In Which I Get All Artistic

[active_apathy]

Firstly: All the images used in this post come from stock.xchng, a fantastically brilliant site offering free stock photos. It's a lovely little place, and greatly recommended.

And now, on with the post.

Firstly, there's this:

It's a faux negative print of a tree; I'll have to see if I can find the source image again. Still, I promised weeks ago that I'd show lesslikeyou what this kind of thing looks like. If you do the real thing with photopaper, it's a much nicer effect; still, you can't always get what you want.

As far as the Photoshopping for it goes, the tree image was completely unchanged. A hue/saturation adjustment layer was put on top of it, with saturation set as low as possible - this takes all the colour out without altering the original image. Over the top of this, a layer of pure white was added. The blending mode on this top layer was changed to 'exclusion', which inverts the colour and value (tone) of every pixel in the image.

And next, we have my wallpaper. First, the finished one: (click for full size)


You can follow this in a tutorial-like way if you click on the source images and download the files. Remember to make them all the same size first; it'll make things easier later.

The bottom layer of the wallpaper is this image:

I haven't a clue what it is, but it looked pretty.

And then a copy of this one goes on top:

This is a picture of some water bubbles with a lovely light effect. So, what can we do with these?

Change the blending mode on the top one to Overlay, and you get:

I quite like that; I'd almost stay right there, but there's more to be done yet.

Put this one on top of the picture:

That's a photo of a leadlight candle holder; we can use it for a beautiful broken glass effect.

But how? What about all that red? Plonk a hue/saturation adjustment layer on top, and completely desaturate the picture. In the layers palette, alt-click on the line between the adjustment layer and the glass layer; this links the adjustment to just that layer, so the ones beneath will still look blue.

Now we have this:

It's interesting, but not at all what we want.

What we'd like is for those values to all apply to the lower layers, but we don't want to change the colours at all. This is what the Luminosity blending mode is for - it just adjusts the brightness of whatever's beneath it to what it is for the same pixel on its own layer. This brings us right back here, where we started:


Confession time: I made this all up as I went along, with many more steps than this; most didn't really work, and these are the ones that will make exactly the same picture. I was browsing earlier, swiped the images, and spent about 15-20 minutes just playing with them. I liked the result, and that's why it's a wallpaper now. What? Me? Random?

Comments

[liadlaith.livejournal.com]

So preeeeetty.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[leila82.livejournal.com]

I really like that tree.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

If you get a chance to, you should try it with photopaper.

You print the photo as normal, then take that print and lay it on top of an unexposed sheet of photopaper. Tweak the light to account for the paper's thickness, expose it, and develop your shiny new negative print as normal.

[leila82.livejournal.com]

That does sound interesting, but then you'd lose the negative-y effect of the original. Also, I wouldn't know where one goes to look for photopaper, but that has nothing to do with anything, not at all. :)

I also really like the wallpaper.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

It depends on how you do it. If you're printing it from a negative, then the original would be a positive print; that's why a negative print works like that. If yu're using, say, a pinhole camera, then the original print *is* the negative.

You can't do this at home, unless you have your very own darkroom. :)

And, thanks!

[leila82.livejournal.com]

So say if I were to print the pic of the tree off via printer - that would be a positive? Oooh and if I took a picture of the picture with my non-digital camera, the resulting thing that went onto the film would be a negative. If the film was then developed, the negative would be a positive? Too much thought for Sunday morning :)

I just really like the color-swap effect of it all.

I should convert my bathroom into a darkroom. It's the only room in my apartment that doesn't get any light. Either that or my closet, but I need that for clothes.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

If the light things in the real world are dark in the image, it's a negative. It works that way because the light changes the chemicals on film and photopaper, and makes them go dark. Since the light bits (in the real world) go dark on a negative, they stop the light from going through so you can develop the photo properly.

You need space, ventilation, running water, and a completely lightproof room - but the ventilation is especially important.

[leila82.livejournal.com]

OK, so I guess my question is - if I enlarge a negative and took a picture of it, would the thing that went on the film be a negative or a positive? I'm thinking it would be a negative, since the original negative is now a positive, because it's the real world thing, and the colors that would go on the film would be the reverse? (Sorry if I'm annoying you with all of this, BTW, feel free to tell me to shut up at any point).

Bathroom isn't as well ventilated as I'd like, so I guess I cannot convert it into a darkroom. Pity, as it meets all the other requirements (or would if I put small folding tables in).

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

If you take a photo of a negative, then you get another negative; it doesn't matter what the subject is, just that it's the subject.

And the colours would be a bit off, too, but that's neither here nor there.

[leila82.livejournal.com]

I think I understand it now - thank you muchly :)

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

That's ok. I'm almost always happy to share lots of stuff.

And I'm developing quite a liking for the whole quickreply thing.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

Oh, THAT tree! Gotcha.

Wallpaper = very, very pretty.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Thankyou kindly. :)

[riverchild.livejournal.com]

Oh my, that's pretty.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[herekittykitty.livejournal.com]

OOOOOOO!!! PRETTY!

[daphyn.livejournal.com]

I love you, but your intellect makes my brain hurt.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Yay! And... how? Where? Why? Does it make no sense?

[daphyn.livejournal.com]

It makes sense. But it's nothing I would be able to do. You know things and understand things that are way beyond my sphere.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

I am in total agreeance with you.

[daphyn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not just me then :)

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

Adding my voice to the many people saying "ooh, pretty!"

I love fiddling with Photoshop. How else can you find out what the buttons do? Instruction manual? What instruction manual?

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Well... you can always try things like "Oooh... pretty. How'd you do that?"

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, NICE!