Photo Art Friday

Mouse over photo to see "before" image

I've started participating in another online group - Photo Art Friday.  On Fridays, we're invited to post one of our art photos.  Bonnie, our host, makes a suggestion that we can choose to use or ignore, and demonstrates her results with the theme.  She offers free texture layers to download, and gives a short lesson on what she did in Photoshop to achieve her images.  Lots of folks are participating, the the work shown is stunning and exciting - definitely worth a look!  And - did I mention? - it's all free, and you don't have to sign up for anything.  :o)

Today's theme was using "bokeh," which I'd never heard of.  I googled it and found that it mainly refers to have a blurry background in your image.  (You mean, people do this on purpose??)  Bonnie provided a "bokeh" texture to use, as well as another texture layer she calls "Memories of Paris."  Both are available for download here, as well as a lesson on how she used them. 

Here's a cropped version of the original photo.  I used the bokeh layer with it, blending it with soft light.  I didn't see too much effect, so next I added the Memories of Paris texture.  Actually, I added it four times (!), each time enjoying the increasing intensity of the effect.  For blending mode, I tried "soft light," "overlay," and "multiply."  The "multiply" gave the strongest result.  And - each time I added a new texture layer - I took my eraser tool and erased the new layer where it lay over the front goose.  I was using the eraser tool at 99% and used it twice with each new layer to keep pulling up the original look of the front goose. 

I'm enjoying these new groups because I'm trying things that are new to me, and getting interesting results.  Hope you'll check out Photo Art Friday!  If you scroll down to the bottom of the post, you'll see links to all the photos for this week.