Winter Survival...

[Paul Lagasi]

I wanted to ween myself of the computer and photoshop in 2011, so I went cold turkey. The month is almost over and it hasn't been that hard, at least not as hard as smoking, which was last years resolution, which I've managed to keep. I was just spending too much time in front of the computer.

In these past 30 days, I lost at least 10 pounds shovelling snow, took out my camera for the first time the other day (no birds, no light..just overcast).

I do look in every day..lovely work being produced.

The image above is the only thing thats not white, or dirty locally. Farmers leave a few rows of corn as snow drift prevention and the wintering animals or birds feed on them.

HDR image (7), Topaz simplified...then pasted back in the yellow kernals. Radial blurred lightly.

Ciao for now

[Cheryl Flory]

very cool image!
like really like the corn details, the depth, and color.

how did you process your HDR?
you said you pasted in the kernals, is that different than using a mask?

living in snowy farm country, I know what you mean about lack of subjects to shoot.

[Paul Lagasi]

Cheryl...I processed the HDR using CS5, this included action (software) works really well for me.

I copied the masked kernals from original image and then pasted them into processed new image one ear at a time, lol..I don't speak the lingo well, photoshop not my first language but I think I did use a mask...thanks for comments.

[Cheryl Flory]

Paul, another question: how did you get some of the leaves to go over the narrow yellow frame?

[Joe Senzatimore]

Sweet image(no pun intended). Pasting in the corn was a great idea and I think it puts this one over the top. Very creative.

[Arthur Morris]

Love the texture and the colors. Can you explain what you meant about pasting back the yellow kernels? The brown tones go so, so nicely with the yellow.

[Paul Lagasi]

Cheryl
It took me a bit to recreate the effect but I finally remembered what I'd done.
I created the border, then using the Selective Color Adjustment palette, I adjusted the black slider in the yellow color.
It sounds confusing but if you bring up the Color Adjustments Palette, select Yellow, you'll see the slider I mean.
"As I said before, many things easier for me to do, than to explain how I did them in " quote by ME


Artie
Lets say original HDR is Image #1
Image above is Image #2

After processing Image #2, I liked the image but there was no detail in the corn husk kernals.
So I went back to Image #1, masked each of the 5 prominent husks using the quick selection tool (while holding down the shift key), selecting only the yellow kernals.

I pasted these kernals into Image #2,

[denise ippolito]

Great processing work Paul, I love the final effect. Nice colors and texture!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Paul, I love how this turned out. And welcome back, we've missed your images I really like the golds and browns together and the framing is perfect!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Paul, love the effect here. Very nicely done. I too love the brown tones.

[Steve Adkins]

Hey Paul, This is awesome! Your method of bringing back the kernels from the blur really worked well. Thanks for sharing the process.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the explanation Paul.

[Janet Heintz]

Paul,
this is really cool, I love corn field images. Very artistic.
Janet