July One Photo Focus image – click to embiggen
My favourite monthly editing challenge, One Photo Focus for July is here and I got a chance to participate after sitting my last exam YAY!
Details on how the One Photo Focus challenge is, with the original source image and ALL the other exhibits is HERE – Go and see wonderful art, I will wait for you 🙂
This months source image was supplied by the talented Robin Kent and I was really excited to see it and instantly had a conceptual idea of what I might do with it. Luckily I found images with Creative Commons licences that allowed me access to use them.
Post Processing Steps:
1. Find all the images and see if they worked as part of the whole
2. Blend in the top corner images in separate layers using gradient blend tool via a mask and tidying up the edges with a brush. Added in a reasonably low opacity.
3. Add in the Monument valley image to the bottom and spend ages with mask and brush tool, painting around the edges trying to blend it into the grass nicely. Fail!
4. Try and clone out the people in the grass – PS kept having a hissy fit with this image and stop access to tools and it would not let me do any cloning, patching or healing. Fail Again!
5. Add in top layer which is the Declaration of Independence original handwritten document. Turn it on a tilt for added interest, desaturate so we only get the texture and blend in using Vivid Light at 54%
6. Be slightly unsatisfied with finished colour image and spend ages trying other grunge textures on top. Fail Again!
7. Add in a Hue/Saturation Layer, decide that Sepia is the way to go and Success!
New techniques used here (successfully) – using Mask and Gradients to paint in a softened image into the corners
The concept for this image was to take iconic American images easily identifiable and add them in around the White House, and finding the Declaration of Independence document available was the icing on the cake 🙂
Like it? Hate it? Tell Me About it!
Learning to See Light 
I like your sepia version and collage. Wonderfully patriotic and well done.
Thanks Cee, The original version was in colour but once I finished it I wasn’t happy, the colour was too much of a distraction from the more subtle elements, and given I was bringing in parts of US history, I thought sepia was appropriate 🙂
LOVE what you’ve done with this image – incorporating so many iconic images with the collage is so effective! 🙂
Thanks Joanne, the challenge was finding royalty free images to suit the composition that I wanted and it was actually reasonably easy. Then a matter of tackling the techniques to make it work which was a good learning experience. I had fun with this on 🙂
BTW I tried to leave a comment on your post but Blogger wanted to prove my identity in THREE different ways and it kept forgetting my wordpress choice and wanted to say anonymous.
So I gave up, TOO HARD!
Eek, thanks for the head’s up. There was a glitch like this a couple of months ago which I’d hoped had been “fixed”. I shall investigate further…
Actually I think it was another poster on Blogger, I had so many tabs open late last night I got confused!
Hee hee, that certainly can happen late at night! 🙂
Stacey, I so love what you have done with Robin’s image, and despite what you consider failures in your process along the way, your end result was well worth the twists and turns! Wonderful iconic images chosen to composite and the overall effect is just sublime!
I haven’t had the time I have wanted to visit other’s blogs lately, but I did a quick perusal of your latest posts and am just blown away but what you are learning in your PS course. So much so that I followed your link, read all the information, and have now signed on myself! I’m really excited and I have you to thank. I’m going to not only tackle this monster but learn how to creatively use it 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing!!
Hey thanks, Im glad you took the time to check out the Fine Art Grunge course, it is worth every cent if you pay full price and even better if you get it on the current special.
Make sure you go to the BONUS CONTENT page and download the HEAPS of free textures and backgrounds and brushes and stuff, there is tons of it and lots of variation and some good deals if you want to purchase stuff.
I look forward to seeing your work as you progress. I have just started Module 3 and there is LOTS going on in there, really excited to be tackling it too.
And thanks for your kind words on my art, I do appreciate it, still feel like Im a kid playing with this but having fun and thats the important thing!
Hehehe, so excited, Stacey!! And thanks for the tips. If I run into any glitches, I know who to ask since you’re quickly becoming a pro 😀
Ask away but I’m far from being a pro!
👍🏻
What a great representation of the USA. I love it, Stacey!
Thanks Lois, I was lucky and found royalty free images I could use which worked really well
I really liked your sepia toning of this. I like your thinking and it is so hard when the processing doesn’t know this and stops you. Been there, done that. Great finished image. I really love it.
Yes I had real issues with this image, PS tools JUST STOPPED WORKING, which was really NOT helpful. Many restarts happened to get this finished.
The original was in colour but i felt it was too distracting from the more subtle elements, and given I was invoking history I felt sepia appropriate. Was happy with the final image 😋 thanks!
I think you did a fantastic job with this composite, Stacy. I really like the sepia tone it adds to the overall flavor of your piece. I had quite a few “fails” doing mine too.
Thanks Kirsten, yes it really needed the sepia, the colour version was too much. My copy of PS had major issues with this image,was a bit frustrating on top of my usual not having a clue what I’m doing challenges 😉
I never know what to do for challenges. This one was a bit easier for me since it tied in well with the 4th of July 🙂
Sometimes I get inspiration when I see the image and sometimes I have to work a bit harder for it 😜
Ugh…I know exactly what you mean 😃
And that’s why it’s a challenge! 😝
😁😳
This is a great piece of work, I relly like the integration of the historic icons. The choice of a sepia tone overall was perfect. Very nicely done.
Thanks Robin, it was a great base image to work with and quickly inspired me with possibilities that I managed to pull off eventually 🐭
All I can say is WOW! Well a bit more actually 🙂 The idea you came up with and the way you pulled it off are all excellent, and we wouldn’t have know about your fails if you didn’t tell us, but they are nice to know also. Will really have to get stuck into those modules, you are inspiring me, thanks.
I really like the added Declaration of Independence and Mount Rushmore, great ideas to put some iconic images into the image with the Capitol building. 😀
The Declaration was a flash of inspiration, I really like old hand written text on these kinds of images and when I was thinking about that, it just flashed into my mind – the Declaration of Independence!
Even better its online in a couple of versions, the original dark textured version and a paler cleaned up one, and its royalty free.
The long pano of the lawn was more of a challenge, I couldnt find anything with people or events in it big enough to fit, and I didnt want to mash together several different images so I went with the pano of Monument Valley, so very iconic of the US esp for photographers 🙂
Except for the issues I had with PS having a hissy fit with using tools, it was a fun image to work with.