Variations on a Theme - Pumpkin

 I'm co-hosting a new group on Gather called Photo Fun - Variations on a Theme. Periodically, we will give a photo to the group members to download to their computers and modify. They then put it back up on the group to share and hpefully include some tips on what they did.

 This is intended for EVERYONE. Beginners to experts. We don't care. We just love to mess around with pictures on photo programs. That is how we learn and we would like to engage more people in the process. It's just fun!

So, I thought I'd take you through a process of me messing around with a pumpkin photo and what I came up with. I usually don't have anything already in mind. I just click away and if I like the results, I keep it. If not, I delete. Just remember to use "save as" with a new variation and give it a different name so you don't lose your original .I just put a 1, 2 , 3 etc., after the name as I go along.

Here is the pumpkin photo everyone in the group is using right now.

I brought it to my computer by right clicking on the image (only do this with photos you have permisssion to download) and clicking on "save picture as". Then save it to wherever you want on your computer. I think it wise to save as a tiff image as opossed to a jpeg so as not to lose quality as you work on it. You can change it back to a jpeg when you are ready to upload it to Gather.

Next, open a photo program and bring up your pumpkin. I opened mine in Photoshop but you can use any program you want. You just may not always have the same options.

I went to "Image" it dropped down with "Adjust" as a choice and after clicking on that it hit "Equalize". This is what I got.

Then I went to "Filters", "Brushstokes" and chose "ink outlines". You'll notice there are sliders to control dark and light and length of strokes. These are the kinds of things you play around with until you like what you see. And here is what I liked.

I then tweaked it a little in curves (Image, Adjust, then Curves). You can have lots of fun just playing around with curves. I just gave it a little more richness and contrast.

Ok, I like this now and would be happy to not do anything else to it but in the spirit of the holiday, I added text in Microsoft Picture This. I gave the text a shadow and curved it slightly for the curve of the pumpkin.

Voila! My finished pumpkin.

Oh, I amost forgot about my little friend on top. one of my photo programs has stamps of different things and I found him in there.

You don't have to go to these lengths to post to this group. Really, we just want anything you do to change the picture. I just wanted to share with anyone who may be interested in how to get different looks.

So go get a pumpkin and have some fun!!!

www.photovariations.gather.com