Arty Attempts...

I have been experimenting with the artistic filters in CS2, being a bit of a frustrated artist at heart, that's why I now paint with light.

Looking for some honest opinion here, I find it difficult to decide how far you can cross the line from a traditional approach to the more impressionistic view, comments welcome please:















Cheers, Lilly

nice work!
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Love them all, but the last one just blew me away!

WOW!

Wonderful shots Lilly i like the effect. 3 & 4 are my Favourite

This is an interesting approach to a not very hard explored art area.

I like your work Lilly.

Personally I think the limit is in your own (in each of us). In this way, I feel you must go so far away the line until you are satisfied with your creation; that you feel you arrived where you wanted go.

But also, I believe there exists a risk of falling in a vulgarity or pretentiousness or tawdriness (don´t find the correct word, “cursilería” in sp) using improperly the PS tools. How many times using an innovative element you developed an idea just for discover some months later you find the same thing everywhere (you buy an expensive and exclusive dress and discover in the party another girl with the same one). Your initial image always will be exclusive, but think that PS filters are in the public domain…

An image for help explain:




Do you recognize the PS filter? Yes? Well, good bye creation…

Lilly, follow experimenting with this. You are in the correct track…


Best regards.
________________
Dirk TROTTEYN.
K10D+ Sigma 18-50 1:2.8 DC Lens.

Thanks for the feedback, point taken Dirk, I agree with what you say.
I feel this kind of PP does have a place but I am not so naive as to imagine it being a high place aesthetically.
It satisfies me that you can take an image that does not seem to have a lot of potential and transform it into a form that becomes pleasing to the eye that can be used for decoration purposes.
thanks again, Lilly

My view on this kind of thing is that if you're going to cross the line into impressionism, it's best to go a good way beyond the line.

So I quite like all of these except for the last one, which still looks like a photograph to me, just a badly edited one. I could see the first one and the third one working well on a wall in a large modern room with a lot of daylight, for instance.

The first three are much more like a different art form, and so bring with them their own interest. To me, they're different - much more interesting in their own right - from Dirk's excellent and well-chosen example of where not to go.

I don't know much about art.....but I do know that it is often unapreciated and misunderstood. hence the phraise "(He/She) was way ahead of thier time."

I have used images similar in concept as backdrops for other images.
Take for example the flower one with the flying insect.
imagine a little girl dressed up as a fairy.

So while I would use the concept differently, only history or trends or finiky buyers will will decide if it is true art.

You can't create art with a Photoshop plug-in, or indeed a PS filter. It's an electronic bit of wizardry created by someone else.

What you can do is use PS creatively to make images that speak to the viewer on perhaps more than one level. This is different to playing with effects.

Having said that, my EPZ images have plenty of examples of PS being used quite obviously to create effects. On the other hand, I think the best ones are where PS has been used, possibly extensively, and it's clear from the comments that nobody has noticed.

Lilly, you have done some super photography, but I think the best is more subtle than the ones in this thread. I find them a little over the top and harsh, but I would carry on experimenting. Perhaps an eye towards looking for more subtle effects?

Hope that helps!

This sort of thing is clearly a matter of taste and personally I don't find them attractive. The 2nd one might have worked for me in B&W but the garish colours detract from it IMHO.

Art however is definitely in the eye of the beholder and there is certainly a place for that type of work, even if it isn't my cup of tea!

If I may jump on the bandwagon, i too have been experimenting with 'false colour' with some of my images and there is something about them I like. I'm not sure anyone else would like them though.

The first is the original from raw, (it has nothing going for it that I can see now, but it seemed like a good idea at the time).





Here is the same image tweaked extensively in lightroom.




Comments are appreciated.

(if you want me to put this in a thread of it's own that's fine)

justgetoutandride an excellent pic for this weeks competition i would think :

Thanks for your interesting and varied responses - it is a topic that is rarely touched upon on this forum, which is why I have just dipped my toe in!
However, you have given me your views that as I usually do shall take onboard, which has given me food for thought.

I like Andrews devasted landsape and I like the way this filter has produced an image that can be used in a positive way perhaps and not trashed., that is WHY I think it has a place, I don't necessarily think it is an 'art' form but just a way of enhancing an image that might not normally have been used, am I making sense?

More subtlety as John says is perhaps more appropriate if one is appealing to the more traditional audience - I suppose this is what it comes down to at the end of the day - your market!

Here is one of my more subtle ones!



Lilly..

Sadly, not to me. On my monitor at least, the brightest cloud in the middle has become a featureless white splodge in the middle of a relatively dark background sky. Certainly the enhanced greenery in the foreground adds interest, but apart from that, the editing hasn't improved it in any way.

I played about with it myself in PS, and got the same degree of colour enhancement just by increasing the brightness, without making the cloud look like an alien spaceship approaching.

I don't see the point of messing with a photo in such a way that it just looks like a badly edited photo. Sorry, but to my eye the Emperor has no clothes on at all !!

This is a case in point. How would I know that this isn't just a photo - not particularly sharp, not particularly well lit.

Whereas your earlier examples have a lot going for them in their own right.

I'm not at all a traditionalist that rejects anything that isn't purely realist. But if it looks like a failed attempt at realism, how am I supposed to know that it's not just a bad photo?

Given that good art - proper art - is pure self-expression, it should matter not what anyone else thinks. If your art is simply to please others, then it surely panders towards a more commercial exercise because you are more interested in your work's value to others than yourself.

Do what you like and hang everyone else's opinions.

I certainly appreciate what you do whether I like it all or not.