Digital art is a favorite of mine. I absolutely love working with images and adding effects to make them into a new and interesting creation. With the help of programs like Photoshop and PhotoMatix a picture is a blank canvas awaiting exploration. Here are a few of my trial images; I will try to put a small description to the left of the images.

 

 

 

This is one of my eariler works. The Bubble form and background was created in a program called Bryce. I then imported a number of smaller photos and saved the image. After that I imported the saved image into Photoshop and added the wording and myself into the photo, along with a few smaller addatives and touchups to create the final image you see to the right. Again this was one of my earilest. I keep it around because I still like how it came out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two pictures were done around the same time. Both of these images were made from scratch within Adobe Photoshop.

The top image:
This was fairly simple and basic to do, You start with the basic text that you want, then apply a series of layer styles, and touch it all up with the smudge brush.

 

The bottom image:
This image was a little bit more time consuming, although it followed a lot of the same steps as the above image. The pen tool and path functions were crutial in making this image different than the top. I also added a more detailed background to this one. This was fairly simple, render clouds and add effects like chroming, holga and opacity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is another Bryce creation. This one was done solely in Bryce and took a bit of time to do. With Bryce you create everything from scratch with the help of basic models and structures to chose from, and modify them from their base form. This is a great program for creating any type of landscape or scenery. It takes a while to fine tune most of these thing and once thats finished you then have to render the image, which can take quite a bot of time all in itself. But a great program to play around in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These next two images are a progression. The first image is the origional image and the second is what the image was turned into. This process is called HDR (high dynamic range) and is a new love of mine. I am not very good at it yet but hope to get better and be able to do some amazing work with the technique.

I used photoshop to bring out the color and create the EV progression needed to import into the HDR program Photomatix.

Once in photomatix I tone mapped to bring out the color and the detail in all of the areas possible and then remapped it to add the artistic effect as well as bring in a little more color to allow the image to pop a little bit more. After some work and getting the image the way that I liked i saved it and then brought it into Photoshop again and applied text and touchup to the image before calling it done.

All in all I like the way that it turned out and love the ability of HDR and Photomatix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is another example of the HDR technique. This one is a little more grunge and a lot more of the artistic touch. This one goes way past looking like a photo taken and starts looking like a painting. The great thing is the ability to pull detail out of the shadow and bring it into view.

 

While there are many uses to the HDR technique and programs this is the one I cannot tear myself away from at this point, I cannot get enough of the way that they come out and the detail and artsy feel you can get with it all.

 

I would definately reccommend purchasing these programs and taking the time to learn them. They are great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is another 'just playing around' image. Not hard to do or very time consuming, but a fun effect when you play around with it.

The origional image was Shawn stepping from one rock to another at a stream by a dam we visited. Ironic going from a stream of water to a ball of fire but it worked out just fine.