Idea suggestions for xmas pics

GoddessE · 12-09-2007

I'm sure this is a pet peeve, people going in here with vague questions, but I will step forward enough to say I haven't a clue what all I can do with photoshop I have 7.0.

I am doing some family xmas pictures for gifts. Does anyone have some good ideas or examples they could provide for me to reference? We're taking pictures in nature scenes and using those. Will be wearing mostly dark colors. I will provide the pictures whenever I get them taken. Last night's didn't turn out well.

I'll also be hitting up the tutorial section and browsing the forum some more, but I'm excited to have found a forum where I do feel comfortable posting and browsing.

turvas · 12-09-2007

Well... It all depends on what exactly do you want to do with the pictures. You can modify the picture a bit to look better, or build a totally new imge out of it. There really aren't much limitations.

**tamlin** · 12-09-2007

If you don't want to alter the photos themselves, you could always consider some stylish framing techniques. As turvas says, even with PS7 you're only limited by your imagination.

Here's an idea: if you can find an example of the kind of image you'd like to create, post a link here and we might be able to give you some ideas on how to get that effect in Photoshop.

GoddessE · 12-10-2007

Thanks! I appreciate that. I'll take a look around and then give you some examples.

GoddessE · 12-10-2007

Oooh sparkly - BioRUST.com :: User Gallery

I’m guessing with this effect, the picture was taken of some Christmas lights and then a water drop paintbrush was added to it…I’m wondering how the color of the lights got into the globe, though. I took some pictures of my daughter and son with a twelve days of Christmas theme….and I have some globe paint brushes. I’d like to use a background like the one in that picture or maybe even a lit up Christmas tree and make the globes have the effects like the one in this image. So I’d be cropping in a circle around my photos and pasting them inside the ornament and then putting all 12 pictures, each in their own ornament, on the background so they look like xmas ornaments. Here are the globes although I think some of them aren’t going to work. There’s also an example of a water brush (I have a bunch of water brushes) below it that I want to use for another project I will mention below.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...Jul4-06_56.jpg

Here is an example of one of the pictures we took. I’d crop them in a circle to fit inside the globe.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...Jul4-06_25.jpg

The other project I would like to work on is a family photo. I’d like to make it appear more as art than a picture. Something that is very much like this in effect…

http://http://forums.biorust.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=12107

I figured I could also make the water look much more appealing, take out the drainage pipes to the left of the picture to make it appear more natural, crop it of course, and maybe remove that icky stray strand in my hair, if possible. LOL. I could bring out the color in the leaves and change the color of the ground somehow by adding grass, etc, using paint brushes….I’d like to have this image blown up to something like 16x20 or 20x30 to put over my fireplace and then some 8x10’s for the family for xmas…I know the pictures are not perfect but my ex husband was kind enough to take the snapshots and I am grateful for that. Here’s the family photos.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...Jul4-06_06.jpg

http://http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg304/QueenGoddessE/Xmas%202007/?action=view&current=Jul4-06_09.jpg

Jul4-06_09.jpg - Image - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Still trying to decide which one to use as they all have their own imperfections and the kids like the duck that's in some of them. Any suggestions or comments would be great! I’m open to any ideas or criticism since being a newby at this, I will need both.

Thanks for offering the help. It’s tough around Christmas time financially so I think this would be a great gift, and making them even nicer would be a total plus!

**tamlin** · 12-11-2007

OK...let's see:

I think that Chica's picture (and I'm sure she'll correct me if I'm wrong) is a straightforward photo of a glass marble placed on a CD with Xmas lights in the background. A wide aperture has been used to give a shallow depth of field and throw the lights out of focus. The lights haven't been "placed" in the globe - you can just see them through the glass.

There are lots of ways to turn a photo into a painting/drawing. Here are a couple of suggestions:
http://forums.biorust.com/adobe-phot...html#post46513 (Oil on Canvass Effect?)
BioRUST.com :: Tutorials >> Pencil Sketch Techniques

To get an effect like VancolleyS's "My Village", I'd suggest using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and beefing up the colour saturation. You can add the "frame" effect by increasing the canvas size of your original image and filling the extra canvas space with black.

Another thing you might want to try is cutting the people out of the photos and putting them on a totally different background. Photoshop provides a multitude of ways of extracting objects from an image.

Hope this gives you a few ideas.

GoddessE · 12-11-2007

Thanks so much.

I appreciate that. Looks like my idea with the ornaments might be tougher to achieve than I thought. I'll look around and see...this is a great forum there's a lot of great stuff on it. I'll keep an eye out and see if there's additional input here later, also. I'd love any ideas.