And Normal Headlights

Buick Skylark convertible

Scan of 127 "superslide".

Nice Set of Headlights on That One!

Yeah, I'm back.  At least I think I am.  Got three new posts on the Hare-Brained Homestead blog, so I thought it was time to freshen up here, too.

Hiatus.

Taking a cue from the Europeans, I'm taking the Summer off.  Posting will return when it cools off..  meanwhile, enjoy this..

Sunrise

Scan of slide from around 1975 or '76. Sunrise over the Grand Canyon, Arizona. Rare, in that I've never liked to get up early.

"Painting" type manipulation in one of my editors.. forget which now. We'll be getting away from the ladies for a little bit, because I was starting to get a bit out of control with the tricks, so it's not likely you're ever going to see a full size version of this creepy image:



I have some in the works, combining old and new images, that are a little less over-the-top, so there's that.

Decoration Day

A quick Photoshop Elements 9.0 project for Memorial Day, 2011. Stay safe, everyone.

What If...

..we weren't evolved from early primates? What if we evolved from something else? Could be fun!

Loaded Photoshop Elements 9 yesterday. This is the first project with it. Not the first time to use this particular image, and probably not the last.

A Pedestal's Not Good Enough

Instead, I placed (a teenage version of) my bride... on a local hilltop. And since I had the cactus flower lying around on the desktop..

Cactus Flower

Recently, I started practicing extracting elements from images.  Yesterday's "Moonshine" image was the first try, and it seems to have worked out well.  Here's another "assembly" of old and new images.  The prickly pear blossom was shot just this afternoon.  The nude, about 35 years ago.

Blossom was "extracted" using Photoshop Elements "Magic Extractor".  Tree limbs were distorted with Elements' "Liquify" filter.  Black and white image was colored using "Tint" tool in Picnik.  Other tools used have slipped my mind.

Double Shot of Moonshine

This one took a couple of hours, and has numerous effects, as you might imagine.  Only the smooth, young buttocks are from an old scan, (original below).  The moon, and hawk are from current digital captures.  In fact, that's the famous "Super Moon" of just last March.

Elements were separated from their original files with Picture Cutout Guide, and assembled in Photoshop elements.  Some additional lighting effects were also added in PSE.  Many effects in Picnik, went into the final image, including "Thermal Image", "Doodle" (the clouds and stars), and of course, the "Mom" tattoo.

Original image from mid-Seventies

Simplicity

Original: color print

Another stab at the "Photocopy" filter on Photoshop Elements; Painted white, then some bits were colored.

100% Pure Aryan Goodness

I don't know that for a fact, but she was tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, with a German surname. Close enough.
I could regale you with amazing stories of things that went on in her mother's kitchen while her mother slept less than 20 feet away, but that would just leave you frustrated... use your imagination.

A pretty straight hand-colored image from scan of a black and white 35mm negative. Added "soft focus" filter in Picnik, then un-softened eyes and lips.

Oh! And because Mother's Day is coming up: the tattoo!

She Walks Away.

..and no matter how much you want her to, she won't turn back.

This is another of those "this and that" processes, most of which I can't even remember.. try this? Nah. Try that? Yeah, that works. Let's add something else. Original color print. Some Photoshop Elements, some ACDSee Pro.

Hey!, you wonder, is that Margaret? Why yes.. yes it is.

Wood Nymph

Yeah. I suppose you could infer a play on words there. A photo montage of two different images.. one originally color,(yes, you've seen it before), one a silly black and white.

Tried out some new software for this. "Nymph" cut out using something called Picture Cutout Guide, which is an easy way to separate different elements from an image. It's a memory hog, though, and very slow, but worked well for this purpose. Coloring was done using GIMP, which is free editing software similar to Photoshop, which was also used. I need a lot more familiarization with it.. has a few tools Photoshop doesn't have.

POV#3: Committed.

What once was a black and white, homemade porn snapshot, may not be quite your idea of "art", but you gotta admit, it ain't what it was.

Color It!

That's right.  You have permission to download to your printer, then have at it with your box of Crayolas, colored pencils, or bodily fluids.  Stick it on your refrigerator, or put them online and post a link in the comments.

This idea came from the fine folks at PhotoJoJo.com.  It's a good site, with fun photo ideas. Check 'em out.

POV#2: Curiosity

Like a headstone.   Pun intended.  Or maybe like plucking morel mushrooms.

"Embossed" tool from ACDSee Pro, colors from Picnik.  Original B & W negative.

Sheer.

Every day could be an exhilarating, terrifying adventure.

Starting point: a very small size digital file, (under 50 KB) from a scan of a Polaroid SX70 print. Using ACDSee Pro,eEnlarged to around 450KB, added "glowing edges". In Picnic, painted out all undergarment lines to accent the sheerness of the dress. Played around with light and exposure to get an effect of "nothing under the fabric". Added border.

POV#1: Discovery

First image of an erotic tryptych.

On The Prowl For Sausage

All those lucky bikers must be just around the corner...

Old School Racer.

You'd be hard pressed to find any rider wearing the nearly non-functional "hairnet" helmets these days. But this image was taken around 25 years ago at a street race in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'm thinking that when this lady has her hands down on the bars, she's probably not very aerodynamic. Then again, that's not really a bad thing, is it?

Because it's "old school", I used the "1960's" filter in Picnik.. fades the color and puts those weird rounded corners on the image. Just like all the snaps in your parents' attic. It's also been lightly posterized.

The Twins

Your pride is showing.

Trouble.

....And if you can't see that, well, you're on your own, friend.
.

Suzie V.

Other than the lighting, and softening of the focus, this one is virtually untouched, because why would I mess with it when I nailed it?      :D

Girl On A Swing

Except for cleaning dust specs, and increasing saturation, this topless young lady is posted "as is"...

Beach "Bum"

On a beach on an island in Lake Michigan, about 1986.  The usual techniques.

Climb It.

Once the "Dune Flyer" has descended the dune, they have to make the less graceful ascent.

When I created the original Dune Flyer image, linked above, my "painting" skills in the Picnik editor weren't as finally honed as they are now.  For instance, I didn't know then how to create subtler color tones, which is why the model here, a former college classmate,  is no longer a bottle blonde, but has hair  much more her natural color.

Coldstone Creamery.

It's OK. It was a _________________ cemetery. (Insert a religion you love to hate. Easy one for me.)

Haven't posted a picture of the fabulous Margaret recently, and this one hides a secret I won't tell. See previous.

Air-Cooled Part 2.

First, let me state right off, that my Photoshop skills aren't all that well developed. Over the years, all the photo manipulation that was needed was performed by Margaret.

Turns out that the task of removing the rest of the model's bikini could be accomplished with ACDSee Pro. The extra accoutrements were added using Photoshop's paintbrush tool.

Which version do you like best?

Air-Cooled Coochie

(and I spelled it right without having to look it up)

I bet my friends who were involved with this project will scratch their heads in puzzlement, because they won't remember this, until they realize there's some digital undressing going on here. My technical skills aren't quite at the level yet where I could remove the top as easily as the bottom, and we weren't paying her enough to do it "live".

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Just a quick "oil painting" conversion of a mirror self-portrait from either very late 1969 or January of 1970.  My very first 35mm camera, a Yashica TL Electro, purchased at the DaNang PX just prior to coming home. Eventually, I would learn to hold the camera properly.

Let The Sunshine In...

Click to play

Another day, different colors.  The sun makes it warm.

Like yesterday's image, from the same session, this was first converted to black and white from the original.  Needed a lot of cleaning up, as the scanner was really picking up the "silk" texture, and all of these old 5x7 enlargements are really starting to curl bad.

Added the sun in ACDSee Pro, the graduated tint for "sunlight" in Picasa, then painted the colors back in in Picnik.  The original:

Reversal

Color print original, converted to black and white > reversed (back to color) > then "painted" black and white on the flesh only (plus the bits of interest!). Yeah.

Zebras On The Moon.

Back in the early 70's when I was learning photography, (Ha! I'm still learning photography!), I played around with Kodak Kodalith Ortho film, a high contrast film with no tonal ranges. This image is one of my better efforts because, well, Zebras are just made for this sort of image anyway, aren't they?

This was taken at the John Ball Park Zoo in Grand Rapids, MI in 1973 or 1974.

Other than cleaning up the hundreds of dust spots in the black areas, adding a border and "glow" (from Picasa), very little has been done to this image.

Board Broad

Original Black & White

I think I like the "painting" more than anything. Another black and white negative. Colored with Picnik, and added "HDR" effect. Kinda reminds me of Mel Ramos pin-up artwork. Finished with a fake Polaroid Insta-Print look.

Gossip Girl

après la douche

From a black and white snapshot.

Is it just me, or does the simple act of adding color increase the erotic impact of these images?

Shower Door #2

Speaking of being sneaky....  this was one of those times.

Now, this could have been done two ways. I could have taken a normal image, and applied the "bathroom window" effect on ACDSee Pro, - or - I could have actually taken the image through the shower door. In this case, it was the latter, rather than the former. Black and white negative, colored with Picnik tint tool. Gallery frame also from Picnik.

Leave Them Be?

Some of the images I’ve run through the flatbed scanner are complete works in and of themselves.  They’re enlargements from actual photo shoots where I was attempting to be serious, rather than 1) sneaky, or 2) prurient.  They would require very little in the way modification to get posted here, except…  they were printed on really obnoxious silk-like texture paper, and the texture shows up in the scans.
In this particular case, I used the smudge stick filter in Photoshop Elements 5.0 to cover the silk texture, and added a border in ACDSee Pro.  The image was also obviously cropped, and inverted from the original.  The result is a more hand-drawn appearance to the image, without going overboard.

Here are a couple more images that have pretty much been left alone.  The interesting part here, is that these are scanned from 120 film square negatives… in a 35mm film scanner.  It was tricky, but I got it to work.  The image on the left, was a candid taken of customers at the counter of the camera store I managed in the Seventies.  I cropped out the surly boyfriend, (you don’t want to see the original!), and  used the Sepia tool in Picasa.  That’s the extent of the changes.  I was amazed how the feel of the picture changed with just that little bit of modification!
The image on the right is of one of my oldest friends, (although I haven’t seen her in more than 10 years).. we’ll call her Suzie.  She wanted a portrait for her husband at the time, and I was happy to oblige, being a perpetually  broke college student at the time.  I borrowed a friend’s apartment, gave Suzie my suede “hippie” hat and got to work.  This is also a scan from a 120 black and white negative that I somehow shoved into the 35mm scanner.   It was also given the sepia treatment, along with the soft focus tool.
There you have it. Not all old images have to be turned into weird and wacky abstract works.  Sometimes they’re just fine the way they are. 

Dark Into Light

 

Original- Black and White negative.  A little bit of everything here..  Picnik, ACDSee Pro, Photoshop Elements 5.0, Picasa.  Altogether it creates a moody setting.  There was a lot of trash to take out!