DesignSelect is a showcase of digital images, unique gifts, and new Design talent.

Recent Work by j.d.brown - Autumn Fantasy I

In years gone-by a photographer often heard that photography was not an art. After all, any bean-brain with a camera and some film could take a picture.

Autumn Fantasy 1 - used a 640X480 image as a starting point.

Nowadays it is even worse for digital photographers. Not only do the bean-brains no longer need film, they have at their disposal a wide array of image processing software replete with filter effects that can "jazz up" even the most mundane image. Because of this fact, I have often been reluctant to use the filters packaged with Photoshop so as to maintain my status as a digital artist.
Over the years, though, I have come to realize that those filters are there in Photoshop for me, too. It is really not the use of a digital filter (or filters) that makes your final image art - it is where and how you use them that makes the difference.

One little known Photoshop trick to use with filters is the Edit > Fade operation. This operation is only available immediately after you apply a filter (and many tool operations, too). You can adjust the opacity and Blend mode of the filter - thus giving you an extra level of control.

Just as yesterday's photographers argued, "It is not the camera but the man behind it that creates the art" - I now understand that it is not the filter but the guy at the other end of the mouse!
For Autumn Fantasy I I started with a low res (640X480) image and used multiple filters applied to selected areas of the image to achieve this ghost-like effect.