Electronic Images
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I debated on what to call these, but since they are made entirely in the computer the word "Electronic" fits. One of these images is on a previous page, the others (I will add more) are relatively new. All were produced using PhotoShop. On this page I will explain how I made these (there are probably other ways to do it) and where the originals were taken, etc.. All images had to be converted from PICT files to GIF files, a convoluted process that required changing the Mode to Indexed Color, in order for them to be used on the Web.
Made up from two original 35mm images, the background was a sunset photo shot
at a local Southeren California beach through a red filter, while the foreground
was a normal photo shot on the pier by Hearst Castle, California, in broad daylight.
To capture the
seagull and railing, I used the rope tool and "cut" it out of the background
and copied to a new blank page. I made some adjustments to the image there and
then copied it and pasted it to the background shot. After that I used a combination
of the rubber stamp tool and the pixel pencil to fill in any missing background
areas.
This was made up from three original 35mm slides. What I will call Layer 1,
the sunset portion, was another beach sunset shot, unfiltered. The color was
due to a combination of smog, haze, and the sun setting. Layer 2, the desert
scene, was shot somewhere between Sedona Arizona and the Grand Canyon. Layer
3, the work boat, was shot from the wharf at Santa Barbara California.
While each shot by itself was a "so-so" image, the three combined made for one interesting one. I have to be honest and say that this image was inspired by one I saw of sailing ships beached on sand dunes in a desert, however I didn't have any shots like these, so I improvised.
I actually started by cutting and pasting the ship onto a new page and eliminating some of the detail items, like antennas. I then pasted the ship onto the desert scene and touched it up using the rubber stamp tool and pencil. I drew in the dark windows with the pencil. I then cut and pasted the combination of these two layers onto the beach sunset scene, did some cleanup with the pencil and rubber stamp tool and presto!--a Mirage.
A
shot of two biplanes by the Hollywood sign taken in the thirties? Nope. A little
cutting and pasting and some erasing and back in time we go.
The plane's photo was taken at the Santa Barbara Airport, while the Hollywood sign's photo was taken from the patio of the snack bar near Griffith Park Observatory. While removing the antennas and transmitter building from Mt. Hollywood was relatively easy, getting the planes right was difficult.
It took a lot of time on an intermediate layer to edit out all of the unwanted background and because of the overcast day, more time to put back IN things that were not that sharp to begin with, or not there at all (like the wing tips). One plane was copied and pasted to the sign's photo as-is, the other was rotated just slightly to make it look like two different planes of the same color.
In the same manner I decided on a little whimsy and concocted this image of
Bessy surveying her new pasture in high flying style. I was inspired to add
this by a student here at CSULB who actually saw my page.
Again the plane was from Santa Barbara (see above) while the cow's photo was taken outside of Solvang California. The field? Actually I can't remember. I think it was taken north of Santa Barbara, California on a long backroads photo trip I and three other Brookies took eons ago.
Cut 'n paste and cut 'n paste. I added a little airbrush to replace the missing propellor and some pencil here and there on the plane to replace missing items.
A
nice photo of Mirror Lake in Yosemite California. Or is it?
Instead of adding images, this time I played "1984" and removed them.
On the left are two children who happened to get in the way of my shot. OK, ok, they're actually my kids and I wanted them in (I had this on my computer as a background for months). Then I got the weird idea to remove them.
It was actually pretty easy to do this. Thanks to the "busy" background all I had to do was to use the Rubber Stamp tool to take my kids off of the rock. This could open up a whole new world of what is real vs. what's not real, and with high resolution film output units, having the negative (or positive) is no longer solid proof of an unretouched image as it once was.
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All information and photos Copyright © 1998-2005 John R. Powell
updated 11/22/05