I photographed this lovely combination of Aliums and decorative grasses at the Chateau du Rivau, not far from where I live in the Loire Valley, France. It was taken during a garden festival and there were people in the background. I wanted to keep the focus on the alley of aliums so I used a texture to give it a more impressionistic feel and then finished with a Topaz Labs* filter.
Before
Texture
I used the Texture, New Day from Les Textures I collection.
Below in the layer panel, you can see that I used a mask to constrain the effects of the texture to the background areas of the photograph. (Remember, black in the layer mask will reveal what’s below the layer.)
Blend Mode: Screen, Opacity: 81%
The Layer Panel.
Final
My final edits:
- I merged the layers above into a new document.
- Retouched some of scraggly looking grass in the front.
- Burned and Dodged here and there.
- Ran Topaz Labs* Filter, Clean.
Topaz Labs* is an affiliate link. I’ll get a small commission (at no extra cost to you) from any purchases. Thank you!
Feel free to pin the Before & After at the top for photo tut boards or the final image onto your garden / photo boards. © Leslie Nicole
American Photographer and Designer living in France with my French husband, 2 Weimaraners and Cat Rescues. Camera, Mac, studio, garden.
Another lovely image. I have thoroughly enjoyed looking through your site and admiring your work. I have taken advantage of your free textures and am having fun transforming some of my floral images.
Many thanks and once I have some funds available I will be purchasing some of your textures.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Trevor! Look for sales to help your budget. I have one coming up this weekend. 🙂
Hi there,
Can’t see any of the images but can read your typing. Not sure what is up with that.
Kathleen
Kathleen Lapergola recently posted..Roses
Hmm. I’m seeing them OK. What system are you using to view them?
I have the same trouble viewing anything but the typing. But I do find that if I click on the extremely thin line that shows up where the pictures should be, it seems to go to wherever they are located and shows them. Or you can right-click & ask to display in a separate tab or window. I’m still using Windows XP so forced to remain with IE8, which may be the problem.
It probably is an IE8 problem. Explorer, especially outdated versions aren’t very reliable. Sorry, I’m not really sure what to do about that.
I’m also very pleased with the retslus that I get from the software; however, I’m very disappointed with poor stability of the filters and the poor interaction of the filters with Photoshop Elements (PSE). Topaz crashes on a regular basis and I find that it’s related to available memory i.e. the more photos open concurrently, the more likely a crash will happen. Also, when you fire up a filter and shift over to another application, you cannot regain control of the filter. Peter
What Topaz Labs filter have you exactly used, Leslie?
Thanks.
The “Clean” filter. I don’t remember which setting.