photoshop ai

Apr

2024

The Zen of Photography (My Way!)

And I got this from The Zen Societies Website:

“It’s both something we are—our true nature expressing itself moment by moment—and something we do—a disciplined practice through which we can realize the joy of being. It is not a belief system to which one converts. There is no dogma or doctrine. Zen is the direct experience of what we might call ultimate reality…” Zen Stuff

The first definition falls easily into the western definition of ‘chill’. “a relaxed and not worrying about things that you cannot change” (taken from Cambridge Dictionary)

So, I don’t know much about what it would be for you but I guess it’s kind of the state that I go into particularly when I’m editing photos and creating on the computer.

I’m ordinarily in this state, as well, when I’m in the studio or often elsewhere. Taking photos.

I’m a swimmer and wear my Garmin watch during the day. Not at night. Keeps track of my heart rate. When I’m sitting at my desk, completely focused, heart rate drops into the 40s. Hopefully, that’s an indication that I’m in ‘the zone’.

If you are a swimmer and on Garmin, look me up.

As of late, I’ve learned some of how to use Photoshop AI. Pretty easy to make stuff up from nothing. Much more difficult to get really good at it. I have thousands of photos, so my goal is to use them as much as possible in my creations.

Makes it trickier sometimes but good to set rules for the game. Goes for any game, I guess. If you can work within a set of rules, and win, then you really know you are winning.

Some of the images that I create, like the one with the ‘robot’ lady in the bedroom. Well, it took me quite a while. Hours. Some dead ends and restarts.

I find that I don’t get frustrated when I run into barriers. Like I have a concept and get to the end and ‘bleh’. I really, really, really enjoy the process.

I look at my photography, how it has improved over a lifetime. And I can see how in the few months that I’ve been working with Photoshop AI… definite improvement in my skills and knowledge.

Part of the beauty of it is that I don’t expect everyone to like what I create. And even those that like some of my work, may not like other material. All part of the ‘Zen’ thing I guess.

Enjoy the photos. And if not, have look around and see what else there is to see! 🙂

Apr

2024

More Fun With PhotoShop AI

Layers and Layers In PhotoShop

I try as much as possible to use only my own photos when I’m doing these images. Various models from my years of shooting and backgrounds. Sometimes I’ll just cruise through my collection of photos for ideas. That’s how I came up with the ‘elephant’ and warrior girl image. I’d done one with just the girl and a background (also, mine) and when I started messing with the image of the elephant I realized what a great combination those two photos would make. The bamboo was the actual background behind the elephant at the Portland Zoo.

In the image with the owl: started with a portrait of the girl. The owl was sitting in a tree at a campground on Vancouver Island some years back. Took some time to finalize that composite image.

Apr

2024

Life Should Be Fun – Enjoy The Ride And Make It That Way

Life Should Be Fun - Make It So

Not everything is perfect all the time. One needs to enjoy work or at least a good part of it. The actual effort of doing it.

I’m a photographer and I also work sometimes as a demonstrator/sales person at trade shows. I work for a company a couple of times a years now (I’m supposed to be retired) selling a very high quality product.

I’ve been selling it for years and at these shows, particularly of late, there has been more complaining than usual. I started to agree how poor things were and then realized how much I enjoyed the activity. The interaction with people. I have no qualms about the quality of what I’m selling and I don’t do the ‘hard sell’ type of selling.

I really, really enjoy the effort of doing that activity.

Same goes for photography. I got a new computer fairly recently so that I could access the new AI features of Photoshop.

And that opened up a whole new world! Pretty much endless creative possibilities. I have thousands of photos that I’m using for backgrounds, foregrounds and bits and pieces.

I’ve found that a lot of photos that I took in the past, I took with this sort of thing in mind. Taking the shot, knowing it might make a great background for something and now, wonderfully, getting to actually use these photos.

Some of the photos here have backgrounds manipulated from my photos. Some fully, some partially. I’ve been using buildings and streets and the like from Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands and also from Prague. They lend themselves very well to this sort of image.

I’ll come up with some kind of idea of what I want to do and start putting things together. Much like a painting, I think. I’m sure painters find that many times they get to the end and it’s not what they’d hoped. I might spend a few hours on something and scrap it altogether because it looks like crap. And when I get something I really like I can hardly stop tweaking and creating variations.

And however it turns out, I’m having loads of fun in the process. So much fun.

So life CAN be fun. You have to make it that way. And it won't get that way if you are serious.

Hope you like the results.

Apr

2024

Creating Fine Art Paintings With Photoshop (My Photos)

Not too long ago I had to upgrade my computer to allow me the advantages of Photoshop AI. For years I've been, by and large, using Lightroom for editing purposes. Much more recently I've been playing with and learning Photoshop. Since I upgraded, I've been playing non-stop.

I'm no where near what I see some people produce that have been using Photoshop for years and years. But I bet very few are having such sheer fun that I am. Above creations each started with a fine art nude that I photographed sometime in the last 7-8 years. Added layers, used AI and brush strokes and other images using overlays to get the final images. So many photos that I have that I can now use as backgrounds. I can no longer get through the day without coming up with a dozen or so ideas for combining and creating. Some just don't work. I'll spend hours and the vision just doesn't happen. Each time that happens, though, I've learned something. What I've found pretty unbelievable is the depth of Photoshop. Seems the things you can do with it are endless. I try and keep my creative desires simple.

Hope you like.

What is Zen?

Layers and Layers In PhotoShop

Life Should Be Fun - Make It So