Digital Art

For my work, "Digital Art" is a photography I have worked on to make a "painted" look to it.  This is one of the first images I was satisfied with in this regard:

Boulangerie & Bike

The original photograph was take in Paris in 2005, not long after I had returned to photography and the new digital age.  I used Photoshop for color correction and adjustment, curves for contrast, etc.  Then I brought the image in to Corel Painter Essentials and work for several weeks, even months, on and off with a lot of experimentation before getting it the way I wanted. 

It was also, if memory serves, one of the first of my works to win awards at on-ling photography contests, including at BetterPhoto.com, Digital Image Café.com and Shutterbugs.biz. 

If anyone wants to try their hand at digital painting from a photograph, I suggest getting a copy of Corel Painter Essentials (download is about $50 on Amazon, compared to over $400 for the full blown Painter).  Not having any experience with digital painting, it took me awhile to understand how it all works, but it's a lot of fun and the results can be stunning.  More on that in another blog post.

Best Seller

With my return to blogging, I have decided to take a different approach and talk about what I think is my best work and images that others think highly of.  I sell my work through my website, FineArtAmerica.com, (who also fulfills orders done off my website) and Redbubble.com.   This picture is by far the best seller.

Florence Sunset

This was taken near the end of our trip to Florence several years ago.  We went up to the Michelangelo Plaza across from the city main and, with several dozen other tourists, took a bunch of pictures as the sun set on this beautiful city.  I took 26 shops from this angle.  I also shot many closer shots as the city's lights were coming on and it got darker, but so far this was the best one, in my opinion. 

I didn't do much to this one; pretty much a keeper out of the camera.  A little burning on the highlights on the river and a bit brightness in Curves adjustments. That's it.

Back in the Game

Since retiring in October, 2014, my wife and I retired and moved to a brand new home in the Esplanade development of Lakewood Ranch near Sarasota, Florida.  And I decided a bit back to start up again with my blog.

Ca' d'Zan

This is a highlight of Sarasota.  Called Ca' d'Zan (which is Venetian for House of John) this is the mansion of John & Mable Ringling of Ringling Bros. Circus fame.  It sits right on the Sarasota Bay and have fantastic views of the bay and the Gulf of Mexico beyond.  There is an art museum on the grounds hold a very good collection of mostly European art.  Turns out John Ringling became a very good, knowledgeable art collector. Mable Ringling also built a wonderful garden and grounds. There is also a very interesting circus museum there, as well.

I worked on this in Photoshop (of course) using a couple of plugins: Nik HDR Efex Pro and Topaz Clarity.  I also cropped it a bit to get ride of unwanted tourists. :)