seascape

[delph_ambi]

[SharonBell]

Wow!! Beautiful!!

[delph_ambi]

Thanks Sharon 

[Ed]

Very nice, Delph Did you invert it in Photoshop?

[delph_ambi]

Photoshop? What are you saying? This picture took me hours of setting up underwater floodlights and pouring a load of luminous slurry into the sea.

Nah. Actually, I used the freebie photo-editing program that came with the pc. Took the photo at Seaham. Not the most inspiring bit of coastline in the world, but inverting the colours gave it that certain... errr... summat.

[Ed]

Yep, it definitely does

That's a pretty good feature for a freebee prog, isn't it? The last one I looked at just had a crop and a red-eye feature, and that was your lot. 

If you ever get your hands on a copy of Photoshop, you should try putting a big old ghost ship with tattered sails in the background of that pic, I reckon.

[PaulH]

'The Ghost of the Exxon Valdiz'

Love it Delph.

[delph_ambi]

Thanks guys. I use microsoft photo premium 10 as my default photo editor, but the most sophisticated freebie one I've found is Photofiltre - a French one that's like a simplified photoshop, but still too much like hardwork as far as I'm concerned. I could probably pop a ghost ship on using that, but my usual method is to go back into the dark ages, print out the photo, draw something onto it using a pen, or paints or something, and then re-photograph it. Crude, but effective, and the photoshop fans can never work out quite how it's been done.

[Ed]

Yeah - I know what you mean. Sometimes I just get fed up with trying to do simple things in Photoshop, and in the end what I do is sort it out manually, with a pen or a pencil, scan it into the computer and then tweak it. I've got a Wacom tablet, and I've had some limited success using it for sketching, but somehow I can visualise things better on paper using pencil.

I posted one of my attempts at sketching with a tablet, here - http://www.cafedoom.com/forum/index.php/topic,130.0.html but I can do a lot better with a pencil and paper.

Can't say I fancy myself as an artist, but sometimes I need some artwork for different things and don't have any option but to do it myself

[delph_ambi]

Yeah, that tablet thingy works well. Looks like a sketch done with a biro. I'm strictly low tech here though. I would've used a biro...
By the way, any hints on scanning pencil sketches? I'm assuming it doesn't work because the bright light of the scanner bounces off the shininess of the pencil, so I usually end up photographing drawings, but that's never entirely satisfactory either.

[Ed]

Yeah, that tablet thingy works well. Looks like a sketch done with a biro. I'm strictly low tech here though. I would've used a biro...
By the way, any hints on scanning pencil sketches? I'm assuming it doesn't work because the bright light of the scanner bounces off the shininess of the pencil, so I usually end up photographing drawings, but that's never entirely satisfactory either.

I generally just use the scanner set on colour, rather than b+w, and as long as the pencil sketching is fairly dark, it seems to work OK. Another way I've done it in the past is to spray the pic with 'fixer' - the type you use to stop pencil and charcoal drawings from smudging after they're finished. You can buy it from art shops. It's just a matt laquer, I suppose

Here's another sketch of mine that I scanned straight from a pencil drawing -

[Sallyq]

That's a stunning picture, Delph. The sea looks like it's made of granite and quartz.

Love your picture too, Ed. There's a lot going on there!

[delph_ambi]

Thanks Sally. Super busy picture, Ed.

I always use fixative. Well, hairspray. Costs a fraction of the amount you pay for fixative, and works just as well, so long as you buy the cheapest possible hairspray without conditioner in it. It's a very basic scanner and simply isn't up to the job, but I'll keep trying - there's probably a setting somewhere on it that'll work. My problem is that my pencil drawings rely on subtlety of shading, rather than pure linework, and I suspect that's difficult to scan.

[Ed]

That's a really good idea, thanks. That fixative spray costs quite a lot for not very much, doesn't it? I remember feeling a bit peeved by the cost, so next time I'll get my missus to buy me a can of hair spray instead. That'll get her wondering, for sure

[sylvrilyn]

Wow, that's really cool and surreal, delph.  Looks like it froze mid-motion -- like Ice 9 or something.