Happy Friday! Hope you’ve all had a wonderful week with time for being creative.
For me, when the holidays are over and the house is once again still after two weeks of game playing, cooking and feasting together, and lots of laughter, I need something to sink my teeth into creatively to help ease into this new transition. Playing with my nature photography seems to be that centering craft (our wonderfully mild winter is certainly a bonus, too!).
For this particular image of our lupine at the lake, I wanted to enhance the softness. I was pleased with the composition and sharp selective focus of the one lone lupine, with the dock and lake barely visible (yet visible). The wide open f-stop (f/2) allowed for the blurry foreground and background, with the lupine focused in between. Love when that works out just as I hoped! Sometimes a blurry foreground just doesn’t look right.
To achieve this desired effect, I added a bokeh overlay (#45) and texture overlay (#22) from our Photo Art Blends 4 Pak, both set to Soft Light. I find these add more dimension than Photoshop Actions can and allow so many variations in color, intensity, and texture when experimenting with Layer Blend Modes.
Here are the layers making up the textured image. I then added a word art quote from This is Life 5 Scrap.Words, adjusting the hue to complement the plum (Ctrl-U, Cmd-U on a Mac).
FYI…this week we added four recent projects to our photography blog, many involving nature imagery. Enjoy! Hope to continue getting caught up there. 🙂
Note…our Photo Art Blends all come with their own tutorial and sample recipes to achieve varying effects. There are also masking tips to soften texture and color on portraits. Here is some additional imagery created with our 4th set.
For edgy appeal, add our spring bokeh overlay to an image with a vintage tone.
The image below is enhanced with color, bokeh, script, and a photo transfer edge with just one overlay!
The sky bokeh is perfect for adding a dreamy sky to your blown out sky photos!
FYI…Professional Licenses are available for a small additional fee (select the pro license option when adding to cart). The 4th set provides poster-sized texture and bokeh overlays, offering professional photographers opportunities to up-sell edgy high-end wall prints.
Happy creating! Michelle
