What The Ferguson Protester Really Meant (Photoshop)

Once again, through the magic of Photoshop, the hidden meaning in an iconic news photo has been made clear.  See the original, untranslated photo here.

Raindrops on a Window - My Latest Photoshop

My latest desired Photoshop technique is to put realistic raindrops on a window pane.   I worked on this over the past three days in an attempt to learn some ways to do this.

UPDATE:  I didn't like the odd shapes of the raindrops in my first attempt, directly below.  So I changed the way I created the random shapes, by using a simple hard round brush to create a defined brush set, then turned on the shape dynamics, scattering and smoothing brush presets, to create the rounder shapes.  I also filled the window pane with tiny droplets as well as the scattering of larger droplets.  This makes the pane look wetter and more realistic.

Here is the update:

Snow Fall and Christmas Tree - My Second Moving Graphic in Photoshop

Here's my second moving graphic experiment. This one is snow falling on a Christmas tree that I Photoshopped last year. Looks okay, but the snow is too one-dimensional. I'd like to see another layer of falling snow behind this one, to give the graphic a better sense of depth.  Feel free to use this graphic anyway you like.  Update:  I fixed a hiccup in the snow so it falls more smoothly and realistically.

ANOTHER Bill Schmalfeldt Photoshop (Forgive Me) #Photoshop #BillSchmalfeldt

I have been putting in quite a few hours studying Photoshop tutorials on the web.  I have been using this program for maybe 15 years, learning a little here and there.  Finally I have been inspired to greatly extend my knowledge of this useful program.

So here is another Photoshop of Bill Schmalfeldt, this time making use of the filter at filter/other/highpass, hard light.  I also use layer pattern overlays to create texture, as well as filter/artistic/poster edges to get all those neat black spotty highlights.  Don't know why, just makes it look more "sketched."

Well I've had enough of Bill for awhile so will be in search of other material.

LENA DUNHAM #Photoshop

I found a great tutorial for easily turning a photo into a drawing that can then be colored.  See it here.

I used a photo of feminist Lena Dunham as my subject -- found her pic at The Other McCain.

It's not that good, but I learned a lot.  This technique works best if you start with a fairly clean photo without a lot of shadows.  Basically, you start by taking the photo and applying the sketch/stamp filter, and adjusting the black and white so that the lines are as clean as possible.  I'll try it again with a more suitable photograph.

Pretty Girl With Comics Effects #Photoshop

Here's the face of a pretty girl I found on the web.  I used some of those comic techniques to pixilate her face and make her look more like a comic.

Here's the link to the tutorial I used.

Not bad, but not good enough.  At least now I know how to create the pixelated effect, but it doesn't look enough like a drawing to suit me.