Strictly speaking I don’t suppose that these images should be included here as my intention for this blog was to just include images based on photographs that I’ve taken. These images, on the other hand, were created from various bits and pieces that I’ve come across over the years (but have since deleted). As much as anything else these are really an excercise in playing around with Photoshop, particulary the various texture filters.

The versions of the images included here are based on two sections of what was a rather flat and uninspiring montage. As art, I don’t think that they’re all that impressive but I did enjoy putting them together.

Actually, it wasn’t so much the mechanics of constructing these images that I enjoyed, rather it was being able to reinvent them in a way that gives me some contemporary pleasure – if that makes any sense. Anyway, the end result is something that I’m reasonably pleased with.

I took this picture in my hotel room when I visited Southend-on-Sea earlier this year. The original was in landscape format because I had to balance the camera on top of the television (and it wouldn’t stand on its side) but there was too much clutter in that version so it was quite tightly cropped.

As with a number of shots that I took with this camera the colour balance of this image is a consequence of forgetting to change the white balance from the daylight setting. In this case though, I think it works quite well and emphasises the natural colours of the room.

I think the only thing I’d change, if I were to do it again, would be the subtely (or lack of it) of the post-processing. Quite a lot of changes were made within Photoshop that I think could have been done better. For example, the area within the mirror was altered with a ‘radial blur’ (other than the flower on the table) and I think this could have been done a little less obviously. Also, the ‘shadow’ in the mirror could have been blended a little more unobtrusively. All that said, I do like the image and it does capture some of what I was after.

(This picture was entered in the Photo Friday Night challenge).

The original version of this image was a somewhat uninspiring picture, while the reworked version is an attempt to see how far I could push the levels and curves adjustments in Photoshop without totally trashing the final result. And, on reflection, I think I probably overdid it somewhat. If this camera could take RAW images I think I might have got away with it but such a gross manipulation on a jpeg has lead to the introduction of quite a bit of unwanted distortion, particularly on the left of the image (and bottom right) on the border between the clouds and the very dark areas of the image.

That said, I do think the image is quite evocative, but I would have preferred the net result to have been a little more subtle. For future images (of this sort) I’m going to try introducing some optical filtering to darken down the sky prior to processing the image as this will obviously result in less need for such drastic post-processing. It will also mean, though I’m not sure how important this is, that the final result will be ‘nearer’ to the original than it otherwise would have been.

And, in case you’re wondering, the title of this image is the capture date in binary (in the format 20803) – I was thinking about ADSL internet connections (through phone lines) when I titled it.