Snipping the Astilbe

Today’s post is all about snipping the Astilbe……gathering the dried blooms to have for indoor shots this coming winter. Yes, I know we shouldn’t talk about that season but like it or not…….it’ll be here before we know it and some of you may be in parts of the World that are already experiencing it. But I’ll have dried blooms and can re-live the summer memories through my images and the work in the garden that I’m doing now. Preparation……preparation…..preparation!

But I have a little treat for you today in the way of a tutorial…..texturizing this image.

We’ll start with the original image.

I chose some of my vintage jars from my collection, adding some fabric ribbon and twine to a couple of the jars….skeleton keys and my bonsai scissors…..on my potting bench.

STEP 1 – I added the texture on a new layer – texture from 2 Lil Owls (Hullabaloo 20). I applied the Multiply blend mode and reduced the opacity to 55% (you can see all that in this screenshot.

STEP 2 – Make a duplicate copy of the texture layer but turn it OFF for now by clicking on the “eyeball” to the left of the texture, like you see here.

Now make sure your 1st texture layer, the middle layer….is selected in the layers palette and….

Step 3 – add an adjustment mask (by clicking on the icon outlined in red) at the bottom of your layers palette. We’re going to remove SOME of the texture from the important parts of your image.

Choose a soft round brush……being sure that “black” is your foreground color. Be sure you’ve selected the “mask” in the layers palette and then begin brushing on the parts of your image that you don’t want heavily textured. You can reduce the opacity of the brush to begin brushing and increase it a little at a time until you’ve removed enough texture to please you.

Note the difference in the top image and this one….after performing the above steps.

Next step – be sure you have the top texture layer selected in the layers palette and the “eyeball” is clicked back ON.

Apply the “soft light” blending mode to this layer of texture and I have mine at 84% opacity.

It’s important to note that not every photo will react the same way with the same exact settings. AND different textures will react differently as well. So don’t be afraid to play with different textures, the different blend modes and opacities when texturizing your images. A lighter exposed image will react very differently than a darker exposed image will. So just have fun and play with the various settings until you get something you like.

Here’s my finished image.

Take a look at the three images and you can see the changes that each step made as we went through this tutorial.

I hope you enjoyed this today. It’s always fun to see how an image changes with just a few clicks.

I want to say that this particular texture came from Denise at 2 Lil Owls. I have a collection of her textures and am finding I love to use them more and more! Pop over and check her out, won’t you?

If you found this tutorial useful, please leave me a comment letting me know and if you’d like to see more like this. I can even do some Lightroom tutorials through a basic edit and/or using presets. I’d love to hear from you!

Until next time,
Cheryl

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