Leaving for the Summer

[Dennis Bishop]

This was shot on a small but artistically-landscaped Connecticut yard in mid-May a few years ago.

Nikon D2X, ISO 100, f/3.5, 105mm macro lens, five-exposure HDR at 1 EV intervals

post-processing highlights

• Because the leaves were cropped too tightly in the camera, they were masked and reduced in size. They were also flipped horizontally and moved a bit for composition.
• background
  
  • leaves removed with Content Aware fill, Alien Skin Snap Art Oil Paint
  • linear gradient (hue +/- 30 from reddish orange of a leaf) applied from ULC to LRC, Normal blend mode, low opacity
  
  
• Topaz Simplify -- Watercolor II, leaves and branches, only
• Fractalius -- two b&w layers based on old Sketch preset, Multiply blend mode, both layers partially masked
• Alien Skin Snap Art -- Stylize Line Art, b&w layer and its duplicate, one with Multiply blend mode (mostly on leaves), other with Divide blend mode (background, only)
• freehand and gradient vignettes

[Maureen Allen]

Sheesh, you had me going there for a minute. Then I remembered it was winter

Lovely colors and processing. I like the subtle framing. I'm not so sure about the stray white squiggles in the background.

[Anita Bower]

They seem to be waving goodbye. Beautiful light and shadows on the leaves. Excellent processing. Just the right amount of lines and fractilus. Glorious background. I like the stray squiggles in bg. What bothers me is the leaf in upper left. I would remove it. Love this image. Excellent work.

[Dennis Bishop]

. . . What bothers me is the leaf in upper left. I would remove it. . . .

Thank you, Anita. I debated that at the outset but never tried it out. Definitely should've. It makes an amazing difference.

[Anita Bower]

I like your repost.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Dennis, the repost is perfect. I absolutely love the processing and especially the depth it gave to the background. Beautifully done

[Nancy Bell]

Wonderful color and translucent look to the leaves. I really like how they seem to be fluttering! Bkgd is awesome with beautiful mottled colors and a nice subtle texture. Re-post is a prize! What do you mean exactly when you refer to b&w fract layers? And how do you use them? You get great effects and I would like to try.

[Paul Lagasi]

Repost is a winner, I tend to agree with Maureen about the squiggles...were knee deep in snow up here, I'd be reall happy tosee some leaves..

[Dennis Bishop]

. . . What do you mean exactly when you refer to b&w fract layers? And how do you use them? You get great effects and I would like to try.

Thanks for your comments, Nancy. And your question. If this doesn't answer it completely or if you'd like to know the Fractalius settings I use, let me know.

Almost exclusively, I use Fractalius only for a combination of contrast, detail, and outlining. (The detail and outlining might be pretty much the same thing.) There are three presets I've come up with, and -- depending on the image -- I may use just one, any two, or all three. They differ in the amount of black/gray that results. There's no color in the layers because I move the Saturation slider in Fractalius all the way left. The image, below, shows the two I used for this thread. They happen to be the extremes.

(The bottom is the tone-mapped HDR tiff. For this example, I allowed myself a shortcut and flipped both the leaves and the background in the layer instead of just the leaves, so things won't match, exactly. In addition, the Fractalius layers were done after I shrunk the kids and moved them a bit, so there's a mismatch because of that, too.)

I position the Fractalius layer(s) near the top of the layer stack and use Multiply blend mode. Multiply ignores the white in the layer and darkens everything else, so I'm making the original darker where it was already darker. It's sort of like using a Curves layer to darken the darker regions further except that a fairly mild Fractalius effect is superimposed. In this case, I applied both layers at 100% Opacity, but I'll often lighten them. I did use a mask on both layers this time. That's unusual unless I want to just darken something like the background. Because of the amount of darkening, I'll often apply a Curves layer to lighten at least part of the image.

[Bob Miller]

Dennis...Lovely image...esp the repost! The processing really added to your image. I also appreciate your sharing of how you work with fractilius....TFS

[Judy Howle]

I love everything about it! The colors, the comp in the repost, and the fract work is perfect.

[Clyde Hopper]

Ok ,Dennis I'm Amazed and completely lost....lol Love the photo!