.jpg "Winter Rocky Hill copyright Anna Surface")
The Kansas landscape is barren and other-worldly appearing in the wintertime, and it is crispy-toast dry with the continuing drought and freaky, unseasonably warm weather. No appreciable snow as of yet half way through winter. Perhaps February will be a reverse with normal winter weather? Long, long ago in ancient Earth time, it is stated that rocks and boulders moved from upper North America to the area that which is Kansas during the ice age. These hard rocks and boulders are sedimentary like with bands of color, and they range in hues from light pink to deep purple. With this photo, I wasn’t interested in the color version preferring the black and white. However I wanted some of the boulders to show their true colors. Therefore, I merged/layered color and BW versions, brought back the rock colors in the foreground and a streak on the fencepost, and then slid the slider over two percent to filter a hint of color into the overall BW. Interesting contrasts, don’t you think?
by Anna Surface
6 comments
I love it!! The contrast of color to B&W is wonderful!
Very interesting image! I really like how it turned out!
There’s something other-worldly about the effect here – almost as though the rocks are winter-flowers, blooming there in the middle of the field. It’s deeply appealing – and the tiny bit of color on the fencepost is just right!
Coming back to ask a question… What program did you use do create this effect? Google is taking Picnik away from us, which really has been my go-to processing program. Picnik would allow me to do the sort of thing you’ve done here, but I can’t find another free program that allows it – or other lovely effects I’ve grown fond of.
I already have Elements 6, which I uninstalled and put away because it seemed so complicated. But, I have books, too – I always could drag them out.
And I’m trying a 30 day trial of Corel PaintShop Pro – looks to me as complicated as Elements, but I may have to bite the bullet to do what I want.
It’s really a problem, as I need what non-work time I have for writing rather than learning processing, but there you are – always a new challenge!
Barbara, thank you! I enjoyed playing with this.
Montucky, thank you! Still no snow!
Hi shoreacres. Oh my, I loved the way you described this: “almost as though the rocks are winter-flowers.” I really love working with the effects of mixed B&W with some color. I ought to get back into this because I enjoy it so much. I’ve been extremely busy, though, and I haven’t done as much photography processing as I haven’t had the time. That will change soon.
About your question. I use Lightroom for the basics, and then Topaz and Color Efex Pro 3 Complete for major processing and effects. I use Corel PaintShop Pro for layers such as merging a B&W with color and using the tools. There is much more I’d like to learn with Corel PaintShop Pro as I do like using it as well as Coral Painter 11 for digital painting. I like photo processing programs. I used to use Picnik somewhat but I didn’t like my images downsized even though the program had some neat stuff… love the puzzle. Too bad they are going out.
I understand about your time for writing. I have many balls in the air that I am juggling with and time is getting by way too fast! I happen to like challenges and perhaps that is why I am too busy! LOL My suggestion is that perhaps just learn one thing at a time at a slow and steady pace (I need to take my own advice). There is much more I hope to learn with photo processing. Thanks for the question and stopping by to comment!