Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Fractalius Fun

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird

After my early morning paddle on the Horseshoe Lake I would return to the cottage for a hearty breakfast and black coffee. I like having my coffee out on the deck only this time I decided to attached a small twig to the hummingbird feeder and try my hand at shooting hummingbirds. The above image represents the best pose I captured during the week, however the original capture is a smidge out of focus. Being familiar with how Fractalius handles image detail I knew I could apply a contrast mask to the hummingbird and then apply the Fractalius plugin to the image and it would be just fine as an artistic rendering of this Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

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One Image, Three Versions, Which Do You Prefer?

Above is the original version of a dewy spider web I shot while canoeing through a wetland on Horseshoe Lake. I was immediately drawn to the way that the dead, lichen covered, black spruce branch was framing this particular web. I also knew that once I returned home and began processing my images that this was going to be a good candidate for the photoshop plugin Fractalius. below you will see my two alternate versions of this image with the Fractalius filter applied. Which do you prefer?

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White Admiral Butterfly and More Fun With Fractalius

White Admiral Butterfly

Yesterday afternoon while I was out playing in the backyard with my daughter and our dog Koko I found a newly emerged White Admiral butterfly. Newly emerged butterflies make perfect subjects as their wings are in pristine condition and they are unable to fly. I gently nudged this one onto my finger and placed it on the rudbeckia blossom in the garden, grabbed my camera a shot many photos. After reviewing the images today, this one stood out as one of my favorites of the day. I also thought that this image would make a lovely base image for my favorite filter for creative effect – Fractalius. Below you will see the Fractalius version as well as a few other photographs that I have applied this filter too.

White Admiral Fractalius

Green Frog Fractalius

Great Horned Owl (captive) Fractalius

Common Loon Fractalius

Atlantic Phase Brown Pelican Fractalius (Cayo Largo, Cuba)

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From Capture, To Clean-up, To Fractalius

Tiny Marsh Provincial Wildlife Area at sunrise

Several days ago I drove over to Tiny Marsh for sunrise. I was greeted with a cloudless sky, not the most pleasing of situations for sunrise imagery. However, I ventured out across the wetland trails to see what might develop. As the sun rose above the horizon I captured a few images, minimizing the cloudless sky and allowing the wetland vegetation to dominate much of the image. Shortly after this I decided to walk out along the boardwalk trail to search for my favorite wildlife subjects – frogs. The boardwalk goes through a forested swampy section of  Tiny Marsh. My timing for this was perfect as there were many young Leopard Frogs at rest on fallen branches and resting among the duckweed in the water. I spent the next three or four hours shooting frogs. Since the frogs were in rather unpleasant lighting situations with the blazing sun casting harsh shadows as it streamed through the surrounding forest I decided to use my Nikon SB-400 on a home-made flash bracket to illuminate the scene. When I shoot frogs I always try to get down to their level if possible, so in this situation I lay down on the boardwalk to get as low as possible. The use of the flash solved the harsh, contrasting lighting, but it created another problem that I dislike very much – flash generated specular highlights. So began the task of eliminating these from the images. Often I will work on a photo very large (500-800%) to evict the highlights. I often use a variety of quick masks and clone stamp to complete this task. Due to the glossy, wet look of the amphibian`s skin this can sometimes be a time consuming task, taking 1-2 hours per image on occasion. I do find the extra effort is well worth the end result and when I complete the task why not try running through the photoshop plugin Fractalius.

Below you will see one of my Leopard Frog images from this day showing the original capture, the optimized file and of course the Fractalius rendering.

On another note, I have started a Facebook fan page today, still lots of work to do on it, but you may check it out here .

Original Capture

Optimized Image

Fractalius Version

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Creative Fun with Tulips

Tulip (Bi-color and Vignette Blur filters)

Today I had a little time to work on some tulip images that I made back in the spring, but have not had time until now to process. For these tulips I used a mix of photoshop plugins to tweak the original captures. I love the Nik Software filters and used the ‘Bi-color’ and the ‘Vignette Blur’ for the first image in this post. The second image I only used the ‘Bi-color’ filter and the last image I applied my usual Fractalius settings.

These tulip creations were inspired by Denise Ippolito’s amazing artistic renderings that you can view on her blog A Creative Adventure.

Tulip with subtle ‘Bi-color filter’ treatment

Tulip Fractalius

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Creative Fun

Gibson J200 – Nik Software’s ‘Infrared Thermal Camera’

I often play around with various images with the filters available in Photoshop or available plugins to see what artistic renditions I might come up with. Here is a collection of some of my more recent creations, captioned with the filter used to obtain the effect as presented.

American Toad – Fractalius ‘Glow 100′

Gray Treefrog – Fractalius ‘Glow 100′

Fargo Truck – Nik Software’s ‘Tonal Contrast’

Raccoon – Fractalius ‘Glow 100′

Ring-billed Gull – Fractalius ‘Rounded’

Wildflower Blur – Photoshop Zoom Blur and Twirl Filter

Smooth Green Snake – Fractalius ‘Rounded’

Snapping Turtle – Fractalius ‘Rounded’

And last but not least a Fractalius of my dog Koko and cat Scamper cuddling on the sofa.

Koko & Scamper – Fractalius ‘Rounded’

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Common Loon Fractalius

 

A Common Loon image from the archives that I applied the Photoshop plugin Fractalius for creative effect. I chose the ‘Glow 100′ preset as a starting point and immediately saw the potential to create an outline of the bird and then mask back in the red eye for a touch of color. I have been slacking off on posting some of my more recent Fractalius work, but promise to post some soon.

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Flowers, Fractalius and Vignette Blurs

Variegated Caribbean Agave – Fractalius

Today I was experimenting with the Photoshop plugin Fractalius on images in my Plant Life collection. I also tried a few more with Nik’s Vignette Blur filter found in Color Efex. I really like the results of this Vignette Blur filter on the flower images for the soft, dreamy effect it creates. As more flowers to begin to bloom in my garden I will surely be trying more images with this effect as well as photos from a nearby greenhouse.

Hibiscus – Fractalius

Hyacinth – Vignette Blur

Croton – Fractalius

Tulip – Vignette Blur

Cactus – Fractalius

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Creative Filters & Effects

I am lagging behind in my blog posts lately as I have been busy photographing the frogs that have begun to sing in the vernal ponds behind my rural home. In addition to my recent adventures in the frog pond, I have been enjoying Denise Ippolito’s eBook “A Guide To Creative Filters and Effects” and very inspired by her creativity. If you want one book on how to create stunning artistic renderings of your photographs, buy this book. There is a wealth of tips and techniques packed into the 166 pages, with before and after images to accompany them. Towards the end of the book you will find links to the various photoshop plugins and stand-alone filters discussed within the book’s pages. Some of these filters are free downloads while some require a purchase. Denise is a highly accomplished photographer and a moderator for the “Out Of The Box” forum at BirdPhotographers.net. I am often left in awe with her creative, artistic renderings. The images in this post were all created using various techniques and filters discussed in this amazing guide. To find out more about this guide and to purchase your copy please click here. To follow Denise’s adventure in creativity check out her blog in the link on the side-bar. I can’t wait to try the Flaming Pear “Twist” and “Swerve” filters next. Thanks a ton for sharing your creativity Denise!

“Mini-World” of the Toronto skyline at night

Gerbera Daisy – desaturated zoom blur with Fractalius

Winter Farm – Fotosketcher watercolor with Fractalius

Pincushion Protea – multi-zoom blur

Abandoned Car in Killarney Provincial Park – Denise’s texture technique

Yellow Gerbera Daisy – Fractalius Glow 100

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More Fun With Fractalius

Fractalius is such an addictive Photoshop plugin. I can’t help myself! Here is a collection of some recently fracted images.For most of the photographs I used either the “Glow 100″  or the “Rounded” presets within the Fractalius plugin and then tweaked the sliders for the desired effect. I always apply this plugin on a background layer in photoshop so that I can reduce the filter’s effect further by reducing the opacity of the background layer if I choose to do so. Most often I do reduce the effect further.

Icicles

Highway 634 in Ontario’s remote boreal forest

Robin

Smooth Green Snake

Spider Web

Barred Owl

Ring-billed Gull

Cuban Iguana

Brown Pelican – juvenile

Ornamental Inukshuks

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