Number One-Hundred-And-Twenty-Two: Golden Glass

Here's a nice warm piece to distract us from the spate of snowy pictures I've been posting. It's an iPhone wallpaper that's actually based yet again on the photo I used as a basis for day 106 and day 115.

I imported it into Camera+ and used the Expired filter from the I (Heart) Analog set on it. After that I imported it into NPtR and used a spotty brush on the erase setting and took a screenshot with the original image showing through. After that I used the Illustration filter in Corel's Paint It! Now. After that I imported it into PhotoWizard and used a bokeh Filter from the FX menu, then finished it off with the Bathroom Glass filter from the FX menu.

Number One-Hundred-And-Eighteen: The Last Light Of The Sun

Today's picture was based on yet another sun-through-trees shot that I took on the 401 on our way to Ottawa a couple of weekends ago. I had cropped it to this particular detail and wasn't quite satisfied with the quality as a 'plain' photo. So I messed around with it in Snapseed for the cropping and Drama filter, then used my usual settings in NPtR to give it a bubbled look. I used the Impressionist filter in Corel's Paint It! Now, then finally combined the original cropped photo with the heavily edited one in BlendCam on the Darkness Priority setting to give it a dark, almost nighttime feel. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I ended up liking it a lot more than the original!

Today's title is borrowed from my favourite author, Guy Gavriel Kay.

Number One-Hundred-And-Fifteen: Snake, A Snaaaaaake!

Today's picture was drawn in NPtR. First, though, I started with a photo of the wall that I'd taken in Toronto; the same one I used for day 106, actually. I imported it into Camera+ and used the Expired filter from the I (Heart) Analog set on it. After that I imported it into NPtR and used a spotty brush on the erase setting and took a screenshot with the original image showing through. After that I used the Illustration filter in Corel's Paint It! Now and finally imported it into NPtR again. I covered the picture with black, then used a line tool on the Scratch setting with a round brush to draw this snake.

I was going for a rough look; like something you'd see on ancient pottery maybe. I liked the way the round brush and the background picture kind of suggest snakeskin.

Number One-Hundred-And-Seven: Otherworldly

I'm having a really fun time lately using combinations of lots of different apps to produce one piece of art. It's interesting, but somewhat tedious when it comes time to list links to all the apps here on AOMi! Ah, well. It's worth it.

Today's piece started out in Fluid Monkey on the Mud setting using orange and blue paint. I took a screenshot and then imported it into NPtR where I scribbled over it with a spotty brush on the draw setting. I took a screenshot of that and imported it into Snapseed where I used a Drama filter on it to give it more depth, then finally imported that into Corel's Paint It! Now where I used the Illustration filter on it.

I can't quite decide what this one puts me in mind of. Part of me gets a microscopic world vibe from it, and another part of me gets the chills from being reminded of some deep-sea underworld. I don't know.

Number One-Hundred-And-Five: Perfect Colours

Today's piece started as a photograph of the bedroom wall in the apartment. I was going for something artsy and minimalist that included the shine on the paint from the overhead light. It wasn't as visually interesting as it could have been on its own, though, so I decided to play around with it.

First I imported it into NPtR and used a brush on it on the Erase setting, then took a screenshot of it with the original picture still showing through. I imported the screenshot into Corel's Paint It! Now and used the Illustration filter on it, then saved that. Finally I imported it into PhotoWizard and used the Thermal Camera effect on it on the Orange Flood setting.

I can't even express how much I love PhotoWizard. I especially love the masking ability and have plans to post some pictures soon that make good use of it! It's a very strong editing and special effects app and the full version is so, so worth the money.

Number One-Hundred-And-Three: Starry Bubbles

A couple of nights before the full moon Essie was very impressed with how bright the waxing moon was in the sky and so I tried to get some nice shots of it for her. The actual moon part of the pictures didn't turn out so hot but I played around with the tree branches in Adobe Photoshop Express, taking some grainy details of the photo and using the Reduce Noise filter on it a few times. After I did that I saved it and opened it up in NPtR, creating two different versions using two different brushes. I saved them both and used Snapseed's Drama filter on the one I liked best. After a little while, though, I decided to see what the two looked like if I combined them using Blendcam set to Balance. I was very happy with the result and after using Snapseed's Drama filter one more time I had what you see here!

Phew. I'm glad I remembered all that!

Number One-Hundred: Reworking An Old Favourite

It's day one-hundred! Woo hoo! I'm very excited to meet a bit of a milestone with AOMi. I love doing this project so much and every entry makes me happy. Thanks for following along if you have been, and if you're new please keep checking back!

I decided for today's entry to pick one of my favourite previous photos and do something with it in NPtR. I played around until I had an effect I liked, then flipped it. I liked the feeling of fire over water it gave, like some fantastical storm of fireflies or something.

Number Eighty-Four: Moon And Trees

Today's piece started with some snapshots I took a while back of the moon in the evening sky (as seen in number seventy-six and number seventy.) I'd cropped and fiddled with it a bit and I think I'd applied a drama filter to it in Snapseed then left it to sit, but I decided to see what I could do with it in NPtR since I've been playing around with that app a lot lately.

I used a round diffuse brush in the colour scratch setting and tried to make the lines radiate out around the moon, drawing fast so I'd get bigger circles. Then I used it in an upward direction on the trees in the lower left, going slower for smaller circles so the branches and trunks would be more defined. I kind of like how it turned out. It reminds me somewhat of Northern Lights.

Number Eighty-One: Blowing In The Wind

Today's piece began a couple of years ago on Wolfe Island, where we'd gone for a drive. We stopped and took a bunch of pictures of the wind turbines in the setting sun and they looked just gorgeous with the pink sunset reflecting off them against the blue sky. I decided to play around with my favourite one and see what I could do with it.

I started off by applying the Drama filter from Snapseed and loved what it did. Then I imported it into NPtR so I could experiment some more with the confusing settings in there. I used it on the 'scratch' setting with a round brush and managed to come up with something pretty pleasing, although I had to do a screen capture to save it at an acceptable size. That made it kind of pixel-y, so I then imported that one into Adobe Photoshop Express and used the reduce noise function a few times. This was the result!

If you live in the area and haven't done it already I definitely recommend taking a trip over to the island and seeing the turbines up close. They're seriously massive and awe inspiring!

Number Seventy-Six: Moonlit Fantasy

You might recognize today's piece as being a part of Number Seventy's triptych. I wanted to do more with this picture in particular so played around with it in NPtR, otherwise known as Non-Photorealistic Painter.

I'm not quite sure what to say about NPtR. It's a very interesting app that claims to be like scratching a film off of photos or pictures with various tools to reveal what's underneath. It's really not very much like that at all. The interface is also kind of non-intuitive and takes a lot of getting used to but I will admit that I enjoy the actual results I get even if I can't describe them very well.

NPtR also saves pictures at a ridiculously small size which I get around by taking screenshots instead of using the save function. Click to see this one at full size.