Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Retreat House

IMG_6777  

























Hello Everyone:   I have received messages that the pictures cannot be seen on my post today.  When I check them they show up as normal.   The comments I received say that if you click on the pictures they come up in their own window.   I am not a computer techie so if that works for you please use it.  I have no idea what is happening.  Thanks so much for your patience.  

My husband and I took a drive one Sunday and we ended up at a historical setting not far from our house.   The initial property was owned by Sir Henry Pelham the fellow that built Casa Loma in Toronto.   This was part of his estate in his later years.   What attracted me was the beautiful stone used.   My edit began here where I used the eraser tool to remove the no trespassing sign and the tv antenna and then I cropped the picture to exclude as much of the trailer in the side yard. Next, I adjusted levels and corrected the white balance, another adjustment for brightness and contrast and finally a hue and saturation adjustment to bring out the pink in the stone.   I used the warming filter85 at a density of 16 and then flattened the image.    I gave one final edit to this photo.   Using the high pass filter at 4 pixels and a blending of softlight at 53% opacity and flattened again.    Now it is ready for the textures.
Retreat house textured



























I used two layers of Kim Klassen’s texture “Chamomile”.   One layer at a blending mode of soft light at opacity 53%.   I used a layer mask to remove some texture from the sky and snow. The second layer of Chamomile has a blending mode of multiply at 57%.  I again used a layer mask at 50% to remove the texture from snow and sky.
The second texture I used was Kim’s also as “lightpaper3”.    I used two layers.    One with a blending mode of soft light at opacity 65% and a layer of same with a blending mode of multiply at opacity of 27%.    I gave it a final polish with a hue and saturation adjustment layer and decreased the opacity to –21.

Retreat house diptch
Here is the before and after.    I may have over thought this edit but I liked it anyway.  Hope you do too.   Valerie
Today, I am joining a new meme by Kim Klassen Cafe called Texture Tuesday and also with Chelsey at Touch Up Tuesday at Paper Heart Camera. 

20 comments:

Anika said...

Sounds lovely!! For some reason I can't see any of the photos. I'll check back...

Jill Harrison said...

loved the result of your pp work! excellent!
ps - I had to click on photo boxes to see the photos as they didn't come up.

Anonymous said...

I can't see the photos either. Sounds fantastic though.

A Garden of Threads said...

I can see the pictures and they are stunning. Great job Val.

Karen said...

I can see the pictures too, and I agree, they are stunning. I love the stonework on the house, they just don't do much work like that any more. Great work on editing, too.

Ashley Sisk said...

Yeah I had to click on them to see but I love the use of texture.

Cedar said...

Clicking the photos worked for me...I love what the texture does for the sky and snow making the whole thing more dreamy. I love it!

FYH said...

I can see them when I click on them
and I love your use of texture!

Carolyn said...

I had to click on to see too but the photos are beautiful especially the one with texture.
I think you are a lot more computer savvy then I am as I don't know how to do textures.

Carolyn

Rosie Grey said...

Thanks to AJ's trick I could see them, too! Wonderful processing!

Nancy said...

The first photo said the link was bad, the second two I could open in another tab (in Chrome.) Is it possible you have these photos set to private? (I do that sometimes, doh!)

Lovely photos. Love the processing. :)

A Box of Chocolates said...

love your edit such an amazing house so uusual, well for my side of the world anyway

paperbird said...

if you click on the x the images do come up.
i love that you did a before and after. lovely work and the old house is scrumptious!

Judith @ Lavender Cottage said...

Your editing is like magic Val, I love the way the photo turned out.
Judith

Val said...

A beautiful building Val and the texture is just right - gorgeous!

Connie Etter said...

Love your blog and your textures! Amazing images!

Naturegirl said...

Great job! Wish I had the skill to use more of my PS! Love the finished look!

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

I've never seen this problem before on blogger.

I think that the stone work is so beautiful in this building and so is your texturing.

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

Valerie you are not the only person having problems

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=6635ead33dcc240d&hl=en

Unknown said...

That is amazing house, it is so unbelievable beautiful building. Your edit makes it even beautiful.

Hoping You Have a Blessed Easter