alone software with which you can create some stunning paint and brush effects. Load your image, click “auto sketch tool” and you’re ready to rock. Your photo will act as the “trace” image and Gertrudis will pick up all the colors, shapes and shadows automatically as you move your brush around. Gertrudis Pro comes with its own native brushes, like “Van Gogh” and “Scratch Style”,  but you can create your own brushes to use over and over again by changing the density, size, direction, stroke and color settings of your brushes, and a host of advanced settings. Gertrudis does not allow you to work in layers, but you can easily export your image to Photoshop (or another program).

Alien Skin Snap Art
Alien Skin Snap art is a Photoshop plug-in that turns your photos into beautiful paintings, sketches, illustrations and even cartoons. You don’t use brushes with this software–you apply the effects to the whole image at once. However, you do have control over the filter’s parameters before you apply it. This control includes paint coverage, style, light, canvas texture, etc. I like working with layers for painting programs, putting the paints on separate layers…that allows me to fully control the intensity of the effects I apply and the way in which I choose to apply them.

Color Efex Pro by Nik Software
This is not a painting program, but one that revolves around Color with a capital “C”. This is, hands down, my personal favorite coloring program because the sheer diversity of effects, possibilities and ability to control each effect is just stunning. I couldn’t live without Color Efex Pro, a Photoshop plugin filter.  The sheer number of effects (around ninety if you get the Complete Edition) boggles the mind with exciting possibilities. From tonal and color contrast to old photo and full-control-black-and-white, this program is an amazing amalgam of powerful effects that will turn into an addiction. You will go nuts experimenting. I promise.

Filter Farm (free)
One of my favorite filters is called Filter Farm, one of the best-kept secrets in the digital art world. A simple little program, and only accessible through Photoshop as a plug-in, Filter Farm uses random algorithms and non-predictability to create the most beautiful transitions and color effects. No two effects will ever be the same, and the author claims that they “grow genetically” based upon the users’ choices and image data. I use Filter Farm as a separate layer for my image, enabling me to control the amount of effects I want. Filter Farm comes the closest to magic, and I highly recommend it.

Art Rage
Art Rage may look like a simple program, but it’s not. It’s a sophisticated stand-alone software that gives you many ways to make beautiful paintings. Art Rage supports layers, and you can export/import layers and create new ones within the program.  You have the option of using a “tracing image” to paint over and the program will automatically select all the subtle gradations and hues that are picked up from your image, or you can paint freehand. And you’re not just limited to a paintbrush—there is a palette knife for scraping and smoothing, glitter spray, airbrush, paintbrush, and more. You can also control the amount of “water” added to the paint (thinner), how much paint you want on your brush, the brush pressure, and opacity. (The glitter brush is really cool, it has three dimensional texturing). Art Rage supports Photoshop format files.

Virtual Painter
Finally, a fun little stand-alone program (it can also work as a plug-in) which offers lots of fun options but virtually no control. Virtual Painter will automatically take any image and turn it into any one of a variety of styled paintings including oil, watercolor, gouache, pencil and more…for a total of sixteen styles. Just click and the program will do the rest. You do have some control over the intensity of each effect–such as variations in canvas, color, scale, deformation and focus. While it’s not exactly a serious artist’s tool, it *can* be used in a more sophisticated fashion for serious artists when used as part of a layer or group of layers.

To sum, the world of digital art continues to become not only more exciting, offering an ever-increasing array of fabulous filters and plugins for the digital artist and photographer, but digital art itself has gained the credibility and respect once garnered exclusively to the paint-and-brushes canvas artist. The sheer amount of tools, techniques, programs and options now available to today’s digital artist require a massive array of knowledge and skill to adeptly master. Certainly the breadth and possibilities of effects available to the digital artist is something Van Gogh could only have dreamed about. Like my husband says, “if you’re not growin’, you’re dyin’.”  The skilled artist is always changing, growing and adding to his/her arsenal, and the tools outlined above are a wonderful addition to any artist’s.

New vintage freebies and more goodies/news!

Yeh, I know, I know, I totally suck at keeping up with this blog and Freebie Fridays. Things get so busy and I just can’t seem to keep up, and for that, I am sorry. I am making it up to you, though, because I have uploaded four fun freebie vintage images for you to download. All are 600 dpi and about 1500 pixels on their longest sides. Here is a preview, just click the image to download the zip file:

I have noticed a bunch of new subscribers to the blog–hey you guys, post! I know you’re out there, lurking, because I see you signing up Since I’d like to get to know you, I’d love to see you posting. So check in and say howdy!

Anyway, first, let me tell you about the simply GORGEOUS new stuff available at Vintage Art Download, yes, I will say it, call it bragging, but we are far and away the best vintage art download site on the web. Sure I am biased, yeah, I own the place, but man, nobody has our selection, our quality, our customer service, our pricing or our totally singular terms–we don’t ask for any licensing fees and we don’t impose restrictions on use. Nada. Zilch. Nuthin’. Nobody offers 2400 dpi images at 4000-5000 pixels in size, enhanced, retouched, archival quality images.  That’s why printers of posters, fine art/canvas, artists, designers, crafters from all over the world buy from us. They know good stuff when they see it.

First, our newest addition is beautiful Victorian Fairies and Nymphs. We only have about twenty images so far, but they are all archival, all 2000-2400 dpi, and all at least 3000 pixels in size…they go up to 4000 pixels. Here are a few of them, aren’t they gawchuss?

We’ve also added a lot of other new artworks to Vintage Art Download. We added at least one hundred new Vintage Travel Posters that you absolutely must see. From beautiful Italian travel posters to trains and planes and posters from every country from Egypt to India to Japan, they really are gorgeous. To see the newest additions, they are always at the end of the section. Click the image below (three of our new ones) to go to the section:

Also, *cough cough*, we’ve added some pretty racy Erotica to the site. We intend to add a lot more, but we’ve got some beautiful art nouveau style erotica as well as Pete Fendi images–Fendi is extremely graphic yet there is a childlike innocence to the images. Click here to see.

We’ve also added a Renoir category, as well as some archival Monets and Klimts. We’re always adding new stuff to the site, so you really need to look at all the sections you’re interested in. Most likely, there will be new stuff. Coming very soon: high resolution, archival quality VAN GOGH.

Love and Kisses to you all, please post to me so I don’t feel like I’m singing in the dark here.

MS

About religious cults and government. (Off-topic).

I don’t talk about myself here. After all, this blog is about art, not me. I decided to make an exception today.

I have two older brothers, one of whom I remain close to. In the seventies, they both belonged to a cult called “The Brotherhood of the Spirit” or “Rapunzel”, a commune located in Massachusetts. I unhappily watched them, a teenager at the time, as they handed over our recently-deceased grandmother’s hard-earned inheritance money to the “community” where their flamboyant leader, Michael Metelica, would allow them to eat rice and beans and live in shacks without plumbing  just so he (Michael) could buy million dollar recording equipment, Harleys, eat like a king and fly all over the world giving interviews–all with the toiling members’ money. My father, who handled their inheritance, knew the money was going to be “flushed down the toilet” as he said, and expressed sadness that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Indeed.

I hate cults. I hated them even then, when I was a kid. Although I didn’t know what a cult was at the time, I did know that my brothers seemed to be in some kind of loopy, irrational fog. And it was deeply upsetting to me.

Recently, my oldest brother, Mitchell, confided that when he left the cult, he had to go through extensive deprogramming and exit counseling to acclimate himself again to normal life, to clear the haze. I had mentioned to him that I became interested in cults because of him and David, and had been reading about Children of God and Scientology. “Children of God?” he quipped. “Never heard of ‘em. Give me their contact info–give me a cult and I’ll join it.” (Mitchell’s humor is sometimes with a bit of self-deprecation, but I did laugh.) I had never known he went through deprogramming; I only knew that, after my younger brother left, he reluctantly and slowly followed suit. He recounted a story I don’t consciously remember, but it sounds vaguely familiar. Michael had a band called “Rapunzel”, and he put endless amounts of money into both equipment and promotion for the band. Thousands, maybe millions, were spent on Michael’s whims and desires, while those like my brothers lived like paupers. We both–Mitchell and I– went to watch Michael’s band play in the Village in New York City. “Mitchell,” I announced bluntly, “they totally suck.” At the time, he said, he was horrified by my opinion. But during his reprogramming, he kept coming back to my comment and it gave him great comfort, he said. “My clear-eyed little sister saw what I denied to myself,” he told me recently. “Yeah, it was a little thing, but it encapsulated so many other things for me.” He told me that in the ensuing years, my contemptuous (and honest) dismissal of Michael gave him great pleasure. “It was like you were begging me, ‘come ‘on, we both have the same taste in music, good taste, we know our music, and how can you abandon all of that for what is so obviously terrible?’” He said it was almost as if I was pleading with him to see the band for what it was, a local little hack band led by some twit with a tophat and Civil War style waistcoat.

Because of my brothers’ experience in Brotherhood of the Spirit, I long ago developed an interest in cults and mind control. After all, my brothers are exceptionally bright. Mitchell’s IQ must be near, if not in, genius territory. So how do people get caught up in them? “Nobody wakes up and decides they’re going to join a cult,” I once read somewhere. “They join a religion, a cause, a community, a church. But never a cult.” So I have long made it my business to read all I can about cults.

To that end, I recently watched a YouTube video where an elite member of the academia lambasted the United States and lauded Europe–the latter had put governmental panels into place to monitor religious groups to ensure they were “protecting the Constitution”. Germany, in particular, had put pretty severe controls and monitoring in place to oversee Scientology. I am certainly no fan of Scientology’s, but neither do I want some governmental panel overseeing religious activities in the United States. I posted something to that effect in the YouTube thread, and the man who posted the video went ballistic on me, ranting about “death panels” (huh?) and that, if IBM pulled the same human rights abuses as Scientology, they’d be sent to prison. To follow is my response to this poster:

Hi Mark,

The example of IBM is an interesting one because it highlights the complexity of this debate. While it is a similar principal, it is definitely not apples to apples.  As far as I can remember, armies have never marched across Europe fighting over the labor practices of an electronics firm. But for the sake of religion, they have. If IBM was to pull a stunt like this, the ensuing media coverage would set the free market in motion and it would consequently be shut down as purchases of their products would virtually cease.  This is an example of how we can look at the same thing, and see many points of view.

You bring up death panels, a topic which highlights a recent ideological debate we are having in this country.  As a debate it’s a very appropriate one; however, it’s not just about death panels but who we are and what things we value. When one looks at the different news media outlets, you’d swear it was two issues being discussed here…it’s almost as if we’re two different countries.  If you salivate at the thought of catching another segment of Oddball, and simply must have another slice of Rachel Maddow, then you see only one side of the health care issue. If your heart skips a bit whenever Sean Hannity introduces his “great great great great great American Panel,” then you only see one side of the health care issue. (If you watch Glen Beck, after about thirty minutes you want to put a bullet in your brain because there’s absolutely no reason to want to continue living.) What we have is a debate that is sizing up the direction of the country with health care as merely a sideshow.

The health care debate is applicable because we are talking about religious freedom, as well as the role of government in it. There’s an advocacy for adopting the European style control of religious freedom. It’s always a bit amusing to watch some folks’ fascination with anything European. From the birth of this country until today, for some reason that continent is held up as a standard we should emulate. This is a continent that has repeatedly, and for thousands of years, tried to destroy itself over sectarian, religious and power grabs. It is only natural that post WWII, when total destruction really was at arm’s reach, that Europe decided to try to neuter individual freedoms in the name of protecting itself from self-destruction. They have embarked upon a vigilant and conscious effort to rid themselves of nationalism and religious beliefs and impose economic boundaries. Why anyone would want to model a society after a continent that brings Barry Macquire’s Eve of Destruction to mind is beyond me. Whenever a society decides to neuter out all excesses that it deems destructive, it will invariably, too, crush those impulses that are good. You’re in essence handing unlimited power to bureaucrats without individual power–the species is not wired with that kind of wisdom.

An example of this from the field of religion: Germany is being lauded for cracking down on Scientology. The founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, is from Germany;  he rebelled against the Catholic church by posting the tenets of his beliefs on the doors of Germans in the sixteenth century. Now, there’s nothing inherently evil about Protestantism, but in its time, it was considered heresy and a hanging offense. Further, I am not sure the Unitarian Church would have gotten off the ground in this country if we had practiced government overseeing of religious beliefs. The Unitarian church is certainly a hodgepodge of beliefs that run counter to traditional Christianity. We see this debate in our country today. Those of the liberal persuasion are hell-bent on unleashing the social engineering dogs upon the land. All with good and sincere motives, at least on paper. They wish to create the perfect society where nobody does any harm to anybody. I live in Vermont, ground zero for this mindset.  Here, people lay on the ground at night, staring at the stars, and dream of turning Vermont–then the US–into Canada and Europe.  It’s against the law here to throw a cigarette out the window; it’s also against the law drive your own car in your driveway without your driver’s license on you. This is just one example of government intervention running slightly amok.  But many in the Vermont government would love to outlaw fatty foods altogether and cigarette smoking in one’s own home, all in the name of protecting us from ourselves.

Similarly, destroying Scientology by any intervention must certainly sound like a great idea to a lot of people, just like equal pay for equal work sounds wonderful until you try to write a law for it. You will open up a Pandora’s Box with government invention by telling people what they can believe in and what they cannot believe in.

Another one of my favorite examples of this Pandora’s Box, or what is otherwise known as  the “Be Careful What You Wish For” principle, can be illustrated by abortion. My comments here are not to come down on either side of this issue (I am pro-choice, but that is irrelevant), but to merely provide an example.  The premise is that at least in the first six months, the fetus is simply a bag of cells and one can do whatever one wants to do with it. That is the law. However,  I simply cannot wait until genetic engineering takes off and we can practice a twenty-first century form of Eugenics. I can’t wait until they figure out how to make the more perfect human by biogenic engineering. What are we going to do when our neighbor across the street–with more money than we have—can afford to engineer an IQ fifty points higher in their children than ours? Or how about a more perfect body—more beautiful or athletically inclined? The law will have to step in and start to define exactly when life begins or you’re going to have total societal chaos.

The human mind won’t stop where you want it to. The beauty of life is encapsulated by the human spirit being unleashed, allowed to love and create untethered. The best governments devised by man are those that will allow the human spirit to be unchained with warts and all. This is not always pretty, just like democracy itself isn’t always pretty, just as the human spirit is rife with imperfections.  Those governments designed by those who theoretically feel that they know what is right and wrong never stop to understand the psychology of the human mind. It is why pure socialism crashed against the Cliffs of Dover. We will not work for other people unless we primarily work for ourselves,  but boy does socialism look great on paper. (Ironically, the communes so prevalent in the seventies were based on the socialist philosophy and they all crashed and burned. It boggles the mind that there are still so many people who long for socialism but refuse to learn from history–history that includes those so-called idylls called communes, the little communities where the leaders lived like kings and the people squat into the earth to indelicately relieve themselves). So many theories work really well until you’re forced to inject people into their middles–and that’s when they start to fall apart, because they are not built around the individual. if individuals are not strengthened by the acts of government,  society will certainly accomplish less than it might have.

Intellectual think tanks love to look at life from the point of the collective good, the same think tanks that treated Mussolini in the twenties as they treat Obama today. I maintain that the strongest, healthiest, richest societies are built from the individual up and not from the government down.  That said, this is the crux of my point: the elimination of cults could not be anything but a good thing. They enslave minds. But we are ignoring the right of the human being to make a mistake. Take it up with God or Darwin, this is how we are wired.  A fundamental human right is that we are to live our lives, revel in our successes and learn from our mistakes. And no, it’s not always pretty. But there is a reason why America attained the status in the world it enjoys even now. It is the best country in the history of the world because it unleashed the spirit of creation–a mindset that runs counter to creating panels who make decisions about what you should or should not believe in, something not in keeping with the principles that make a life worth living. In a complex world, still everything eventually breaks down to simplicity. A mistake often made is the belief that, the higher the IQ, the more brilliant the ideas–when many times this is patently untrue. The principles that guide the best governments and the best lives lived are fundamentally simple: love, empathy, respect, etc. This is why, when it comes down to the art of wisdom, it does not reside in those with the highest of IQs, but those with the best fundamental understanding of life itself. That’s why a simple rice farmer in Thailand may indeed be wiser than Stephen Hawking.

How to fight a the abuses of Scientology or Children of God? You’re doing it right now. As are other brave souls in the media. When you add the power of the internet, soon, only those living in a cave with eyes covered and ears jammed with cotton would weigh–even for a nanosecond–the possibility of joining the likes of, say, Scientology. Take a bow, you’re a big part of that.  That’s how you fight cults..by shining light on them…not with the heavy, imperfect hand of government.

I see from your video that you have a V for Vendetta mask prominently displayed, and I know that’s the mask that Anonymous uses in their protests. In that movie they riot against a conservative fascist government–a government telling people what to think. They masked themselves in London and eventually the House of Lords blows up. Forming a government panel to tell to people what they should and should not believe in would be making the very same mistake.

Freebie Friday: Japanese Floral Woodblock art, Petunias

Much more beautiful art to be found on Vintage Art Download, the best high res vintage and fine art download site on the web…nobody else comes close. And there’s no usage restrictions.  From Victoriana to vintage postcards to vintage French posters to Monet, Mucha and Renoir, you will find an explosive high resolution, archival quality collection of printable art unparalleled on the web.

Enjoy…design, create, be inspired and inspire. Download by clicking the thumbnail.

Freebie Friday-Victoriana, Girl with St. Bernard

Again, sorry I am late. Maybe I should make it “Freebie Saturday” or “Freebie Whenever I Can Get To It.” Hope you can forgive me. This beauty is a piece of classic Victoriana…a beautiful young girl and her dog. Use it freely and don’t worry about restrictions. Do what you want with it–hopefully, it will spur your imagination and you’ll use it for new, derivative works. I’d love to see what you’ve done, so if you post the result, you’ll make me happy! Click the image to download the full size. It’s nice and big, 300 dpi, and retouched…as is all our downloads. Don’t forget to visit www.vintageartdownload for the really good stuff, with no restrictions.

Freebie Friday-Art Nouveau Decoratif

Sorry folks; late again with my Friday Freebie, but this one will make it up to you. I don’t know about you, but I adore Art Nouveau. Give me those luscious, ornate swirls, parabolas, flourishes and I am one happy girl. One of my favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha, is the definitive Art Nouveau master. If you want Mucha in high res download format, without any usage restrictions, click here.

This one is a beauty; you can make it seamless for backgrounds or use it as is for logo and web design or as part of an original art piece. Click the image to download the high resolution version.

And hey, if you like our freebies, tell me! Post to me here and tell me how you used it, or even better, show me what you’ve done with it. I’d love to see If there is something you’d like to see here, also, let me know—I can’t read your mind

Remember, for the best vintage and fine art in high resolution, downloadable digital format, there’s only one site: Vintage Art Download.

More fontalicious goodness

Here are some more fonts I use a lot, and simply love. Enjoy! Don’t forget you can get most of them at My Fonts.

Post processing your fractals-exploring new ways to create fractal art.

For those of you fractal artists who believe that fractals should remain “pure” and “untouched” right out of the fractal generator, cover your eyes. In fact, close this page on your browser, because this article is about taking the beauty of fractals and changing them, molding them like clay, adapting them in accord with your own personal artistic eye. I don’t believe in the “purist” viewpoint–in fact, I think it’s rather silly. Fractals are art, and as such, are means to an end, and the end is the artist’s vision. Just as no two completed fractals are just alike, neither are fractal artists, their vision or their tools.

(Note: I exclusively use Tierazon and Vchira for my fractal art. However, they are no longer available for download. They used to be available for purchase, but I can’t seem to find them anywhere. They are very small programs and need no install, so if you’d like these programs, post to me here.)

I wrote this “post-processing” (in other words, changing, tweaking, revising, adapting) tutorial for fractals in 2003, but I think it’s still relevant today and can offer any fractal artist who wishes to experiment some new ideas and ways of looking at their fractal art. At the very least, I hope it sparks your imagination and allows you to take risks and try things you’ve never tried before.

(I am an exclusive Photoshop user, and though I am fairly certain that programs like Paintshop Pro have similar features, I do not know their names so all my references will be from Photoshop.)

Of course, it goes without saying that some fractals are so perfect, so blissfully perfect, that to touch them would be blasphemous. I don’t see a whole lot of those, and this article is for the majority others which may have not been as similarly blessed.

Everything starts with the raw fractal. I believe you can train your eye to “see” beauty and possibilities in the most mundane of images. After awhile, once you become really comfortable with your generator of choice, you’ll know the kinds of lines and shapes that work the best and just need your special touch to bring them out.

Don’t be so quick to trash a fractal that doesn’t sing to you. If it made you stop and look, there may be something there. Keep the parameter for another day. You might be surprised at what you’ll find. Many of my own favorites were literally pulled out of the recyle bin. Conversely, I freely admit to working for hours and hours on an image only to be dreadfully disappointed with it, and it never sees the light of day.

Composition
Never rush your cropping and composition–both in your fractal generator and in your art program. It’s just as important as anything else you will do to it, and is often the difference between an average image and a great one. I compose and crop more than once, I may even do it multiple times. It is not unusual for me to spend a half hour, an hour or even more, composing and cropping.

Everything needn’t always be centered. Make it interesting! Try it as an off-center image. Or rotate the fractal round and round (either in your generator, if you can, or your art program) and see which way it looks the best. Make sure there is no boring, wasted, hanging space that does nothing but pull the eyes away from what you want the viewer to notice, what you want to emphasize.

Is there too much stuff going on in the image, so much so that the eye won’t know what to look at first? Is it beautiful but not flowing together smoothly, does it look somewhat awkward? You can often fix these problems with cropping. Do not be afraid to crop, and crop dramatically. In fact, don’t be afraid to crop so dramatically that you’ve totally changed your image, and need to render it again in a larger size because you’ve cropped so much off! Like a good writer, a capable artist will sacrifice a beautiful piece of his or her image if it detracts from the whole. Cropping is a crucial part of the process, and should not be rushed or underestimated.

Your Raw Image
I ask myself what the fractal is “about” after I’ve generated and composed it to my satisfaction. Does it have really interesting, well-defined shapes but is lacking in good color? Or, is it all about color while being rather amorphous? What stands out most about the fractal? What am I going to emphasize? Is it that wild shape in the corner that attracted me, a striking form surrounded by quieter, more serene shapes? Is it a happy image or a moody one? Is it a dreamlike image*, or more of a still life, or is it an abstract? Once you have a feel for the “mood” your image is going to exude, then you will have a better idea of the direction you will ultimately go with it. Don’t “fight” the image. In this I mean that if it has more shape and shadow going for it than color, then emphasize the shapes and let the color take second billing. If the image is all about color, then play that up with strong contrasts and glow and don’t worry about emphasizing the shapes. Go with the flow of the image you’ve made in your generator. Follow its lead.

*(For example: a dreamlike image might use a lot of different blurring effects, both with blurring filters and your hand blurring tool. Dreamlike images also work very well with some of the Flaming Pear filters like “Glare” and “Aetherize.” KPT 6′s “Equalizer” filter is one I couldn’t live without. I use it for everything. This filter gives you endless possibilities in blurring and sharpening, like having the millions of little quarter-notes between the half-notes.)

Color
The first thing I usually look at after the cropping is color. Am I happy with the colors? Usually I’m not, so I start changing them.

A side note about Ultra Fractal, inarguably the most popular and sophisticated fractal software. The artistic control you have with color (as well as other things like layers) in UF is legendary. However, you do not have even one-quarter the amount of comprehensive, artistic control of your image in any fractal generator, including UF, as you do in Photoshop or in an art program.

There are many ways to change your color. So many, in fact, that only a few will be mentioned here. First, I decide if I like the level of saturation. Often, I might start the recoloring process by desaturating a touch just to soften it. Then I might do a “test color run” by opening the Hue menu and sliding the hue bar back and forth to see the possibilities. Sometimes a slight hue adjustment is enough, although most times it isn’t.

Next, I’ll open the Color Balance menu. Giving you much more control than the Hue sliding bar, Color Balance allows you to add different shadows, tones and highlights to your *whole* image by sliding the bars back and forth. Is it a sea scene? Slide the bar toward green or cyan. An autumn scene? Go more yellow and red.

After that, if I want to play some more, I’ll go to the “Grandaddies Of Color Control options”: Selective Color and Replace Color. These are my favorites. With Selective Color, let’s say you have a yukky red shade you want to get rid of, but you want to keep everything else. You pull the drop-down menu to adjust only the Reds, and start sliding the color bars back and forth until the reds change into other colors and hues you’re happier with. With Replace Color, you can exercise even more control: using your eyedropper to select the color you want to change, as well as the amount of Tolerance (ie, how much of the color you want to select, you can only select part of it and not all of it) and change only that particular color. There are literally thousands of hues and shades and colors, and changing the Tolerance level of your selection can literally be infinite when it comes to the end color result.

Another way to change your colors is by using the regular Select menu, by dropping down and clicking on Color. With this option, you select your color with your Magic Wand, highlight it and change it to something more appealing. “Save selection” is an important part of this option because it allows you to go back later and load this same color selection again, even though later on the image may have changed dramatically. By saving your selection and then later clicking Load Selection, you can easily re-select the part of the image you originally chose, colorwise. You can do this even if you can no longer make your original color selection with your Magic Wand; having been prevented from doing so because the colors and shadows have now changed. (Because Magic Wand only picks up smooth blankets of same-color areas, after you’ve changed their color it is sometimes impossible to go back and re-select them without saving the selection.)

After you’ve changed your colors and you are content with the changes, then you can play and see what various filters will do to your image. I typically run my image through Flaming Pear’s Aetherize or Mr. Contrast or KPT’s Channel Surfing (From KPT Effects) to see what kind of effects I’ll get. I may not use them at all, or maybe I’ll use them just a little by clicking on the filter and then clicking on “fade” which will lessen the effects of whatever last filter, or action, I applied. The “fade” button is absolutely essential. I play with it right after every single effect I apply, to see how to best maximize that particular effect. Sometimes applying an effect at merely three percent strength is enough, and anything more than that is way too much.

The Curves filter in Photoshop is another wonderful way to get interesting color and light effects. You can enhance each channel, or find the dark and light colors and enhance the difference, or enhance the monochrome values of the image. Do not be afraid! Keep experimenting with your image. You don’t have to save the effects you don’t like.

Then, of course, there is always the hand-coloring option with your paintbrush.

Think I’m done yet with color? Nope. Because when I am not satisfied one hundred percent with my color, or still feel more can be done, I may go back to the same filters a second, third and fourth time to see the different effects I can get by reapplying filters over and over again, in varying amounts and ways. I might layer two or more different versions together, changing opacities and values, to see which version I like the best.

Cloning, Shadows and Light
You may find you have an image with an empty, boring area that just lays there like an eyesore, adding nothing to your image, and you’ve already cropped as much as you can. In many cases, you can use the cloning tool. “Cloning” simply means copying a part of your image and reproducing it elsewhere in the image. With the Cloning Tool, you can take a little part of your image and clone it into the empty space, blending it in. You can even clone at diminished opacity, to make it look faded or far away–a subtle afterthought that can add so much depth to your image.

To add shadows and highlights, you can use your Dodge and Burn tools to emphasize what is already there– all you need to do is to follow the natural structure of the image. Example: do you see highlights, lighter parts of the image that are seemingly facing the light? Use your dodge tool to brush over these areas to emphasize them. Conversely, use your burn tool to deepen your shadows and make them even more shadowy and contrasty. Another way to de-emphasize and emphasize parts of your image is to blur them; the sharpened part of the image will then pop out even more and grab attention when you blur what’s around it. The same effect can be used with the sponge tool, which can both desaturate or saturate color. This tool is wonderful when you want to either add or remove emphasis from a part of the image.

Another handy filter with which to add light is Flaming Pear’s Glare filter. Certain blurring and sharpening filters, like KPT’s Equalizer, also add a certain amount of light to the image. Keep experimenting; you can always hit “undo”.

You can also get wonderful lighting effects with KPT’s Effects filters, in the Channel Surfing filter. There is a preset which is luminescent, and effectively yet subtly lightens the image in such a way that it looks like ambient light.

“Everything was a blur……”
One of the most effective ways to bring attention to certain parts of your image is to blur others. Usually (not always) the part you want to blur is the background. To blur your background in Photoshop, while maintaining the most amount of control as you do so, is easy. First, you want to duplicate your layer. Then, go to filter, then blur, then Gaussian blur, and blur the bottom of the two layers…..blur as much or as little as you like. Working with the toppermost layer, you will use your brush, in the CLEAR mode, to erase the top layer so it will reveal the blurred image below. I sometimes go to my layer menu and adjust the opacities of the upper layer as I do this, so I can better see what I am blurring below. Remember, in clear mode, you can adjust the opacity of your brush as you are erasing. This allows for endless myriad effects in your image.

Arbitrary Filters aka “I Go Crazy”
Just a little note here about popular filters like Flaming Pear’s Flood filter, the filter that creates beautiful water effects, complete with reflections. Like many artists, I, too, love that filter, but I am aware of the danger of overuse and try to use it sparingly and only when I feel the image would be enhanced by it. A Mandelbrot or Julia rising out of the misty depths of the sea can be interesting, but it can also be a cliche if not handled properly. If the image can stand on its own, by all means, let it. It won’t need the odd and overdone juxtaposition of water and fractal. It makes no difference as to whether you create your “water” in your fractal generator with a formula or in an art program with a filter; the end result is usually the same: uninspired generica. Another example of this is the sparkly brush filter that makes shiny parts of an image seem to sparkle and glitter. In small doses, this is a very effective tool. When you see flat, non-shiny surfaces with a little sparkle, you’re looking at what I call The Flood Effect, or overkill.

The End Game
To me, framing your image or “preparing it for the gallery walls” as my friend would say, can make the difference between a typical presentation and a compelling one. Beautiful, ornate digital frames can be quite breathtaking, but only if they don’t overpower your image. You don’t want people gaping at your frame and ignoring your image. The frame should be considered part of the image and not a separate entity; they should flow together seamlessly. You might want to consider something other than a traditional beveled frame, and make the fractal itself the frame. There are many ways of doing this; here are just a few: by duplicating the image colors in a drop shadow; by bringing the image itself into the frame; by applying an array of effects to the borders/edges of your image to create your frame. Is your image about duality? Slice it in two and frame the two pieces next to one another. Is one part of your image busy and the other part serene? Frame the busy part more ornately than the quiet part to artfully drive this home. If you imagine your image is leading you, almost like a dance partner, creating different ways to frame your image will come to you more readily.

Thinking out of the Mandelbox
Why eat one piece of chocolate when you can have three? You can take elements of other fractals to incorporate into your image, whether it’s a shape or even a hue. You may generate a fractal that’s interesting, but prefer to make it part of another image instead of the whole reason for being, because it isn’t powerful enough to stand on its own. You may decide to make the image a metamorphasis of sorts by actually showing the development of the image–the changes and additions–by displaying them all. For example, you might want to juxtapose your original fractal next to the finished version, but make it part of the same image and frame them together. There are no rules, nor should there be. What personally rocks my world is exaggeration: whether it’s exaggerated color, exaggerated monochrome, exaggerated light effects or shapes, exaggerated flatness or shadow. What rocks your world? Do it, then!

There are truly no limits when you decide to push your creativity as far as it can go by really diving into your image and making it your own. Be daring and unafraid. If you’ve never seen it done before, it’s most probably a winner.

(New to fractals? Check out Ultra Fractal, Fractal Explorer, Chaos Pro, Apophysis. Or you can Google “Fractal Generator” and see the many free generators available for download.)

Tips for artists: the best way to print your art.

As any artist knows, printing is far from a science, it’s more of an artform. Lots of experimentation may be required before you are happy with the results. That said, however, there are certain universal, objective guidelines to follow that will result in rendering a high quality print. This remains the same if you are printing on paper, on canvas, or even on tile substrates such as glass or ceramic.

DPI or RESOLUTION

Let’s talk about DPI, or resolution. So many people still get confused about how DPI (dots per inch) works, or they think that if an image is displaying a 72 DPI resolution rate is tantamount to a low quality image. Not necessarily. Let me explain. It’s not the DPI that’s important–it’s the richness of, the amount of, the data present. The DPI number may waver and vary, but the image data will not. Either you have an image that’s innately rich in data, or you don’t. If the image is big, it has more pixels. That makes it data-rich. The former will render high quality prints, the latter will not. And you can actually change the DPI number and it won’t affect the quality of the print. In other words, SIZE DOES MATTER. Not sure what I mean? Keep reading–it will make sense, I promise.

IT’S NOT THE DPI, IT’S THE AMOUNT OF DATA THE IMAGE HAS.

What is DPI? DPI is “dots per inch”. The more pixels, or dots, per inch, the richer, the more sharp and clear your image will be. The gold standard for most professional printing is 300 DPI. A 72 DPI resolution is more suitable for web use, and easy loading. But this is where people get tripped up. The DPI number displayed on an image is less important than the amount of data the image innately has, i.e, if the image has enough data to support a large size when configured in 300 DPI. This is kind of difficult to explain, but here’s one way to explain it. Let’s say you have an image that measures 5000 pixels, but when you bring it into an image reader or art program, it shows “72 dpi”. This does not mean it’s a substandard image for printing. That DPI is fluid. It actually doesn’t matter.  What it means is that the DPI in that big, data-rich image can safely be changed to 300 DPI, and you will *still* have a high quality, professionally printable image—because, in most cases, a 5000 pixel image will most definitely have enough data to support a good print. It’s the DATA, not the DPI, you must ultimately be concerned about. So you can have the very same image–one in a lower DPI, one in a higher DPI, that will render the same result.

MAKING AN IMAGE BIGGER…CAN’T I JUST CHANGE THE NUMBERS?

Lots of artists ask me if they can’t just “change the size” or “increase the DPI” in their art program, like Photoshop, with a small, data-challenged image, to make it bigger. No, you can’t. When you do that, the computer does something called “interpolation”, which means “making stuff up from nothing.” The data isn’t there, so it’s “faked” by the computer software, and the result will never begin to match the original as far as detail. Now, this isn’t to say that professional enlargement programs like Genuine Fractal or Alien Skin Blowup can’t do a good job. Most enlargement programs work as plugins to your main art program, like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. They can work wonders–but not miracles. That’s why digital artists have a definite edge over the traditional canvas artist—they are designing digitally, which is the format the printer is going to read, and nothing will come between that process and the printing process. You have one step–as opposed to two or three steps–between the image and the printer.

Now, conversely, let’s say you have a 56 kilobyte image. It will not matter what the DPI number is—you still have an image that is not usable for anything except web use. You will not be able to ever get a decent print from it.  There simply isn’t enough data to support high quality printing.

DIGITAL VERSUS TRADITIONAL ART

Digital artists have a definite edge when it comes to printing their work–a huge edge. Why? They can initiate their design in very high resolution, very large and rich in data, or start with a very large “digital canvas.” The image can show 72 DPI or 300 DPI—but that is moot. The important thing is, the image was created starting with a very large digital canvas: such as, say, 4500 pixels by 4500 pixels. I, for example, start my design using a digital “canvas” of about 6000 pixels. They are guaranteed superior printing results, since printing and digital art are a marriage made in heaven. Now, a painter of canvas has more challenges. They have to go through a few processes—each of which will degrade the image–to get it in digital format. They either have to scan or photograph their image first, which, in itself, will result in varying losses of data and detail. That’s an added step, but an important one, in the printing. So the scan must be as high resolution as possible–like 1200 DPI and up–to ensure the image loss of quality will be minimal. See this post to read more about how to get the most from your digital scans.

MONITOR CALIBRATION: THE HOLY GRAIL OF COLOR MANAGEMENT.

Many professional printers have spent thousands on monitor calibration software for their color management, but I have found that Adobe Gamma (automatically comes with Photoshop) works fine for me. If I know what an image is supposed to look like when printed, I simply use Adobe Gamma to calibrate my monitor to “match” what I know the images are supposed to look like, and coordinate the colors on my monitor. Having printed my work, and the work of other artists, professionally for almost six years, I’m confident in saying that programs like Adobe Gamma or Power Strip will do the job just fine.

HOW MANY PIXELS TO AN INCH IN 300 DPI?

If you’re printing your work, remember that there is 300 x 300 pixels to every inch you want to print in 300 DPI. In other words, a 12″ x 12″ print must from an image that is 3660 pixels by 3600 pixels.

COLOR PROFILES

Don’t forget to embed a color profile in your image. In Photoshop, you can do this by going to edit >> assign profile. The standard color profile is SrGB (if printing in RGB) or Adobe 1998, which is a bit more color-rich. You may choose these options from the drop-down menu that comes up when you click “assign color profile.” Resave the image once you’ve embedded your color profile.

But what about CMYK? CMYK (profile: US Web-Coated SWOP V2) is an older, more universal printing mode most prevalent when using a professional printer for large print runs. Thankfully, more and more printers are switching to (the vastly superior) RGB mode. But you may find that you have to deal with CMYK printing. CMYK colors are washed out, flat, and less luminescent and vibrant than RGB. In fact, CMYK compromises reds, decreasing their richness and turning them an orange tone. In addition, there is a very specific way to achieve CMYK perfect black and, if you don’t assign 40 to C, zero to M, zero to Y and 100 to K, you’ll end up with a very washed-out grayish black. Therefore, if you are switching between modes (CMYK to RGB or visa-versa) bring your image into Photoshop and play with the color until the image best reflects the way you want it to print.

WATCH OUT FOR TEXT

If you’re printing a piece of art that has text on it, remember you run the risk of getting your text chopped off because bleed images will be cropped by your printer. To avoid this disaster, make sure your text is at least 1/2″ inside the border.

That should do it for now. If you have any questions about getting the best print results, feel free to post here.

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