Tag: Photoshop CC

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art Photography Photoshop Uncategorized

More on Photoshop Style Neural Transfer Filters

[NB: I do not own the copyrights to any of these images.]

Getting the results below previously required an expert hand or buying actions.

Actions are small programs that perform a number of steps in Photoshop on an image automatically.

If you wanted an image to look like a watercolor painting then you could buy an action to do that. It might go through 20 to 30 steps to get that look. Such as adjusting contrast to a certain point, setting the saturation, changing the brightness, applying a cross hatch filter and so on.

I find actions tough to install and work with. Every designer works with them, however, which has caused much of online graphic work to look the same. I prefer these filters to get similar results to actions.

These new neural filters provide two kinds of style transfers (internal link to more musings on this). Artist styles and image styles. After converting a monotone image to color, again provided by a neural filter, look at these two wildly different image styles. Both done with just one click.

This is the first time I think Adobe’s outrageous subscription fee for Photoshop is worth it.

Now, take a look at the custom style transfer filter. I’m using two photos I took today. I like the color scheme and the design of this Packard.

Here’s the original photo. It focuses on the strong grillwork.

Here’s the photo I want to transfer the car’s style to.

And here is the result. Something of the horizontal has been brought in.

Here is another original photo with more of the car as well as the foreground and background.

Here’s the transfer of style.

Notice how the gravel or sand texture has been brought in.

All of these were one click transfers. Several adjustments are possible before applying them.

 

 

NB: I do not own the rights to any of these photographs.

Categories
art Photography Photoshop Uncategorized

On Colorizing and Different, Not Better

NB: Unknown photographers, various magazines. I do not own the rights to any of these images.

Original monotone:

Here’s a colorized version produced by Photoshop’s colorize filter. (internal link) Corrected the skin color a bit, that’s all.

Comment: I think Kate’s skin looks better in color but Mr. Dog appears to be a black and white job. The original monotone may have been inspired by that.

Original monotone:

Colorized:

Comment: Okay, here’s one reason not to use color. Sleek and stylish and glossy do well with black and white. There’s a vibe or ambiance the photographer is trying to set with the monotone. Color simply sets Kate back into the everyday world.

I’m too rushed in the field to decide whether to shoot in color or black and white. My correcting is in post. Does a studio photographer take the time to decide? Or do they also convert later?

Because some subjects are just doomed to look bad in black and white from the beginning. But how does one know that beforehand?

Here’s Bellucci in color as the original magazine cover shows:

And here’s how it would have looked in monotone without any adjustments:

Yikes! That has a more documentary look than a fashion shot. Is that a lesson here? Emphasize seriousness with black and white? While avoiding the other conclusions that monotone implies . . .

So, sometimes one choice is better than another.

And then there is different. Converting this original to black and white at first seemed listless at best.

The monotone version:

Still, something seems there for me. Without color cues, texture of the chiffon seems dominant. Well, Photoshop does have texture filters. Here’s one experiment.

I’m not saying this is better, rather, that it presents another path to wander down in the creative process. This is by trial and error; I wonder if a real photographer can see these paths before beginning.

And we could put this B&W back into the colorizing filter once again. I adjusted the saturation to pink since that is what I first think of with chiffon. Not blue as in the original. But I’m a guy. That material may actually be silk or taffeta or whatever. Whatever!

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Photography Photoshop Uncategorized

1 or 2? Which Says The Southwest Better for You?

I’m getting lost in Photoshop, a sure time killer at any time. I’ve always been interested in duotones but I never know when to use them. They don’t work everywhere. I think this duotone makes a happy Southwest photo but what do you think? Better 1 or 2?