Lamp Lighter after Photoshop and Snap Art 3
- Lamp Lighter Photoshop Only
- Lamp lighter scanned slide unretouched
I decided to show you what I might do to a slide I like to make it into what it should be as a photo and as a photo painting.
In the old days, when you shot slide film, some call it positive, you either nailed it or you had a loser on your hands. You couldn’t crop it or change it in any way. If you did nail it, nothing was more glorious to look at when it was enlarged to fit your projector’s screen.
I liked the idea of this slide…it reminds me of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “My Shadow“. Where have we, even those my age, seen someone standing on a ladder washing street lamps with a bucket and a rag?
The slide was ok…nothing special except the subject matter, so I gave it a bit of a Rembrandt feel in Photoshop. I saturated the colors, darkened it a bit except for the area around the man’s head. It didn’t need much to make it a bit more ‘lively’ to my eye.
Then I used Snap Art 3 or maybe it was 2 and gave it a pastel look. A pastel doesn’t have to be light, spring-like colors. It is a type of crayon and can imitate an oil painting, which is what I think happened here. I like dark, warm colors. I like the darkness seeping in at the bottom of the photo, and the shadowy feel of dusk enhanced by the saturated low key look. Although I do miss the shadow of the lamp and the ladder which is found in the original slide and emphasized in the Photoshop version. It’s there in the photo painting, but not as clear. I do like realism and so photography is the perfect medium for me, but then again, I like to add mystery and ambiance. I want everything!!
I’m still trying to learn from Faye Sirkis’s instructions. Once I get some ability with using the mixer brush in Photoshop, I can keep my shadows if I want to.