Theme - Grunged Statuary

[Cheryl Slechta]

This is an image I took on my recent trip to Italy. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I took it - I think Cortona. In an ancient building with an inner courtyard where I was pleasantly surprised to find a modern sculpture installation. I used Topaz Grunge and then a Grunge texture. I haven't been able to use Nik products since my latest CC 2015 upgrade. I've got Nik in an older version of CS5 or 6 but I've been too busy to open more than CC and work on something for a few minutes.
Has anyone else run into this problem? In the Adobe chatrooms it looks like Nik (Google) hasn't changed their plug-in to make it compatible with the latest iteration. (But I haven't checked in about a week).
Thanks

[gary ellwein]

Cheryl, I like this image a lot. The low angle of view is great. Were you on your tummy? The flowers lead one's eye to sleeping beauty. The grunge effect works well with the stone floor and walls. A quick application of the lens correction filter in camera raw would straighten the columns and corner. Did you experiment reducing or eliminating the grunge texture from elements in the image such as the flowers.

If my failing short term memory is correct, going to Google and reloading the soft wear does the trick.

[Anita Bower]

As Garry wrote, the flowers and low angle lead one's eye right to the statue. I really like this composition. The flowers are such a surprise and create tension as they look different from the rest of the scene. I don't know if the columns are leaning due to distortion or if the image needs to be rotated a bit CC wise; I think the horizontal lines are not straight either. Did you consider darkening that triangle of bright light on the right side? I'm finding it a little distracting. The Grunge look works really well here.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Thanks, Gary and Anita. I'm reposting with a CC rotation. I was shooting from a low angle and either version is fine with me. The leaning posts seemed to fit with the incongruous setting but I like both versions. Gary, I took a little bit of the darkest grunge off of the flowers but didn't want them to be too different from the rest of the image. Anita, I debated on the bright patch but to me it's kind of leading line and decided I liked it the way it was. It'll be interesting to see what others think. Thanks, both of you, for your helpful comments

[Anita Bower]

Now I'm not distracted by tilting lines!

[Cheryl Slechta]

I think I like the repost better after sleeping on it. Thanks, Anita

[Paul Lagasi]

Interesting perspective to photograph from, many very cool elements in this image. I'd also like you to do a bit with the bright area. Super work

[Dennis Bishop]

Numerous distractions have kept me away for, sometimes, a couple days at a time, and this silly laptop doesn't allow me to view nearly any image in its entirety. The touchpad is a challenge, too. Nevertheless, I wanted to weigh in with my take on the triangle. I like it. Not only does it serve as a leading line, which I think is important, but it provides a nice bit of contrast that's in a good area near the subject of the image. Lightening the triangle might work, but I'm not at all sure it's necessary and probably wouldn't want to see it lightened much. No way to know without Photoshop on the laptop. (sigh)

[Anita Bower]

Numerous distractions have kept me away for, sometimes, a couple days at a time, and this silly laptop doesn't allow me to view nearly any image in its entirety. The touchpad is a challenge, too. Nevertheless, I wanted to weigh in with my take on the triangle. I like it. Not only does it serve as a leading line, which I think is important, but it provides a nice bit of contrast that's in a good area near the subject of the image. Lightening the triangle might work, but I'm not at all sure it's necessary and probably wouldn't want to see it lightened much. No way to know without Photoshop on the laptop. (sigh)

I agree with you on the difficulty of working on a laptop!

[Diane Miller]

I'm too busy to do any intelligent comments -- apologies -- but I do have both Nik and Topaz working with PS CC 2015 on my laptop. Haven't had time to do the OS upgrade needed on my "mainframe" yet. Here's what worked -- this is for Mac but should be a similar thing in Windows. Folders will be in different places, though.

Close PS. Open the main OS hard drive and go to the folder for Library > Application Support > Topaz. The open another window for Applications > Adobe PS CC 2015 > Plugins. Copy the Topaz folder from the first window to the second. Then for Nik, in the first window you opened, go to Applications > Adobe PS (whatever previous version you have) and copy the Google folder to the second window. Open PS and the filters should be there and working. No need to re-enter serial #s.

I hate this constant leapfrog of you have to update something to do one thing and then find that another thing no longer works.

[Diane Miller]

Scroll down here for the Windows version:

https://support.topazlabs.com/hc/en-...toshop-CC-2015

Then follow the comparable path I showed above to copy the Google/Nik filters.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Diane, I didn't have any problem with Topaz and I can load Nik into the folder and it's there but it won't open in CC. I went to an Adobe chat room and they said Nik hadn't done whatever was necessary to make it compatible with the latest CC iteration (it worked fine until the latest update about 3 weeks ago). I haven't had time to explore it any further since I tried it then. Of course, I had just come back from my trip and was jet lagged but except for having to update a driver I didn't have any problem with Topaz so I'm not sure that's an excuse. I'll do some more due diligence shortly. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

I'm too busy to do any intelligent comments -- apologies -- but I do have both Nik and Topaz working with PS CC 2015 on my laptop. Haven't had time to do the OS upgrade needed on my "mainframe" yet. Here's what worked -- this is for Mac but should be a similar thing in Windows. Folders will be in different places, though.

Close PS. Open the main OS hard drive and go to the folder for Library > Application Support > Topaz. The open another window for Applications > Adobe PS CC 2015 > Plugins. Copy the Topaz folder from the first window to the second. Then for Nik, in the first window you opened, go to Applications > Adobe PS (whatever previous version you have) and copy the Google folder to the second window. Open PS and the filters should be there and working. No need to re-enter serial #s.

I hate this constant leapfrog of you have to update something to do one thing and then find that another thing no longer works.

[Diane Miller]

I have the 2015.0.0 release, which the CC updater shows as current. (Mac, current Yosemite OS.) All the Nik and Topaz filters work.

Maybe if you're on a PC it's different there. Frustrating! It's so often the Mac stuff that lags behind. But maybe that's the problem here, that there is a PS update later than 2015.0.0 that isn't yet available for the Mac.

[Mitch Carucci]

I like the newer version slightly better, but both are strong. Love the perspective, on this great sculpture.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I love the subdued glorious colours. Great find. I love the triangle of light as it gives the image sort of a haunted feel to me, and as a leading line. Hope you print it.