For 2009’s Winter card and mix CD, I wanted to create a series that was crisp and light, yet still colorful. In the end I think I succeeded, but as always, the Winter series never goes as smoothly as I hope. I started off with photos of frost-rimed vegetation, which I then planned on filtering to get the right look. I had just started using an interesting new Photoshop plug-in called “Filter Forge”, which lets users create their own plug-ins, download plug-ins created by other users, and edit them. There are thousands of plug-ins available for download from their site, and searching yielded several that looked like they would do the trick. The plan was to find the right plug-in that would give me the effect I wanted in one go. In the end, I had to use two different plug-ins from Filter Forge for the series, as well as a Flaming Pear’s Organic Edges plug-in, lots of Photoshop adjustments and layer effects, and good old dodge and burn. I thought I would be done in a couple days. It took a couple weeks… Sigh.

“Vibrant Frost 4” incorporates an image from stock.xchng photographer “Kinsey”.