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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Tropical dreaming

tropical-dreaming

check out Inspiration Avenue on Monday for others’ tropical creations.

I took all of the photos here.  In 2009 I spent several months travelling around the island nations in the Pacific.  The chair was on a small island in Vanuatu; the island / atoll is In New Caledonia; the one above is Tana which is part of Vanuatu, the one above in Isle de Pines in New Caledonia, the top right corner is Tonga and the one below is also Tana.

Interesting that I think of the beach photos when I think tropical.  But then regular readers will have notice that I take lots of beach photos in Scotland too.

The digi process

For those who are interested in the Photoshop Elements creative process here is what I did (everyone else is excused).

The background is made up of two photos.  I used the eraser with a soft brush on 15% opacity to erase the top of the chair photo above the curve of the palm, until there was no line.

To help the words stand out I added a 3px stroke in green and a default drop shadow.  I often add a stroke layer style to help text stand out.

The five ‘dreaming’ photos are clipped onto a shape.  I used one of the talk bubble shapes that comes with PSE but cropped it to just the top bubble.  I added layer styles to all of the shapes too – default drop shadow and a 3px stroke in white.  I played with lots of different layer styles, including bevel, before settling on this.  I created the style I liked on one shape and then copied the layer style, selected all of the other shapes, and pasted the layer style (copy and past layer style is on the menu when you right click on a layer in the layer panel).

If you have any questions about what I did, ask them in the comments

13 comments:

Sian said...

You certainly do have an amazingly wide and varied collection of photos. Wow.

We could do with a bit of "tropical" round here - it's freezing today!

Deb @ PaperTurtle said...

Well aren't you clever, Helena! I love this page and am impressed with your PhotoShop skills!

Elizabeth said...

That turned out beautifully, Helena. Your knowledge of PSE is growing so much you will soon be upgrading to CS!

Melissa said...

Gorgeous page & photos. I like the way you clipped the photos to the talk bubble shape to make the floating photos.

furrypig said...

wow you have visited some amazing places, what some great photos, love how you have put them together

Priti Lisa said...

You do wonderful work, Helena. I wish I could be more clever with the PhotoShop.
xo

Kim Collister Studio said...

WHEW! Thanks so much for the chair, I think I have sat there most of the day dreaming!
Very nice!

XO

Darla said...

I really like the fact that you used your own photos in this piece. Makes me want to head for the tropics.

Thanks for stopping by an commenting on my blog. I'm going to look through your archives and get acquainted.

Darla

Carola Bartz said...

I am very impressed with your Photoshop skills! I count myself lucky to be able to add texture to a photo, but what you did goes way beyond that. It's fabulous!

Jo Murray said...

I LOVE Photoshop... and you have it mastered. Bravo!

alexa said...

Lovely page and your Photoshop work is very skilful!

Carletta said...

That chair looks like it has been there awhile but I wouldn't mind being in it at the moment. :)
Thanks for the tutorial.I can use all the help I can get.!

Alison said...

Love your page...and I too am very impressed with your Photoshop skills- one day I shall get to grips with that! Thanks for stopping by my blog with your kind comments
Alison xx