soooooooo excited for this new texture set!

You will be too and you MUST get them and use them...but not yet.  I have posted my love for textures in still lifes and composite images.  But they are also wonderful to add dimension to portraits as well as to brighten the colors, darken the edges and create a mood.

I just downloaded the lastest offering from one of my favorite blogs http://www.thecoffeeshopblog.com  It is an amazing FREE set of textures that Rita is generously sharing with her blog readers.  It is the set I have been meaning to make and haven't (lots of time and work there!).  I also love that they are called these wonderful, yummy "Baking with Mom" names like "favorite apron", "pie pan", "old whisk" and my favorite (at least right now and it's not just the name)..."foamy chocolate milk".  It makes me happy to play with these just like baking with mom would have if she could cook.

Here is a photograph I took of my grandson who just passed his 1 year old milestone SOOC (straight out of the camera)...

Here is the "foamy chocolate milk texture"

Now here is the image with the texture pasted on an overlay layer in Photoshop...that's all.

If you just desaturate the color in the original image somewhat, you get this...

This one I cropped and turned into black and white using grayscale...I was going to do my usual tritone processing but the texture overlay brightened up the areas I would have in tritone perfectly.

I also like my images to tell a story (less scrapbooking that way).  I took a snapshot of our "Meet the Family" dinner to introduce my sister's new boyfriend (she became a widow last year so this is a big deal).  I just did the "spray and pray" method of taking pictures while everyone is eating because no one would look at me, you would think that they hadn't eaten in years (well, the food was amazing...I'll have to blog the recipes)...  When people are eating they make all kinds of goofy faces and it makes for interesting photographs.  I chose this one because it really shows the family dynamics.  The guy is nervous and looking around not knowing what to do, my sister is looking at him twitterpated and the rest of us don't really care, he's a nice guy and we'll see how it goes.  The point of the texture in this image is help tell the story by brightening up the key players and emphasize the family laissez faire attitude by darkening around the edges.  I think it does that quite well.  I think I used another texture but I have forgotten already (what with my rambling on)...  I also had to play with the color a little because I forgot to set the white balance in the camera and the color was a little too yellow.

By the way, who really knows what anyone is thinking...but doesn't the texture help with what's imagined?  So now it's time to get yourself over to this page on The Coffeeshop Blog to get your own FREE set of "Baking with Mom" Ethereal Textures.

12.27.2010

I have added links to my free copyrighted textures for you to use!  Please use them as you please, just don't redistribute them...it would be a bonus if you shared your creations under the texture images and gave vintagedesignsmith credit.  :)