Skip to main content

Featured

How To Create Minimalistic Landscapes Using Blur Filters in Photoshop

 For at least 10 - 15 years I love creating abstract minimalistic landscapes such as beach and forest scenes in my post processing of photos using a range of Photoshop's blur filters.  Here's one of my latest images that features this (and other) techniques: The original photo was taken almost 15 years ago with a 7 megapixel Canon Camera, but I wanted to challenge myself and try to make more interesting image out of it.  Start I came across this image while browsing through my photo archive and kind of liked the scene with the woman enjoying standing in or close to the surf. Editing Steps 1. I expanded the image from its 4:3 ratio to a square format making the added part transparent. Then I selected the blue sky and erased it. As I knew I wanted to create an abstract image I searched for a cloudy sky and found a suitable photo in my library, that would make a more interesting sky than a bland blue one.   I positioned this sky a layer under the beach photo and go...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

Making of FLUX - adding motion blur and sky to a photograph

Hello,
I am quite busy at the moment...
I started collecting my Lightroom presets and categorized them. So expect some of them as a pack in the future. I became aware that I use them quite often before I proceed adding textures in Photoshop. One can easily set a mood & tone and there is still the opportunity to play around with the settings to accommodate the image it was used upon.

This was the case with my image FLUX.






Here is a sequence of the main stages






The original picture was shot around noon on a stormy day in the south of the island La Palma /Canary Islands. This rocky beach belongs to the volcanic part of the island, there is barley a plant only black lava stones and ash. The first picture is out of the cam, before I applied a Lightroom preset. These kind of landscapes or seascapes are ideal for my kind of surreal treatment. The hardest thing sometimes is to find the right tones for the mood I want to express. A lot of this is experimenting until I have the feeling " Yes, that is something I can build upon".

The cloudless blue sky was in need for one of my cloud textures. I chose JUNO from the Build-your-own-texture-pack but wasn't satisfied when I added it. I felt the need to further abstraction. I added a motion blur and did the same to the water. I took quite some time to select the water, but finally the result was quite satisfying.

There still was something missing - I decided to add a seagull heading for the rock.

Have a look at the layers:


From bottom to top:

I used the picture processed  in LR and selected the water  Most of the time I use Photoshop's Quick Selection tool and later do some fine tuning. As you can see I also used a layer mask and smart filters to have more control on the blur.

Added the bird and gave it a little motion blur

Added a bit light/haze on the water close to the horizon, thought that the clouds would reflect like that.

Added part of the sky texture and merged it with the background a bit by making it shine through (see layer mask)

Finally added some textures from the Vintage-Film-Photography-Pack

The first curves layer enhanced light and contrast.
The 2nd curves layer was for a correction of tones. I reduced the yellow and added a bit blue in the blue channel.

Further contrast enhancement with the help of the Levels tool.

Again, thanks for reading and have a nice weekend!

Dirk









Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment