Matt. Create

A composite. Model from No Background Images, with wings and smoke added.

The Three Lillies Reworking of an image from many moons ago. HDR, Painted effects, Topaz Glow, Edge & Bokeh effects, and filling in the empty space on the upper right.

The Gallery is Closed Oh, what kind of stuff did I do here. A photo blended with a sketch of the photo, a cloud overlay, used twice. Some lighting effects. Extra grass at the bottom. A multi-color overlay and 2 texture effects.

Super Tuesday Bernie with his quotes. - Playing around with the displace filter in Photoshop.

Old Wooden Church The church is my photo. Backgrounds are a sunset, and a cloud-like texture. Birds created with PS brushes.

Seasons of Change This started out as my February 7th project. The original plan was to start with 3 photos, then add in backgrounds and elements and see how things go. Then a funny think happened. After only two photos and one background, it mostly came together. After mulling things over a bit, I decided that one of the two photos was a bit of a distraction, so I removed that and took a portion of the remaining image and flipped it horizontal. This is the outcome. The mother and child, along with the ice and snow is my image. The rest is the background image.

Mariinsky Dreamscape A reworking of a photo from a couple of years back. Mariinsky Park, Kiev, using Topaz Glow, Topaz Texture Effects (2 times), and perspective correction. Plus a spot of sun on the left side, because adding your own sunlight is the only way to get it this time of year...

Go West Young Man A composite of a train image and various background textures.

Young Love Something quick and easy today. Three copies of the hearts background at -5, 0, +5 degrees. +/- with Multiply Blend Mode. Some masking. Main image from FreeVectors.com.

Summoning the Superpowers Some days you sit down at the computer and the creativity flows like a waterfall. Other days? Much less so. So you get together with your best bud, head to an open area, join hands, and together summon the superpowers of creativity. I imagine it would look sort of like this!

Up Up and Away! Texture blended photo, with a large tree removed from the lower right, and text added.

Shadows of Chernobyl (1) On a scale of Photo Realistic (1) to Photo Fantasy (10), I went for about a 3 on this one. Though the closer you look at it, the less photo realistic it appears. Since the original photo had a washed out sky, I put in a better sky, not only on the sky portion, but for the whole photo. The reddish purplish tones in the water are actually a sunset. The other major alteration was to put it through Topaz Glow. The biggest complication with this photo was the sunken riverboat. It always wanted to turn out too dark.

Winter Time Composite image of a woman and a clock, both from Pixabay. With background textures and Photoshop snowflakes added.

Kiev Pechersk Lavra The 3rd iteration of this particular photo. Took the HDR (1st) and painted (2nd) version, made everything except the church B&W, then add a few textures to the other areas of the photo. With a couple of other minor adjustments.

Deserted Trees A rather simple blend (as these things go) of a photo with two trees, and a photo of a desert. I was thinking of doing a bit more to this, but I liked how it turned out, so I stopped while I was ahead! I don't often do that!

Midnight at the Oasis So, a few days ago I came across this photo from a few years back and thought "what could I do different now?" When I first worked with this photo, there was no Topaz Glow. Heck, it might not have even been a glimmer in someone's eye over at Topaz Labs. I opened up Glow and saw these presets that looked faintly "black light" like. You know, that 1980's fad. First I thought "what the hell"? I clicked it anyway and soon was thinking "what the hell"! It really wasn't all blacklighty at all. And this is what you see here. Despite the look of this, this photo was taken about 30 minutes after sunrise.

Deep in the Heart of Kiev 2. This was taken on Trukhaniv Island, deep in the heart of Kiev. This is a redo of a photo from a while back. While I generally liked the previous version, there was something I thought was missing. See, when it comes to a photo, it often doesn't matter how accurate the photo is to real life; what often matters more is to try to convey how it made you feel or how it looked to you. This then is a more accurate photo than the previous one, even though, if you look carefully, there is actually more of a painted look to it.