No question about it, blessed with good health, excellent equipment, ever expanding software possibilities, and computers that are lightening fast, we have no excuse for not taking shots from ever angle with a range of exposures. I will continue taking great photos on my 1200 shots/roll of digital film.

I have been substitute teaching and those young people are taking many pictures in any one day. Photography is here to stay fixing that moment in their lives and will be beloved memories of their youth. I have a few taken with my Kodak Hawkeye in my 6th grade (1947).

Over the past few weeks I have developed a "style" I call the Splintered Glass Effect. It is very similar to an older form, Cubism (although the similarities were coincidental, not intentional). A number of folks have asked how this was done. This tutorial gives a short description of the workflow I use to produce these images.

1. Choose an appropriate subject, usually a photo that has a simple colorful background which is not "too" busy, and a foreground subject that holds interest.

2. Clean up the original photo before adding the Splintered Glass Effect. In my case, I remove small distractions from the photo by using the Lasso Took, then Fill at 100% with Color Adaptation checked. I then use NIK Viveza and Piccure + to sharpen the image. Finally, I applied a layer of Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter>Cooling Filter (80) to give the leaves a cooler look. I then saved the image as SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original.jpg. Leave Photoshop open with this version still in the workspace.

3. Open FotoSketcher 3.10. Execute File>Open a Drawing>SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original.jpg. In the Drawing Parameters menu, I choose Drawing Style "Emergence 2", set the other parameters to taste, then click on the Draw Icon. At this point, the pane to the right will begin to "render" the original photo in incremental steps. The menu at the top left will change to read "Interrupt Process (Esc), Save Drawing As. In the bottom right hand corner, there is a display of the completion percentage for the rendering process. When it gets to 18%, I click on the menu item "Interrupt Process". I then use the File Menu to Save the drawing as>SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original_FotoSketcher.jpg

4. Back in Photoshop, open this new file. File>Open>SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original_FotoSketcher.jpg. When the image is open, do a Ctrl-A, or Select>All to select the image. Do an Edit>Copy to copy the image to the clipboard. At this point you can Close the file SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original_FotoSketcher.jpg. Return to the file you left open before, SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original.jpg Do an Edit>Paste. This will place the Splintered Glass Effect image in a layer above the Background image. Now, I create a mask so that I can show my main subject against the splintered glass background. To do this, click on the Add Vector Mask icon in the Layers panel (rectangular shape with an oval in the middle). This will add a white layer mask to the right of the second layer. To mask the image so that it shows elements from the background layer, use the Brush Tool (Mode: Normal; Opacity: 86%; Flow: 100%), make sure the Foreground Color is set to Black, then "paint over" the areas that you want to display in the final image. Don't worry if you go outside the lines .... you can always cover it up later by switching the Foreground Color to White, and painting over the excess. Once you have gotten it the way you like it, flatten the image (Layer>Flatten Image)

5. Add whatever effects you like to finalize the "look". In my case I used a number of layers - Smart Photo Editor (Softblur and Canvas), Topaz ReStyle (Night Collection, Midnight Waterfalls - for a darker, bluish cast), and Topaz Star Effects (Jewel Sparkle II - to add some highlights to the flower blossoms).

BOB, you are corrupting all of us who take perfect photos perfectly composed and free of noise and other defects right out of our cameras. It is thus, being part of the Republican Conservative platform committee for 2016... "Our people will refrain from frivolous photo manipulations such as those found in programs such as found on:"

http://www.fotosketcher.com/download-fotosketcher/

Others found on the list compiled by the Moral Decency group are JIXIPIX programs and plugins and Dynamic Autopainter and compaion PhotoReactor
http://www.mediachance.com/dap/
http://jixipix.com/downloads.html

And... of course, Topaz is another evil... See you at a Webinar BOB... :thumbup: :)

Over the past few weeks I have developed a "style" I call the Splintered Glass Effect. It is very similar to an older form, Cubism (although the similarities were coincidental, not intentional). A number of folks have asked how this was done. This tutorial gives a short description of the workflow I use to produce these images.

1. Choose an appropriate subject, usually a photo that has a simple colorful background which is not "too" busy, and a foreground subject that holds interest.

2. Clean up the original photo before adding the Splintered Glass Effect. In my case, I remove small distractions from the photo by using the Lasso Took, then Fill at 100% with Color Adaptation checked. I then use NIK Viveza and Piccure + to sharpen the image. Finally, I applied a layer of Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter>Cooling Filter (80) to give the leaves a cooler look. I then saved the image as SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original.jpg. Leave Photoshop open with this version still in the workspace.

3. Open FotoSketcher 3.10. Execute File>Open a Drawing>SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original.jpg. In the Drawing Parameters menu, I choose Drawing Style "Emergence 2", set the other parameters to taste, then click on the Draw Icon. At this point, the pane to the right will begin to "render" the original photo in incremental steps. The menu at the top left will change to read "Interrupt Process (Esc), Save Drawing As. In the bottom right hand corner, there is a display of the completion percentage for the rendering process. When it gets to 18%, I click on the menu item "Interrupt Process". I then use the File Menu to Save the drawing as>SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original_FotoSketcher.jpg

4. Back in Photoshop, open this new file. File>Open>SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original_FotoSketcher.jpg. When the image is open, do a Ctrl-A, or Select>All to select the image. Do an Edit>Copy to copy the image to the clipboard. At this point you can Close the file SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original_FotoSketcher.jpg. Return to the file you left open before, SplinteredGlassTutorial_Original.jpg Do an Edit>Paste. This will place the Splintered Glass Effect image in a layer above the Background image. Now, I create a mask so that I can show my main subject against the splintered glass background. To do this, click on the Add Vector Mask icon in the Layers panel (rectangular shape with an oval in the middle). This will add a white layer mask to the right of the second layer. To mask the image so that it shows elements from the background layer, use the Brush Tool (Mode: Normal; Opacity: 86%; Flow: 100%), make sure the Foreground Color is set to Black, then "paint over" the areas that you want to display in the final image. Don't worry if you go outside the lines .... you can always cover it up later by switching the Foreground Color to White, and painting over the excess. Once you have gotten it the way you like it, flatten the image (Layer>Flatten Image)

5. Add whatever effects you like to finalize the "look". In my case I used a number of layers - Smart Photo Editor (Softblur and Canvas), Topaz ReStyle (Night Collection, Midnight Waterfalls - for a darker, bluish cast), and Topaz Star Effects (Jewel Sparkle II - to add some highlights to the flower blossoms).