I've been feeling rather magical lately - don't know why, but no - I didn't sell out to an AI photo manipulation software suite.
A few days ago I was walking around in a park, feeding some squirrels and taking pictures. There were so many little groves, nooks and crannies everywhere and it seemed a fitting place for fairies to live if they so deemed. My originals aren't particularly pretty or anything interesting to look at even, it was midday : probably the worst time of day to take photos due to the heavy shadows and overly intense contrast. Instead of being a party pooper I took the photos anyway thinking that perhaps I could shjooze them up (yes, it's a word dammit) and the following night when I was dealing with a rather severe episode of insomnia (which by the way, is totally different to insomniomnomnomnom as that's just a case of the midnight munchies) I started messing around on my phone. This is the original below that I started with.
Well first I fucked around with the filters in Fotor and added about 6 of them, changed the contrast, then chucked the image into Snapseed. I added glamour glow and a retrolux layer, played with the levels and curves, highlights and so on. Then chucked it into Canva to add little gold sparkles - which by the way there are not many free versions of. This frustrated me because I could have just added these using brushes in Photoshop, but I was too lazy to get out of bed so I struggled on with this for a while. Added some lens flare elements too and even a bit of smoke, stary sky dots as fireflies. Before I knew it, I had transported myself into a fucking fantasy book cover hahaha. By this time it was way past 2am and I had spent the better part of 3 hours toying with this image. Sure, it's not as fast as AI, but I enjoyed the process of transformation this way. Can you spot the fairies?
This was quite cool so I decided to do another one as well.
The weirdest things happen when you start playing with filters. They can completely change the impression of the image. I added so many filters on this one and adjusted so many levels of colour, that I lost count. I wanted to keep the well in the image but unfortunately that just didn't happen and like any art, sometimes you just have to trust the process.
Have a look at how the image changed and the rocks started to take on an almost ethereal look like the kind of reflections you see in water. I really love how this came through.
While I really love the eerie green glow in the distance which in itself is rather ominous, I wanted to make a slightly more kid-friendly, fairy version. This one didn't quite come out as intended, but after adding little touches like fireflies, light sparkles and lens flares, I added my fairies and the one I chose had a little ring of roots in it which encircled the bluest part of the image, making it look even more like a little pond.
Unfortunately this little fairy looks a bit sad and contemplative, do you think she lost something in the pond?
I added a little fairy grandmother to help her find it.
This was an impromptu session of photo shjoozing and was really fun seeing where the photos took me. It's not often I get to mess around like this and often it doesn't really work out. Let me know which one you like better in the comments and if you've got any ideas or suggestions on this kind of thing.
You sell out! How dare you edit a picture?!? It’s blasphemy!
..how did you do it? Asking for a friend..
Pretty cool end result! Didn’t think that was the original there lol but with some edits, we can make all kinds of shit!
🤣 I would tell you, but then I'd have to kill you 🤣
Thanks bud, it was actually extremely cathartic. Weird how different they look start compared to finish.
Hope you're doing well. How's the little man? You guys going crabbing soon?
Yeah when I saw the end I was like whoa lol cool edits.
A little bit! We’ve been doing a lot of indoor rock climbing these past few months on the weekends so that occupies most of our time and some fishing instead of going to the beach as often as we were. My wife takes him during the week after his lessons are done which is good but I don’t know if they’ve had any success in getting some crabs yet. High tide right now is right in the middle of the day so it throws a wrench into things lol. I’m going to miss the rock climbing though, in the summer we are pausing the membership since we will be going to the beach instead. Makes sense but the exercise I’ve been getting there is awesome! I don’t go to the gym anymore right now since it takes away from family time but rock climbing was a good alternative lol
Oh man, that's cool that you've been rock climbing and it makes sense to kill two birds with one stone and NOT have to pay a gym membership. He must dig it too. I hadn't even thought about the tide table and having to take that into account. I'd be a crap fisherman 🤣
Will be nice to see what you guys find once you start the beach adventures again.
Sneak peak. Warm weather here so he went to the beach with my wife!
I’ve never been as interested in learning how to create beautiful imagery compared to music or writing, so the technology is like a godsend for me! People respond to images more than anything, especially now being on their screens so much, so it really helps for hive posts, but I still pay artists for my book covers, not only to support them but also because the collaborative part is really fun for me, and also the process of selecting an artist, I take it really seriously and, thinking about it over the months that I’m writing.
I saw a fairy in a park in Hong Kong at 3 am once. It took my groggy mind a minute to realize it was just a piece of cotton in the wind, but my immediate thought was “why can’t it be both!”
You found a magical spot and made it more magical 😆
I totally get that, I am not great at painting but I admire those that do. Digital stuff I'm still learning and don't get much time to play with it but when I do, I enjoy it immensely. It's cool that you look for art for your books and support artists that way.
Hey, you never know right? I've never seen one but it would be cool to.
Thanks, I like the way it turned out too.
Have a rad day and thanks for stopping by 😁
Truly beautiful. ✨🌳
Thank you @aislingcronin 😃
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