How I Do The Artistic Effects

My photo-editing software is Paint Shop Pro X2.  I've been using PSP for many years.  In the old days, PSP was free while Photoshop cost several hundreds of dollars.  Nowadays, PSP is a purchasable product, and its purchase price is comparable to many versions of Photoshop.  I've been tempted to convert to Photoshop (because there are more books & classes for Photoshop), but I've never gotten around to switching.  Besides, I don't think Photoshop can do these artistic effects as easily as PSP.

In any case, these artistic effects are some of the bells & whistles in Paint Shop Pro.  So, sorry, there's no magic technique I can teach to a Photoshop person.

Step One 

Here's the original full frame.

Some photographers revel in filling their camera viewfinder with the original image.  Not me.  I do a lot of cropping.  That comes from working with my original camera -- an old antique rangefinder.  One can never be sure where the edges of the image are, so I got in the habit of stepping back & including more than I needed in the image.

Besides, cropping is fun.

Step Two

Here's the cropping I chose.  

I chose to eliminate the edges of the window -- without that context, the remaining image is a bit more abstract.  (I've also done an alternative, more radical cropping, where Valentine's hands are in the opposite corners of the image).

I like doing the cropping as the very first step in my photo-processing.  The resulting file is smaller & easier/quicker to edit.

Once I have the cropping I like, I resize the image for web presentation.  Nowadays, I resize the image to be 700 pixels in the longest dimension.  I also save a separate edited version that wasn't resized -- that's the version I use when printing.

Step Three

The next step is some basic image adjustments.  

Paint Shop Pro X2 has a one-stop command, called "Smart Photo Fix", but these steps are easy enough to do separately.  The basic adjustments:

Step Four

My pseudo-sepia toning is part of my personal style, and since this image is almost monochromatic already, I decided to apply my sepia toning.  PSP has a "Colorize" command, which I use with the following parameters:

Step Five

Nearly all of the time, I stop with the sepia toned image, but on occasion, I like to go a little wild.  For this image, since it is already abstract, I decide to experiment a bit.

Starting with the colored image from "Step Three", I apply PSP's "Artistic Effects -- Enamel" command, with its default settings:

It's fun to play with these settings, but as much as I've played with them, I still like the default settings the best.  Go figure.

Step Six

We are almost done.  The last step is to ratchet up the color saturation.  In this case, I use PSP's "Automatic Saturation Enhancement" command with the following settings:

I also take this opportunity to apply the "Clarify" command with a low setting (1.0).

Step One 

Here's the original full frame.

Some photographers revel in filling their camera viewfinder with the original image.  Not me.  I do a lot of cropping.  That comes from working with my original camera -- an old antique rangefinder.  One can never be sure where the edges of the image are, so I got in the habit of stepping back & including more than I needed in the image.

There are plenty of images of Floofie's lovely face that I like, but not this one.  So, I look to cropping to see if I can "save" this particular images.

Step Two

Here's the cropping I chose.  

I chose to eliminate that bony or "dislocated" shoulder.  I've never been a big fan of knees, either, so I cropped above them, too.

I also like doing the cropping as the very first step in my photo-processing.  The resulting file is smaller & easier/quicker to edit.

Once I have the cropping I like, I resize the image for web presentation.  Nowadays, I resize the image to be 700 pixels in the longest dimension.  I also save a separate edited version that wasn't resized -- that's the version I use when printing.

Step Three

The next step is some basic image adjustments.  

Paint Shop Pro X2 has a one-stop command, called "Smart Photo Fix", but these steps are easy enough to do separately.  The basic adjustments:

Step Four

My pseudo-sepia toning is part of my personal style, and since this image is almost monochromatic already, I decided to apply my sepia toning.  PSP has a "Colorize" command, which I use with the following parameters:

PSP also has a "Clarify" command which gives the tones a little pop.  I apply it with a low setting (2.0).

Step Five

Nearly all of the time, I stop with the sepia toned image, but on occasion, I like to go a little wild.  For this image, I decide to experiment a bit.

Starting with the sepia image from "Step Four", I apply PSP's "Art Media Effects -- Brush Strokes" command, with its default settings:

Step Six

We are almost done.  The last step is to ratchet up the color saturation.  In this case, I use PSP's "Automatic Saturation Enhancement" command with the following settings:

Even though this effect was applied to a monochromatic image, the results are very interesting to me.  The original color image didn't exactly have a lot of color to it, so I saw no point in starting with it.  The "enamel" effect does add new colors to the image, but this "Paint Brush" effect just uses the colors of the image.