One Photo Focus October

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve had the chance to participate in one of Stacy Fischer’s One Photo Focus challenges. It feels good to be back.

This month, we received a photo from Michelle Lunato, a wonderful photographer, who provided this beautiful image for us to play with.

When I opened the RAW image, I made these adjustments first:

These settings gave me this image:

I loved the sun flare, but wanted to add a little lens flare to compliment it. I used these settings in the lens flare filter:

For instructions on using the lens flare filter on an “empty” layer, see this YouTube video.

So adding the flare created a nice, light effect:

I’ve been playing around with posterizing images lately, and thought this image lent itself nicely to some posterizing. I used these settings in the Photoshop Fine Art Gallery filter:

I really like how the filter gives the image a more defined look:

Finally, I wanted to give it more of a painting feeling, so I added a blank layer filled with white and then used a fun eraser brush to “reveal” the image under the white layer:

I hope you enjoy my experiments. I sure did.

Stacy, thanks, as always, for a fun challenge. For more from this challenge, visit One Photo Focus: October.

Click the image above for rules on joining the fun!