Theme: Snowy Day

[Wendy Kates]

This image is from a winter weekend trip to the Adirondacks. I had hoped for snowy, white mountains against crisp, blue skies, but the entire weekend was gray and overcast. So instead of photographing the washed-out looking mountains, I photographed the local winter scenes. Here, I used CEP Detail Extractor, and then added two textures: Frivolous 22 from the Lil' Owls collection (screen blend mode, 53% opacity), and Frost (Overlay, 30% opacity) from the Heavenly Vintage collection. Together, I think that the textures create the impression that it was snowing (which it was not).

[Anita Bower]

Wendy: That Slow sign makes me smile. I start with the sign, follow the fence to the house, then to the surrounding areas. Nice leading line. The image definitely has the feel of a cold, snowy day.

[Hazel Grant]

Yes, the line leads the eye. good job. Gives a snowy feel. The only thing I can think of might be to add a texture of "snow flakes falling" to make the overall whiteness more real. Nice job, though.

[Wendy Kates]

Hazel, I had tried to add a "falling snow" texture originally but the one I downloaded from the web wouldn't open! So here, I followed a tutorial on how to add "snow" with Photoshop. (I added a black layer, increased noise, blurred the noise, and applied Screen blend mode.) It didn't turn out exactly the way I would have wanted...I need to practice this effect, but I think it improves the image. Also, in order to do this, I "deactivated" the other two filters, which brought back more contrast to the overall image.

[Wendy Kates]

I just blurred the "falling snow" layer a little more, which I think improves it. Comments welcome!

[Anita Bower]

You achieved the falling snow look. Good job.
If you don't want to de-activate prior work, such as filters, you could duplicate the image, flatten or merge the layers on the duplicate, and then do your snowing work.
If you go to textures for layers in flicker <https://www.flickr.com/groups/textures4layers/> and do a search in that group for "snow," you will find some free textures.

[Hazel Grant]

Your repost is much more like I pictured. More "alive" with snow rather than a blur. I like the color contrasts also. Thanks, Anita for the link information on textures.

[Wendy Kates]

Anita and Hazel...thanks for your feedback, and the link info about the textures!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Wendy, I thought the OP a little flat but the addition of the snow makes it into a really nice image:S3:

[Dennis Bishop]

I like the second re-post very much. That fence with the Slow sign is wonderful, and slow really fits with the soft, peaceful feeling. I'd be very happy to come away from the Adirondacks with an image like this.