Showing posts with label photoshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photoshop. Show all posts

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Creating Portrait Artistry One Pixel at a Time

In this day of turbo charged cell phones and an abundant means of sharing images on social media, standing out in the photography field is a new challenge for photographers. 



The typical criteria that customers use for selecting one photographer over another 
(location, experience, talent, personality & reputation) still have value, but today, 
many clients make their choice based upon a photographer's style or a specific 
artistry that they want to achieve with their  own portrait/photos. 

It is a wonderful opportunity for photographers to find their uniqueness and 
to express the talents that make their photography special...their brand.

For me, I approach photography with an extra creative eye, looking at lighting, 
the blur of colors, the patterns or shapes created in posing, striving to 
create MORE than a photo, something I refer to as portrait artistry.




Sometimes the opportunity just happens, when light falls magically upon the 
subject creating an image that looks more like a painting than a photograph, 
but other times I choose to create the magic through digital means. 

How is this done, you might wonder? Through advanced programs 
such as Lightroom and Photoshop, photographers get the opportunity to 
shine like artists and bring their vision to life through blending layers, 
masks, textures, the merging of multiple images, etc

Below is an example of an impromptu photo I took of my daughter Ashley 
with her puppy, Zoey. You can see how the before image is super sweet and 
evokes an emotional response, however I saw the potential to take that to a higher 
level and create real portrait artistry, as shown in the after result below. For me, 
creating portrait imagery that takes whoever is viewing it on an emotional 
journey is the ultimate goal. Leave them breathless and wanting more. 



Make your portraiture a priceless treasure that each customer wants 
to repeat and can't resist sharing with the world.

For more examples of my photography, click here 
to visit my website or facebook page.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Photo-Texture-Word Art

The combination of three things...a photo, a texture and some inspiring words, can bring about new art.


I started with a photo of some clouds that I had taken on my iPhone that I later edited in Snapseed...


Image © 2013 Cheri Wenger Design Photography


Next I overlayed one of Kim Klassen’s “just a touch” textures found here.


Original Image © 2014 Kim Klassen (This is just a screenshot to reference 
the image. Go to the link above to download the texture and to register 
to receive other textures created by the talented Kim Klassen.)

Recipe: Used kk_just a touch2 texture with linear burn overlay at 78% opacity on a layer stacked above my cloud image, shown above to get the blending of image with texture.


Final step in Photoshop was adding some words in assorted sizes and colors on separate layers in Photoshop. These have to be stacked on top of the texture and photo layers so that they are visible.
It is always good to save your layered Photoshop file for future editing before flattening and saving your composited final image as jpg, tiff or other file format for sharing.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

A 4 Day Sale that Will Put Crisp Dollars Back in Your Pocket


Get ready to shop for your fall and winter craft projects during my 4 day, 40% off Fall Savings Event.
Click this link to view all of the sets in my shop starting with the newest collections. Here are a few new sets to inspire your creativity...











Sale begins Oct. 7 and runs through Oct. 10 midnight PST.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Digi Tools (Brushes & Styles) - Photoshop Brush Sets - Au Naturale Digital Brushes - MY GRAFICO - DIGITAL ARTS AND CRAFTS STORE

Announcing my latest collection...Au Naturale!



So excited to share my latest digi design set...a set of 24 b&w brushes that you can combine with any color you like to create awesome nature inspired designs and backgrounds. For the set preview I used a fall color palette to jump start your creativity for fall projects. Purchase at my shop by clicking the link above.

Friday, April 22, 2011

2 Days to Hop on Savings of 25% Off!

This Easter Weekend instead of collecting eggs, collect some digital sets and save 25% on all of your purchases on Saturday and Sunday. Treat yourself to some yummy brush sets, beautiful paper collections or delicious clip art and digi stamps at mygrafico.com.
To go directly to my shop, click here.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

2-2-2!

Do you know that my favorite number is 2. It is my birth date and I have just always loved that number. When I logged on to do a new post for today, I saw that I had 222 posts as of August 2nd. Pretty amazing, isn’t it!?? So I am now looking forward to hitting post 2,222...have some work cut out for me!

I am going to catch you up on some hybrid card inspirations using some of my digi desgins sold on MyGrafico.com. One of my favorite illustrative sets is the Hip & Happy set. I use this cross all the time. Most crosses have a rigid, stiffness to them, which reminds me nothing of the Jesus I know and love —
a compassionate and loving God that gave his own life for me. He surrounds me with his love and guidance so I tried to achieve that in my artistic interpretation of the cross. On this first example, I used it to create a sympathy card for our friends who just lost their father/grandfather just a few days after my aunt passed away. I typeset the verse and printed out the cross in b&w. I added a touch of soft pink on the swirls and heart as a soft accent. For the background, I used a flower and design element in black to create the hand stamped background. It is from one of my favorite new stamp sets called Que Sera Sera by K&Company. It is an eclectic mix of designs and verses. I used the same stamp to handcut a lavender floral accent that I raised up with a rhinestone accent.



Working with the same color combination of pink and black I also created this hybrid card for my cousin’s daughter’s Baptism. I just love digital brushes & Photoshop. I used my Mod Twist Garden brushes to create the background, which nicely complimented the lines in the cross illustration. This card was 90% digi, cut out and mounted onto card stock layers. Pretty easy. See below for another modified version of this same card art. That is the cool thing with using digital stamps, art and brushes, you can set up the art, print & experiment with lots of variations of the same design so no cards have to be the same!


I called this version Hip & Girly Baptism Card. The gold, pink and black made it just a bit fancier, yet it still has that girly style to it. You can also dress up hybrid cards by adding brads, ribbons, diecut borders, etc. For this, I kept it simple and classic.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

2 years, 220 Posts, 1 Great Experience!

I just looked back to see how long it is has been since I started blogging. It was 2 years in June, and my how that time has flown by! In my years as a graphic designer I have seen changes in computers, technology, software, trends and it has been such an amazing journey. When I started my own design biz, I was simply thrilled to have a little Mac Plus computer that I could do my own typesetting on. Yes, that was in the days of paste up, where every add, logo and brochure had to be pasted up...mechanically. Each title cut out and glued onto a mechanical board and the colors had to be all cut out of rubylith or amberlith with an Xacto knife by hand!

Then came all the software and possibilites with Adobe leading the way. Designers could actually see how the designs would look using certain colors. This opened up the windows to new creativity. We could see the designs before they were printed! But then, suddenly software got all technical, and I suddenly went from being a creative type to having to know how to do pre-press art and set up. Thank God those days are gone...not fun, let me tell you! Laptops showed up giving me design capabilities on the go! The internet lent a wealth of resources, too!

Now the digital revolution has appeared on the horizon and technology continues to advance along with the software posing a need for more RAM and storage space...internal and external hard drives. Photoshop and phtooshop brushes add new life to images and art. Sites like Picnik offer special effects at your fingertips. Uploading, downloading, social media and networking are necessary parts of a designer’s life.

Today, I share with you a scrapbook layout that I did totally digital. It is a faux magazine cover featuring a few photos of Kylie from this summer. Dan commented on how the one picture looked like it could be on a magazine cover...and so the inspiration was born! You see in our house, you have to be careful what you SAY and what you DO. It may just end up on a scrapbook page! LOL

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Total Fluidity

Recently I put fear aside, grabbed my trusty drawing pens and without any plans or pencil lines, I just started drawing stylized drawings and let the lines flow where they wanted to. I was pretty happy with the results, sort of a stylized tattoo feel to them. Next, I scanned them into my computer, live traced and did some clean up on them. Here are the finished results; two new sets for mygrafico, one a b&w brush set and the other a multi color version. They are both part of my Fluidity Line. See what you think! Click on the graphic to view in my shop.


Here are some examples created using the Fludity Brushes in Photoshop. It is fun to use color, texture or even patterned papers with these brushes! You can also add shadows, embossing and other cool effects. You can create your own page elements, layouts, background papers and more.

8 x 8 Digital Paper



Blog icon design image (can be reduced as an avatar)



create your own art for home decor, cardmaking or scrapbooking...
Colorize elements and use on layouts or use as decorative overlays ghosted onto photos.


These hopefully give you some ideas of what can be done with digital design sets. Can't wait to see what you can create with my sets! Be sure to post in the mygrafico ning community gallery or on my group page.

Next, I will be doing something with the sea shells I did in a totally different sketchy style! You will have to check back to see what I do with those!