From Here To There

I thought I might try writing about the creation of this image in a sort of step-by-step manner. As it usually goes for me, the final image is nothing like what I first imagined.

The first step of the process, for me, is to randomly browse through our collection of photos for a while until something sparks an idea. This time was a little different. I had a photo in mind to start and just needed to figure out where it was. I use Digikam to manage the collections which makes it a fairly simple task.

This is the photo I wanted to work into something wonderful.I noticed it a few days back on the screen saver which randomly displays all of the pictures in our collection. A bit of pre-processing and raw file development and send it to The GIMP as the first layer as seen above.

I then thought that it may be nice to add this photo of some dried, cracked mud with paw prints that we found in the desert in Utah a while back. It could make a nice textured background for the image. I spent quite a while looking at various ways to blend these two photos and there was nothing that I really liked. I decided to try to add a shot of some cottonwood tree branches as a top frame also, but it still could not get to where I was happy with the result.

After futzing ( yes, futzing is a very important part of the image creation process for me. ) around with these layers for a while, I thought it may just need something else. How about a nice shot from Point Loma above the Pacific...

But still I could not seem to make the red plant work in any way that I liked. I finally just removed the red plant layer and started working with the remaining layers with various smoothing, sharpening, blending, contrast, etc. filters. I did like the way the sky from the cottonwood photo just matched the ocean in the Point Loma photo. Here's what my workspace looked like after an hour of futzing.

 Oh well, so much for the red plant image I had in mind. Maybe next time.