Alison 

379 creative works found

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  Nine
  by littlegirllost

  a stylized version of the stencil mosaic I created on flickr, from photographs of my stencil work

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  Meerkats at Mogo Zoo
  by Alison Johnston

  Taken a couple of years ago now, but still one of my favourite images of these lovely little creatures.

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  Hole in the Wall
  by Alison Johnston

  Located in Booderee National Park, Jervis Bay.

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  Shark Net Beach II
  by Alison Johnston

  Another shot of Shark Net Beach

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  Morning Light
  by Alison Johnston

  Sunrise at Jervis Bay

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  wallflower (Oct 2007 Acrylic on canvas) Alison B Allen
  by fatchickengirl

  An abstract using items from a works do. I used corks fro the table wine and embedded the silver stars from the table. It is about my social shyness.

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  After The Rain
  by Alison Johnston

  Taken at Plantation Point after a couple of days of heavy rain

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  Nowra Classic 2008
  by Alison Johnston

  Photo of some of the riders at the Nowra Classic 2008

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  Splat!
  by Alison Johnston

  There is some slight motion blur in the head region but that is because it was bouncing off the ground at the time. To the kid’s credit, he got back on his bike and finished the race.

• Lets make it rain with Photoshop
  by Alison Johnston

  Perhaps you want to composite some images together to make a scarey, stormy image. Or maybe you have an image that has storm clouds, is …

  Perhaps you want to composite some images together to make a scarey, stormy image. Or maybe you have an image that has storm clouds, is dark and overcast and would benefit with some rain added to it – or maybe some snow for that winters scene. Start and Finish Images Using a couple of filters and a blend mode in PS you can create away to your hearts content. The image I’ve used in the tutorial is 800×600 @ 72 dpi You will have to adjust some of the settings that I am going to use to compensate for a larger image and dpi, but I know you like to play in Photoshop :-) Firstly, open your chosen image, duplicate it and close the original. If you just want an image to practice on, you will find the start file HERE I’m using PS3, so my next step was to use a B&W adjustment layer to convert this particular image to B&W, I then used a Curves adjustment layer and then a Levels adjustment layer. You don’t have to convert to B&W, I just chose to do so because the original image sucks :-) How you want your image to be is fine, it is not going to affect what we are going to do next. So, whatever it is that you have done make sure that the top most layer is selected then I want you to create a new layer above. You can click on the new layer icon in the layers palette, or you can press shift+ctrl+n to bring up the new layer dialogue box and name the new layer. Now I want you to fill the new layer with black. If your f/ground and b/ground colour are set to the default you can press alt+backspace on your keyboard for window users and I’m not sure for mac users LOL probably option backspace. Now is starts to get fun. Making sure that you new black layer is active, I want you to go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise – below are the settings that I have used on this image, so punch in the same settings if you like. Go straight to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur and you can apply the settings that I have by punching in the same figures as the image below. If you want the rain to go straight down, or from a different angle altogether, just rotate the little angle wheel around till you get want you want. Next I want you to go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. In the image below you can see what the starting point will be for this particular image. I have made no adjustments as of yet. By bringing in the black slider toward the middle of the bar we start to creat the rain. The rain will be the white lines that you see in the image. You can see in the image below that I have taken the black slider in toward the middle and I have also moved the white slider in toward the middle slightly. How much you move each slider is entirely up to you. It will depend on how much rain you want in the image etc., So that’s the part where you get to play around because each image will require slightly modified settings. Right, so thats a mess LOL But, here comes the great part. Go to the Blending Mode option at the top of the layers palette and I want you to change it to Screen ….. look at that ….. magic! :-) Screen mode knocks out any black pixels and the multiply blend mode is the exact opposite to Screen if you want to knock out white pixels. All that is left to do now is change the opacity slider if you want. I’ve changed the opacity to 50% in the image below. And here is our completed image. View large file HERE

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  Moss on the Rocks
  by Alison Johnston

  Taken at Caves Beach

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  Blue Night
  by Alison Johnston

  Playing around in Photoshop

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  Lost Shoe
  by Alison Johnston

  A lost shoe at Moona Moona Creek

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  Touching Blue
  by tkrosevear

  In celebration and appreciation for Alison Pearce’s newly published poetry anthology called, “Touching Blue Again”... I am so proud of your accomplishments, talent and imagination, I can’t wait to read the copy enroute, as of today. I love you Ali ;)

• 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Mins with Deke McClelland
  by Alison Johnston

  I posted this in the Learning Centre thread over on the main forums, but thought it might be handy to make a journal entry so it doesn’t …

  I posted this in the Learning Centre thread over on the main forums, but thought it might be handy to make a journal entry so it doesn’t get lost in the soup. Surprisingly, I have learned more from this man about Photoshop, than anyone else ….. you’ll understand why I said that when you watch the podcast. Just a bit of fun on a Friday evening, all the tips are valid though :-) 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes And the text from the podcast. 101 Photoshop Tips in Five Minutes / The actual tips from 1 to 106 and back to 101 / by Deke McClelland Time it: Time: 00:00.00 / #1: Wanna copy a layer? I say jump it: Ctrl+J. / You a Mac user? Awesome. / #2: When I say Ctrl, press Cmd, the one with an apple on it. / #3: For a new layer, press Ctrl+Shift+N (Cmd-Shift-N on the Mac). / #4: To delete a layer, get the move tool and press Delete (or Control-Delete). / #5: Every letter selects a tool. / #6: Except F for full-screen, / #7: Q for quick mask, / #8: and D / #9: and X for default and switch colors. / Who knew X stood for “switch”? / #10: Press a number to change the opacity. / #11: Or two numbers for better control. / #12: Press Shift+plus to advance a blend mode; / #13: Shift+minus to back up. / #14: Press Shift and Alt with a letter for a specific mode. / #15: Mac folks, Alt means Option. / #16: Ctrl+plus zooms in. / #17: Ctrl+minus zooms out. / #18: Spacebar gets the hand so you can drag the image around. / #19: There’s also Ctrl+spacebar in / #20: and Alt+spacebar out. / #21: Ctrl+spacebar-drag to zoom way the hell in. / #22: Ctrl+Z undoes. / #23: Ctrl+Alt+Z backsteps. / #24: Ctrl+Shift+Z steps forward. / #25: Ctrl+Shift+F fades an edit. / #26: F12 reverts, / #27: Itself an undoable operation. / You hear that? You can undo a revert? That’s a hell of a tip! / All that pasteboard stuff works too: / #28: Ctrl+X cuts. / #29: Ctrl+C copies. / #30: Ctrl+V pastes. / Dan Gookin of DOS For Dummies fame joked that V stood for “vomit,” as in vomiting up the Clipboard. His publisher refused to print that. They actually refused to print that! Time: 01:15.43 / #31: Photoshop’s most essential command? Image Size: Ctrl+Alt+I. / #32: It’s partner, Canvas Size, Ctrl+Alt+C. / #33: Ctrl+F repeats the last filter. / #34: Ctrl+Alt+F for different settings. / #35: Using a selection tool? Drag to start a new selection / #36: Or move a selection outline. / #37: Shift adds to the selection. / #38: Alt deletes. / #39: Shift and Alt finds the intersection. / #40: Press the spacebar to move the selection on-the-fly. / #41: Ctrl+A selects everything; / #42: Ctrl+D selects nothing. / #43: Ctrl+Shift+I selects what’s not selected and deselects everything else. / #44: Ctrl+Alt+R brings up Refine Edge. / #45: Alt-click with the lasso tool to draw straight-sided selections. / #46: Shift-click with a brush to paint straight lines. / #47: Press Alt with a brush to get the color-lifting eyedropper. / #48: Press Ctrl to get the move tool. / #49: Ctrl+H hides selections and other “extras.” / What’s an extra? Press Ctrl+H and find out? / I gotta quicken the pace. Shit! / #50: Ctrl+1, / #51: 2, / #52: 3 to switch channels. / Hell yeah, I’m counting those as three! / Here’s another one: / #53: Ctrl+tilde for full-color composite. / #54: Ctrl+L for Levels, / #55: Ctrl+M for Curves, / #56: Ctrl+B for Color Balance, / #57: Ctrl+U for Hue/Saturation. / #58: Add Alt to bring up the last settings. / #59: Mash your fist on Ctrl, Shift, and Alt and press B for Black & White. / #60: In Levels and Curves, Alt-drag that white slider triangle to preview the clipped highlights / #61: Or that black one for clipped shadows. / Want to duplicate an image? Don’t choose this [Duplicate]; / #62: Just click here [Create new document from History state]. / #63: Press Ctrl+W to close an image. / #64: Y to save changes, / #65: N to abandon them. / #66: On the Mac, that’s S and D. / #67: Either way, it’s Esc for Cancel. / You know, Esc. C’mon, Esc! Time 02:48.36 / #68: Press Ctrl+T to invoke Free Transform. / #69: Press Enter to apply or Esc to skip it. / #70: Ctrl+Alt+T transforms a copy. / #71: Ctrl+Shift+T repeats the last transformation. / #72: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T plays a transformation sequence. / #73: Press a bracket key to change the size of a brush. / #74: Press Shift+bracket to change its hardness. / #75: Caps Lock for precise cursors. / #76: Alt switches dodge to burn and burn to dodge. / #77: The comma and period keys cycle through gradients. / See this tool [sharpen]? Worthless. Look at this. You want this? Worthless! / Yes, that’s a tip: Don’t use the tool! / #78: Bang, there’s another one! / #79: Ctrl-click a thumbnail in the Layers, Channels, or Paths palette to load a selection. / #80: Press slash to lock a layer’s transparency. / #81: Press tilde to hide the image while viewing a mask. / #82: Press backslash to view the layer mask. / #83: Ctrl+Backspace fills the background color; / #84: Alt+Backspace: foreground color. / #85: Add Shift to fill just the opaque pixels. / #86: Press Shift+Backspace to get the Fill dialog box. / Hey, look at that! / #87: That’s trans lock’s opposite [Behind mode]. It locks opacity. / What the hell is it doing here? / #88: Ctrl+bracket moves layers forward and back. / #89: Add Shift to go all the way. / #90: Alt+bracket selects layers. / #91: Press Shift to select multiple layers. / Press Ctrl+Shift+A to select all layers. / #92: That’s wrong. It’s Ctrl+Alt+A! / I don’t even know what Ctrl+Shift+A does. / It doesn’t, Adobe, it doesn’t do anything! I don’t think it does anything. / #93: But Ctrl+G, that groups layers in a folder. / #94: Ctrl+E merges selected layers. / #95: Ctrl+Shift+E merges visible layers. / #96: Ctrl+Alt+E stamps a layer onto the one below. / #97: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E merges everything on a new layer. / #98: Ctrl+Shift+C copies a merged version of the layers. / #99: Ctrl+Shift+V pastes an image in a selection. / #100: Alt-click here [Add layer mask] / #101: Or here [Cancel to Reset] / #102: Or here [trash without warning] / #103: Or here [color ramp to switch background color] / #104: Or here [eyeball to hide all others] / Yeah! / #105: Or here [horizontal line to make clipping mask] / #106: Or here [color swatch to delete]. Time: 05:08.16 / Holy crap, I just went over! 106 tips! No! No, no, no. / [to off-screen director] / You should’ve stopped me, you should’ve let me know. That’s your fault. / [to viewer] / That’s his fault. I do not fail. Remember, I do not fail! / Alt-clicks out. I want them all out. Gimme that time back! Time: 05: 27.92 / [clock rewinds] Time: 04:56.73 / Okay. Nicely done, me. For those wondering why I left out your favorite tips, / #100: Like Tab to hide all palettes / #101: Or Shift+Tab to hide just the right-side palettes. Time: 05:00.00 / I didn’t! Ha ha! I just mentioned ’em. Works for me!

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  Beaches and Birds
  by Alison Johnston

  Original Sand, Sky and Kids image, then used a couple of Actions From Panosfx to add some other images. I might turn it into a Christmas Card ….. I’ll have to think about that :-)

• Etched Glass Effect in Photoshop
  by Alison Johnston

  You can make this an etched glass effect, or, by inverting the filter, make it appear as though the shape/type/whatever is moulded in the…

  You can make this an etched glass effect, or, by inverting the filter, make it appear as though the shape/type/whatever is moulded in the glass. Because my glass is light, I will be using a black filled shape. If your bottle or glass is dark, the type/shape/whatever, would need to be white. So lets get straight on with it. You can click through on my glass image below to get the larger start image, or you can use one of your own. Just remember that any settings I use are relevant to this file 720 X 1000 @72dpi. Your first step will be to create a new layer above the b/ground layer and then fill it with white … turn off the visibility of the layer by clicking on the little eyeball icon next to the layer. I’ve chosen the ‘Flower Oranment 2’ which is a Photoshop default shape, and I’ve drawn it on the glass …. see image below. Make sure that you are working on the Shape Layer (or type – making sure the spelling is correct) and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, a small dialogue box will appear asking you to rasterize the shape or type, click OK to make that happen and then choose a small amount of blur. I have used 2 pixels on this particular image … which might be a tad too much …. we’ll see. Next you are going to create a flattened copy of the image and save it to your desktop…or somewhere that you will remember, because we are going to be using it shortly. Go to Save As and when the dialogue box appears, make sure that your uncheck ‘layers’ and check ‘copy’ See image below. Now, duplicate the original b/ground layer and turn off the visibility of the shape layer and the layer you filled with white. Working on the duplicate b/ground layer go to Filter>Distort>Glass and the Filter Gallery dialogue box will appear. Look at the right hand side of this box and notice where it says Texture, click on the small arrow and a small box will appear that says load texture, click on this and load the file that you previously saved. As you can see, I called mine Flowerdistort. You can fiddle with the Distortion and Smoothing, but you will have to leave the Scaling as is. You can also check and uncheck the Invert box to see which variation you prefer. Once you have the settings as you like click OK to make it happen. And here is the image with Inverted checked. And that’s it. Fiddle around with the settings a bit till you get what you want, and remember that if the bottle, glass etc., is dark you will need to reverse the colours i.e. the layer will be filled with black and the shape or type would be white.

• Selective Colouring With A Twist in Photoshop
  by Alison Johnston

  I like selective colouring, when it’s done properly of course. Good thing is that it is relatively easy to do and can certainly add dram…

  I like selective colouring, when it’s done properly of course. Good thing is that it is relatively easy to do and can certainly add drama and impact to an image. Grab yourself an image, use an adjustment layer (well I hope you use an adjustment layer) to desaturate the image, or use one of the many other methods available in Photoshop to do it, add a mask, paint back in the colour you want – easy – the problem with that is that people mostly do it that way and end up with a B&W image with a bit of colour on it. Lets try another variation on this to get an image just a bit different from the norm :) You can get the image below to practise on if you like, copyright is mine etc., (because though it’s a sucky image, it’s still my sucky image) Open the Image, duplicate the image by either dragging it to the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette or pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard, then hide the b/ground layer by clicking on the eyeball. This is just a habit with me, in this case you probably have no need to do it. Go to the create new adjustment layer at the bottom of the layers palette and choose Hue/Saturation to bring up the dialogue box. Check the Colorize box and choose a colour that you would like the background of your image to be. You can see what I have chosen in the screenshot below, don’t forget that you can fiddle around with the Saturation and Lightness – I haven’t. Grab a brush, check that the f/ground is set to black, click on the Hue/Sat mask to make it active and paint back in the area that you would to have colour. You could have made a selection prior to doing the Hue/Sat adjustment with an Alpha Channel, the pen tool, quick mask etc., I prefer to paint back in the selective colour. If you make a boo boo whilst painting on the mask, just switch the f/ground to white, correct and then switch back to black. And that is it basically. I’ve gone ahead in my example and used a curves adjustment to lighten my son, held down the Alt key, then dragged the mask from the Hue/Sat layer onto the curves adjustment layer, then pressed Ctrl + i on the keyboard to invert it. I then did a Stamp Visible Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E (make sure you are on the topmost layer before you do this) or, if you run out of fingers, you can hold down the Alt key go to the little downward facing arrow at the top right of the layers palette and select Merge Visible – don’t let go of the Alt key until you have clicked on Merge Visible, you’ll figure out how to make sure it does work, when it doesn’t work for you :) On the newly merged layer I then did an Unsharp Mask (how primitive of me), added a layer mask and grabbed the layer mask from the curves layer to make sure that it only affected the selectively coloured area. Have fun with it. As an end thought to this, make sure you do all your image corrections before you do this process – you’ll probably notice that I didn’t with my image.

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  Egg Abstract
  by Alison Johnston

  Started with the same Magnolia Flower as the Flower Abstract image, used some different Photoshop Filters to come up with this.

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  Alison with daisies
  by Stephen Sheffield

  woman holding a heart shaped box full of daisies

• Create A Painterly Effect Using The Art History Brush In Photoshop
  by Alison Johnston

  There are several ways to do most things in Photoshop, and using the art history brush to create a painterly effect is no different. I’m…

  There are several ways to do most things in Photoshop, and using the art history brush to create a painterly effect is no different. I’m going to show you ‘one’ way to do it. If you can find a really good video on the net to show you how to use the art history brush, it would be a great idea. A couple of things to remember when using the art history brush:- 1) The Brush Engine/Palette is your friend :) 2) Similar to the history brush, the art history brush needs a corresponding layer in the layers palette to the snapshot layer in the history palette. 3) It is better to slowly build up an effect than to try and slap it on all at once. 4) Remember to save your file in the .psd format often. Once you’ve initially saved it, you can just go to File>Save or Ctrl + S to update it. Before we start, lets have a look at what I mean by ‘the brush engine’ is your friend. If your brush engine/palette isn’t visible go to Window>Brushes or press F5 on the keyboard. Those familiar with the brush engine will know that it is the place to set up your chosen brush so that it does exactly what you want it to do. This can come in pretty handy when doing painterly effects. Lets have a look at setting the direction of a brush so that it will follow a chosen line and the tip will go in the correct direction. I have chosen a standard Photoshop brush for this – Autumn Leaves – I have gone through and unchecked all the default settings except smoothing, and set the spacing to 130%. In the first example I’ve drawn an S shape with the brush (on the left). You can see how the leaves have stayed in an upright position. In the second example (on the right) I have gone to Shape Dynamics>Angle Jitter>Control and chosen Direction from the drop down menu. You can see how the leaves have now followed the direction of the S shape. See image below for another area that you can fiddle around with to get some different effects for the brush. And one final thing that you can do with brushes, is to make a dual brush. Go ahead and pick a soft edged brush from your brushes, open the brush engine, pick Dual Brush from the left menu and then click through the various brushes till you get an effect in the preview window that you like. If you have a blank canvas open you can even try the brush and see what it looks like. I chose the Grass Brush to come up with the effect in the image below. You can also change the attributes of the second brush and the blend mode. Just before we get going, it is important that you build up any effect slowly/gradually. This can make painting a rather drawn out affair, but you can get some fantastic results if you’re willing to take the time. Remember that there are loads of different techniques out there for painting – choose one that suits the way you like to work – mix the different techniques together etc., example – when we finally get to the art history brush :) you will find a drop down menu where you can use the brush to Lighten, Darken etc., I choose not to work with them, I prefer to use the Dodge and Burn tools on 50% neutral grey layers set to soft light. Also remember that you can still use standard adjustments during and after to make your painting special. So lets get started. You can borrow my image of Dakota below to practise on if you like, copyright is mine etc., Before you start painting, do any necessary adjustments to the image i.e. colour correction etc., In other words, start painting with a finished image. I haven’t bothered with the start image here, I simply cropped out some of the excess trees to the right. Open the image and duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl + J on the keyboard or dragging the layer to the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. At this point you can add an effect to the duplicated layer if you want (entirely up to you). I chose Filter>Brush Strokes>Spatter with a Spray Radius of 2 and Smoothness set to 5. With the top layer active, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette – this will force the new layer, below any active layer. What we’re going to do here is set up a canvas. You don’t have to do this part if you don’t want to, but you might want to use it one day. Turn off the topmost layer and fill the blank layer with a colour of your choice. I chose a cream colour, go to Filter>Texture>Texturizer and choose Canvas – pick some settings to suit and take the opacity of the layer down to about 50%. Turn on the topmost layer again and take a snapshot of the image – in the history palette, name this layer painting/underpainting or something similar. Rename the layer in the layers palette the same thing. Once you’ve done that, click on the painting layer thumbnail in the Layers palette then Ctrl + A to select all – press the delete key to delete the contents of the layer and then press Ctrl + D to deselect. You should end up with something similar to the image below. If you made a canvas layer, click on that and then take the opacity all the way down. Click back on the painting layer and go to the side tool bar and select the Art History Brush, or you can press Y on the keyboard – if the History brush tool comes up, hold down the Shift Key and press Y again to scroll through to the Art History Brush. In the History Palette, click in the little blank square of the Painting layer to the left of the thumbnail to set this as the source. Clcik on the corresponding layer in the layers palette. Now you have to go and select a brush. Remeber the bits of information about the brush that I gave you at the beginning. There are plenty of free brushes available on the net as well. I’ve chosen a Photoshop default brush – Dry Brush. I’ve gone to the brush engine and chosen direction from the menu and turned off everything else except smoothing. You will be presented with a top toolbar – see image below. This is where you’ll choose the mode, opacity, style, area and tolerance. The settings you see in the above image, are the settings I’ve chosen to work with. Time to check – Painting layer selected in layers palette, art history brush icon in the square next to the painting snapshot in the history palette, settings for the art history brush changed to suit ….. lets begin. Short, sharp, small strokes of the mouse or pen will work the best. Go in the direction of the fur and zoom in really close to see what’s going on. If you need to scroll, hold down the spacebar and you will temporarily get the small hand icon so you can move the image. Change the size of your brush on the fly by using the left and right square bracket keys on the keyboard (situated near the P key) Left makes the brush smaller, right makes it bigger. In the image below I’ve roughly gone over the head area of the dog excluding the eye – if you click on the canvas layer you made, and return the opacity to 100% you will see what is going on without seeing the image itself. Reduce the opcity of the layer and click back on the painting layer in the layers palette. I’m not going to carry on and completey finish this image, but I do want to show you how I would go about adding shadows and highlights to the painting. Make sure you are working on the topmost layer (painting layer in this case) Hold down the Alt key and click on the create new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. A small dialogue box will appear, choose mode>soft light and check the ‘fill will 50% neutral gray’ click OK. Duplicate that layer and name one dodging and the other burning. Choose the burn tool from the side menu bar, or click O on the keyboard and then shift + O if the burn tool (hand) doesn’t come up first. Set the Range to shadows and the Exposure to around 10%. Reference the original image to find where the darker areas are, and slowly burn them in. Use the dodge layer to gently dodge in any highlights. You can see how my layer stack would start to look I changed the brush to Watercolour small round tip to do the eye and nose area. changed the brush again to Oil medium wet flow to carry on building the effect. If you want the image to be visible on the canvas you made, you will probably have to work it more than if you don’t. I would also make some more dodging and burning layers for the eyes and a layer to create a new catchlight. I’ve loosely done over the bottom half of Dakota. You can see the beginnings of my layer palette in the image below. I would have gone on and grouped the dodging and burning layers for eye, body etc., Ignoring the anything below the head area (cos I just quickly swiped over it – that thing I told you not to do LOL), you can see how easy it is to start building a painterly effect. You would of course, take much more care and time. Have fun!

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  Windmills Of Your Mind
  by Martilena

  Incendia + Photoshop / May 5, 2009 Music: / Alison Moyet Featured in : / The Sisterhood

• Memories and Lies
  by Alison Pearce

  Locked inside a dusty old trunk / Kept for a lifetime in the basement / There lays a secret, never told / A tragic tale of life and forbidde…

  This was written a long time ago (on another site) in response to a challenge prompt.

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  Tribute Tee for MJ
  by Alison Johnston