Friday, June 15, 2012

Negative Space

Mouse over to see "before" image

















Wow - two blog posts in one day - someone check me for a fever!  Actually, this is for Photo Art Friday.  I dawdled so long last week that I wasn't in time to link my work.

















The suggestion for this week was a photo that included negative space.  Using the zoom feature on my camera, I had caught this fellow just as he was into "lift-off."  This is my original photo, and the one at the beginning of the post is my final image.  If you're interested in how I got there, read on:

















Bonnie, and Kim from the Beyond Layers class, recommend doing more than hitting the Desaturation button when you're converting from color to black & white in Photoshop.  I started by converting to Grayscale mode, and then working to enhance the image.

















My next step was to use the filter, Stylize, Find Edges, which I set at multiply blend mode, 30%.  It added a bit of an outline to the gull, but it wasn't showing that much of a difference, so I moved on....

















For this step, I used Bonnie's (free) texture called Nitty Gritty.  I blended it with Soft Light at 100% opacity.  You can mostly see the effect of the texture in the sand.

















This time I used Gradient Map (special effects, 2nd from the left), at Normal, 10% opacity.  Finally, I was seeing something interesting!  (This is the gradient map I was using when I did my "haunted house" in a previous post.

















My last step was to use Brightness/Contrast, at +10 each, to give the image of final wee "pop."  This is the same picture that appears at the top of the post.  And, as I said to myself, enough already!

7 comments:

Ida said...

Great capture of the gull in pre-flight mode and a great use of the texture.

Sherri B. said...

What a great capture - your processing only adds to it. I love how the black and white makes it more dramatic, especially with the shadow!

Miriam said...

Yes he is beautiful, I love the black & white.
I missed last week but had fun playing with the gradient map too.
http://flic.kr/p/ceDeT5

Jeanne said...

such a great capture of this beautiful birds take off, and really like how you have used the gradient map!

Bonnie Zieman, M.Ed. said...

Great capture and superb edit. Thank you for sharing the steps and for sharing your art with Photo Art Friday, Jean Mary.

Pat said...

Nice work!

Electra said...

What an amazing photo and I love how you've walked us through your process.