Evening light

[Diane Miller]

This is actually looking over the fence onto neighboring property -- does that count? It's the view out our dining room window so we think of it as ours, and it otherwise belongs to rattlesnakes, poison oak and a herd of Watusi cattle. It's evening light but I did some color enhancement.

It's a clone painting in Corel Painter. You can use a variety of brushes but when they're used as "cloners" they don't add color, they just pick up what is there and smear it, or restore the underlying pixels, depending on settings and how the brush is moved. It is actually quite amazing to watch as it happens. No auto-painting here -- real brush strokes with a Wacom tablet and pen. The simulation of a real brush is amazing.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

This is quite lovely Diane.... lucky you for the view. Really Watusi Cattle??? Arent they awesome, do you have pictures?

There are only a couple of things here bothering me, I quite like the effects you applied.

In the tree on the left the big one halfway up there is an extra swirling with a dark middle that doesn't quite flow with the rest.

And the bright blue in the center of the image I think could use some of that painterly effect maybe a in a swirl, it could look like a vortex.

Love the upper parts of the sky, the ground level and the other trees.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Diane, the lighting is beautiful. I've never used Corel Painter but I like what you did with it. The only thing I would change are the two very dark thin tree trunks (just one portion) to the right of the big tree on the left. They seem just a little too dark for the painting. I hope you'll do more of these - they're neat

[Christopher Miller]

Very lovely effect, Diane! I love the brushwork and lighting.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, guys! Yes, Watusi. Pictures -- no. But I've run for my life a couple of times, camera in hand. Three (at last count) anatomically compete bulls and lots of mommies with babies. I'm more afraid of the mommies. (They have huge horns, too.) We're on a hillside and to get onto that neighboring property it's a climb up a fairly steep hill, strewn with loose rocks and populated by rattlesnakes and poison oak. You pick and choose your time to go up there, and don't want to go far inside the fence. The cattle are on about 400 acres and aren't always close to our side, but I've been surprised by them more than once. To shoot the trees I need to get up the hill and over the fence a ways, otherwise I can only get the top halves.

Cheryl, the dark trunks (just right of center?) are always in the shade in the afternoon. I did an Orton (with in-camera OOF overlay) and the did the painting on that. That's where the bright blue came from, Linz, so not any texture there to work with.

The nice thing about Painter is that if you preserve the link to the source file you can go back and continue painting. (The paint never dries!) So I move my original image (TIFF or JPEG exported from LR) into a Painter folder, so it and the Painter file will stay together.

I'm a novice at this and haven't done a lot of it. I should go up there and shoot some more while we have clear evenings and try again.

Here's everything I know about Painter: http://www.adorama.com/alc/0013243/a...-Photographers

[dankearl]

I think this would look better for me with the bright highlights toned down.
I like the texture and color, just too bright in the center for me.

[Anita Bower]

Lovely work. It instantly makes me want to look closer. Love the colors and light. My original sense was that it was a tad too bright in the center. The more I look at it, the less I notice this. Love the paint job. Great view, and great painting of it. I've never tried Corel Painter, and won't in near future due to its price.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Lovely colours and scene Diane, I think I would go all for brushwork, and not leaving in smaller details. Corel Painter is quite a daunting program.