This & That

Day 41 of Beyond Layers offered two challenges that I totally enjoyed doing. Again, where I started from was not at all what Kim did, and I didn't want to create dreaminess, but used her recipe to add crispness and clarity to the photo. Here Misaki is standing at the front door, staring at me wide-eyed like she often does, asking me if I really mean what I'm telling her. So herself here, that's what she's like with her large nose and big dark eyes under the topknot.

Serious?

Here's what I did to this image:
1 duplicated bg layer
2 added gradient map Pinkish by Kim Klassen, at soft light 100%
3 added a b&w gradient map at normal 30%
4 created text layer, font Shardee by Bright Ideas, applied stroke, turned fill to 19%
5 duplicated text layer, deleted stroke, turned fill back to 100%, set the text slightly off
6 flattened image & resized it for web
7 added frame: framing action Glass by Chain

The second image was an exercise in enlargening the canvas and using gradient fill. The photo is a detail of my belated birthday bouquet that I received last autumn. Since I was quite happy with the photo itself, I didn't do any processing to the actual photo, only enlarged the canvas, created and used a gradient fill and added the text. Can you tell warm orange is my favourite colour? Then I decided I'd like it better with a frame, so I made one using an action by WallStorm.

Editing steps:
1 used crop tool to make image canvas wider than original
2 created gradient fill (my own, warm orange)
3 added text layer with font La Belle Aurore by Kimberly Geswein, blending mode Vivid Light 64%
4 flattened image & resized it
5 added frame: framing action White Frame V4 from Photographer's Toolkit 2 by WallStorm

I'm very happy with both results here. Feels good to be achieving something satisfying with my pictures. And with two of my favourite photography subjects, too - dogs and flowers.