How to Create a Cinemagraph in Photoshop

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Grunge!!!

Grunge is very trendy and very interesting, it's the in thing in photography right now,  what exactly is grunge photography?

I don't think I have the exact answer, and I don't think that there is an exact answer as grunge like other kind of digital imagery is extremely creative and depends on the artist vision.

Normally these images or creations take a lot of editing, many hours in Photoshop, a lot of frustration and unsuccessful work that end up in the garbage bin, that's part of my experience and like many of other digital art, patience and practice is required.

The grunge effect can be described as dirty, gloomy, dark, old, eerie, using textures and mute color.

 The urban graffiti-like design is often done using one, two, three or more images.

The following images were done using textures, vectors, one to 5 images and hours of Photoshop editing.

City Woman with Tatiana Vladimirovna, done with 2 images, a lot of texture and editing

Miror, only one image using texture, brushes, and vectors.

Help me with Jessy Cortes, using 2 images, textures, vectors, brushes.

Dream with Christina Patterson, using 5 images, textures, brushes.

Bullet Man, using 3 images, texture and brushes.

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Color or Black and White in Design

Color and design goes together,  I was working on a new design  in full color I really like the richness of the color on this one, that's why I decided to try black and white, finally I will keep them both,

I find that both image are very strong not because of the color or the black and white but instead it's the contrast between the tone that for me make this image.

Let me know what you think,

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Topaz Impression, reflection

I wanted to try Topaz Impression adding my own parameters, I picked an image from Buenos Aires, traffic commotion, such a busy city!

Using Photoshop, I cleaned the image from unwanted cars and trucks added a bit more taxis using the clone tool. Next I added a bit of saturation saved it as tiff "base image", before opening Topaz impression.
I did 2 images the first one using Pencil Sketch 11, changed the parameters to add saturation till I was happy with the result about .60, added smudge .20 and saved the preset for next time, saved that new image as Tiff " color draw"

Re opened Topaz Impression with my saved Tiff, and this time I used Da Vinci 11, only changed the coverage to .70 saved that second image as Tiff too "Da Vinci Draw".

To get the final result I used Da Vinci Draw, changed the canvas size to add canvas only to the bottom of the the image, next I used Flood a software from Flaming Pear to get the reflection I was looking for. Saved that new image as Da Vinci Reflection.

Re opened the color draw image select all from the select top menu, copy from the top edit menu, and paste it on my Da Vinci Reflection image layer to cover the top of the image leaving only the reflection view, did a bit of clean up to mix the 2 layers, added some tone and framed it.

After playing with Topaz Impression the last few days, I really like this new software, easy to use and flexible.

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One Image Transformation Options

I took that image during a trip to Argentina in 2011, I have a fascination for trees, I was attracted by the branches, feel really like looking at the lungs of our planet. I have a lot of respect for trees, they help the planet breathe by turning carbon dioxide into clean, pure, oxygen, we are lost without them.
They also keep our planet cool, and help stop the global warming, and add beauty to our landscape.
I took that image with my Lensbaby and a double glass optic, the reason why I use that lens was to focus on the delicate branches I wanted everything else out of focus.
I put the file away when I came back from the trip, I knew what I wanted to do with it, but I was not sure how too.  A year later I decided to try, I think if I remembered correctly the first 10 or 12 attempts were unsuccessful.
My first successful attempt took me a few weeks, using Photoshop Cut Out Filter, and Corel Painter I was able to do a mix of cut out and painting.
My second attempt took me a long time, few months, using only Corel Painter and all the different brushes, a lot of redo’s, took time to get exactly what I was looking for.
When I look at the two images, I cannot say which one I like better, and I don’t want to make a choice, they are both a representation of my vision, a vision that was inspired by beautiful and   majestic trees.

This was my first successful attempt, you can see the cut out filter effect for most of the image except for the middle part where I used Corel Painter to add the flowers and to define some of the branches. I used selective color and hue/saturation to get the final color.

This is my second successful attempt, so much work, that's probably the reason I like it so much, or maybe it's because it was a intense extraction of my vision, and a expression of my feeling. Took me few months, but it was a relaxing time listening to great music, and drinking wine. It's not for every taste, but it is a great representation of what I really wanted to achieve, and that's what is important, this kind of work is done first to please the artist, in that case me, and it's the same for everyone of us, doesn't really matter, if only we and few others like the result, if we are happy with it, that's what matter.

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