Dark As The Grave - Eerie digital art

My participation in the Artify threads in the dslreports.com Digital Imaging forum has occasionally inspired me to show my darker side. Here are some examples.

Georgetown Steps (Bloody Edit)

Park Bench (Eyes In The Dark Edit)

Greenhouse (Horror Film Edit)

Children On Beach (Creepshow Edit)

Wasp (Alien Edit)

I did not take the original photos from which these were made. However, all "artification" was done by me. I did not indicate the steps I took to create these, but I would be happy to answer specific questions.

This is how I earned the name Fractalman - Part 4

I am working on gathering some music news. In the meantime, I thought everyone might enjoy a few more of my fractals. These were done with Iterations in 2006.

I've Got My Eye On You

Fracture 2

Time To Fly

All of these were enhanced with PhotoShop. To my knowledge, Stephen Ferguson abandoned Iterations several years ago. Thus, I'd be happy to e-mail a copy to anyone who leaves there e-mail address in the comment section. I'll warn you that there is a bit of a learning curve, but you can do quite a lot with it once you learn the interface.

You might notice that 2 of the 3 fractals indicate copyright to Endeavour Experiment in the bottom right. That is my musical identity. Actually, Endeavour is the musical identity. The experiment included music and fractals. More on Endeavour at a later date.

Turning a digital photo into digital art - Part 2

Now that Saga has a new lead vocalist, I find the final product for this edition of Turning A Digital Photo Into Digital Art a perfect way to celebrate!

The main component of this "artified" digital photo is a photo taken by Cabana. It was quite nicely cleaned up by Camare.


The photo was taken in Berlin and the prominent damaged building in the foreground is Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

The next component can also be found in Germany. It's Einstein Tower located in Potsdam, Germany.


Germany is significant with regard to Saga because that is where they have the largest fan base. That fact and the cover of their album Images At Twilight is what inspired the finished product below.

But wait! There are more components to this complex work of digital art! No art inspired by Saga is complete without one of the many variations of the Saga "bug"!

The final component is the moon.

Those of you who are fans of Saga will realize that I have used items that inspired both the Silent Knight cover and the Images At Twilight cover as components in my final product.

Without further ado, here it is:

Best viewed full size! (click image)

"How did I do it?" you ask. This one was complicated. As I recall, I worked on the Einstein Tower first. I started by adding 3 stories to it. This was accomplished by taking a very precise slice of the 2 middle stories. Then, cutting that slice in half for the third story addition. After that, I carefully masked out the top of the tower. Next, I stacked the 3 stories together taking care to align them as precisely as possible. After aligning them, I put the top back on the tower and removed any jagged edges. This was quite a challenge because the front sides of the tower aren't simply flat vertical lines. I then changed the orientation of the tower so that I could insert it into the left side of the final product. The next to last steps were changing the color of the tower and adding a lighting effect. The final step in editing the tower was masking out the background so that I could pull the tower from the image.

The other components were a bit easier to prepare. I had to mask the bug from the Images At Twilight cover and resize it as needed. I borrowed the photo of the moon from another digital photographer on the dslreports.com site. Sorry. I don't remember who so I can't give appropriate credit. I made some minor adjustments to it and changed the opacity so that the background color showed through a bit. Oh! I nearly forgot! In placing the Einstein Tower into the final product, I masked out the buildings that appear to be in front of it. Then, I put them in a separate layer so they would cover the bottom section of the tower. The final touches were changing the color of the sky using "selective color" and adding a lighting effect for the background.

This is how I earned the name Fractalman - Part 2

Some Chaoscope fractals that I did:

Bird, Perch & Chair

It might be hard to believe, but the only editing that I did to this fractal was changing the background. I changed it from a solid color background to a "cloud" effect. It was one of those odd twists of fate that the fractal itself resembled a bird, its perch, and a chair. I was quite impressed with it and thought that the green and white "cloud" background gave it a touch of harmony.

DeanScape

I call this fractal DeanScape because it resembles part of Roger Dean's work for the Beginnings album cover. An album by a phenominal guitarist named Steve Howe (also a member of Yes). This fractal rendition has a bit more of a wispy feel than the solid structure in Roger Dean's work.

Plato's Form Dimension

I call this Plato's Form Dimension because it gives me the feeling of what it might be like to be in the spirit realm. The spirit or forms realm transcends the physical realm. The central bright area symbolizes the purity of this dimension while the other colors symbolize beauty.

Van Gogh's Accident

Unknown to most, Van Gogh got upset one day while painting. During the height of his outburst, he spilled some oil paint onto a dark satin cloth. The initial shape of the spill inspired him. So, he used his hands and fingers to complete the abstract piece. He called it Ongeval (Dutch). This translates to 'Accident' in English. OK, I admit that the story isn't true, but it makes the idea behind the fractal more interesting.

This is how I earned the name Fractalman - Part 1

My interest in fractals began close to 20 years ago. I started with a basic, yet powerful program called Fractint. At the time, this program didn't allow for much customization and parameter adjustment. So, I searched the web and found Iterations. It used to be freeware, but Stephen Ferguson has done many other programs since and now charges for downloading. I have also used Chaoscope; a 3D strange attractor renderer. Much more recently I took to fractal landscapes using Terragen 0.9.43.

The 2 main reasons that I am still interested in fractals 20 years later is because I like both abstract art and math. I have a strong math background. In fact, after 9 semesters of college, I was only about 3 courses away from a major in math. This would have been in addition to my major in Physics. However, I was burned out and never went back to complete the second major. My first love has always been music --which is also very mathematical. One day, back in 1997, I stumbled upon a program called ArtSong. It originally used RGB values and recursive fractal mapping to create notes. That right! ArtSong created music from fractals! This fascinated me. I did quite a few fractal songs. Some of which I will post here in the future. I will also post some of my early fractals done with Iterations. Unfortunately, the really early stuff with Fractint was lost due to hard drive failure. Nevertheless, I have done plenty over the years and continue to do more. I usually do them in spurts with variable length hiatuses in between.

For the first image below, I used Iterations. Unlike what some people say in online forums and such, Iterations is a very powerful fractal generating tool with a lot of features --including custom equations. Lots of parameters can be adjusted, but there is a bit of a learning curve. In fact, I like it better than some of Stephen's more recent programs.




This fractal was generated 2 years ago. I used a custom equation. The only editing I did was resizing to 800x600.

Some people might say that "artifying" a fractal is overkill. That's not necessarily true. check out the 2 artified versions below.




I call this one the "Cave Art Edit". In hindsight, that might be a bit of a misnomer. However, you can see that by using PhotoShop or other image editing applications the look and feel of the fractal can change dramatically. Since it has been 2 years, it's tough to give you details on what I did. Nevertheless, I can tell you that I: 1) adjusted the levels, 2) used selective coloring, 3) added brush and texture effects.




I call this one the "Topography Edit". As you can see, it is quite different from both the original and the previous edit. I still adjusted levels and used selective coloring. I also used a lighting effect in the lower right. A craquelure effect was used to produce the "topography".

This is only one of hundreds of fractals I've done over the years. If you like it, keep an eye on this site. I will post many more in the weeks, months, and years to come --including some I did with Chaoscope and Terragen.

Turning a digital photo into digital art - Part 1

NOTE: I use Adobe Photoshop CS2. Similar effects can be accomplished with other image editing applications.

For quite some time, I have "artified" my and others' images in a digital imaging forum. The photo above is one that I took in a neighbor's yard. Although it stands well on its own, I decided to use it in an "Artify" thread in this forum.

There are a few basic things that I tend to do when I "artify" an image. First, I generally adjust levels to increase the contrast of the image without losing detail. Which level I adjust first depends on the overall brightness of the image. If the image is slightly dark, I generally adjust the highlights and/or midtones first. If the image is slightly bright, I usually adjust the shadows first. Once adjusting the highlights or the shadows, you can usual tell whether you need to increase or decrease the midtones. Next, I often use selective color to change the mood of the image to the type of mood I want to portray. There is no single method for this. You just have to experiment. I can say that using grays, dark purples, and black tends to make an eerie image. However, other moods are more difficult to pinpoint. Now that the modifications have been made to set the mood, other filters and effects can be applied to create your own style. In this case, I borrowed an idea from Roger Dean. I did a search for cat tracks and found a simple set. So, I strategically placed them within the image. Then, I added a couple of painting effects. Finally, I added a ripple effect. You can see the end result below.