My GPS Camera Phone

Yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday featured an abstract negative image created with two other images, both negative to fit the theme. This technique is nothing new on this blog, but it’s fun and a great way to produce something completely different than the original images. Today, I’ll show you how easy it is to make a cool abstract of your own.

The source images were nothing special, but the negative effect gave them an interesting quality and feel. Additionally, they were two totally different things. One is the light diffuser in the elevator I take to my office every day:

and the other is a shot of a cool poster I got in the mail from Veer (which hangs on the wall behind my desk):

Combining these two images works for me because the grid pattern combines nicely with the graphic design of the poster. As Fred pointed out in the comments, it looked like a glass-brick wall. The white on the edge of the diffuser also gave me the idea of a fading edge without having to use any Photoshop tools. Now that the idea is there, let’s get to putting the two images together.

Step 1: Open the source images in the photo editing tool of your choice. I used Photoshop CS2 for this process.

Step 2: Drag the poster layer over to the diffuser image. Click and hold the poster image, drag it over to the diffuser image and then release. This should create a new layer in the diffuser image, hopefully above the background layer. If the new poster layer ends up below the diffuser layer for some reason, move it up above the diffuser layer.

Step 3: Close the poster image. You won’t be needing it anymore.

Step 4: Change the blending mode on the poster layer to Lighten. This will allow the diffuser layer below to come through.

Step 5: Duplicate the background layer and move it above the poster layer. Now you’ve got an image of the diffuser again, with none of the underlying layers showing through. At this point, the layer order should be diffuser, poster, diffuser.

Step 6: With the top layer selected, go to the Edit menu, then Transform and Rotate 180°. Now you’ve got the same image but flipped over. Let’s get the bottom layers to shine through.

Step 7: With the top layer still selected, change the blending mode to Screen. The bottom layers should now be visible, blended nicely with the top layer. Almost done.

Step 8: Rotate and crop the image. To rotate the entire canvas, go to the Image menu, select Rotate Canvas, then 90° CCW. Once rotated, crop the image with the crop tool to eliminate the squareness it now has due to the white sides. I also wanted to frame the word “fancy” in the middle of the image, so the crop I chose eliminated some of the top and bottom noise, focusing more on the center. The light edges lead the eye to the center more, now that the height has been taken down through cropping.

Step 9: Save the image. To save an optimized image for the web, select the file menu, then Save for Web. Personally, I like to save at about 60-90 quality, depending on the file size and quality. It’s up to you.

Step 10: Sit back and enjoy your new image!

Dan posted a negative image of a moth on his blog. You should go check it out. But will he try blending two images together? I guess we’ll have to wait. Until then, give it a shot yourself and post a link to your image in the comments.

I didn’t realize the time, so stop by Dan’s blog and thank him for getting this post out the door today. On to the how-to!

Nothing was coming to me last Tuesday night, which nearly led to me not participating in yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday. Instead of giving in, I tried something that works for me when I get stuck: I went back to basics. Locating a simple image was the first step. After an intense staring contest with computer screen, I decided to re-visit the blending modes, but this time using one image with multiple modes and layers.

After opening the image above in Photoshop CS2, I desaturated the image and then copied the background layer six times, which ends up giving me seven layers total to work with. Switch off the visibility of all layers except the background and the layer above it.

Note: There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Experiment with different layers’ opacity and blending modes for many different results.

I left the background layer at 100% opacity as a foundation for the next six layers above it. Then, starting with the next layer above the background, rotate the layer via “Edit->Transform->Rotate” to any position desired. Try thinking ahead to the final finished product when doing this. Once the image is rotated to your liking, press Enter and the transformation will apply to the layer.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Change the layer’s blending mode to whatever you want, depending on the effect you are trying to achieve. In this case, I utilized Overlay and Multiply on various layers to get the effect you saw yesterday. You can also play around with layer opacity settings, but I don’t believe I did that on this image.

Once completed, turn on the visibility of the next layer and repeat the process. You will probably end up going back to lower layers for some fine tuning, but the end result will be nothing like the original photo.

With regard to blending modes, I’m partial to Mulitply, Overlay and Screen, but I’ve been leaning toward Luminosity as of late. Do you have a preferred blending mode or techniques? Let me know in the comments.

The closest guessers from yesterday: dcr, Chica, Raven, CatSynth, The Right Blue, Ryanne, on the Rock, smarmoofus, DrillerAA, Shiela, Secret Agent Mama, SarahHub, Sister Sassy, BK, Michelle Gartner, Vixen, Brony, kelly and nance (my darling wife).

Hey wait, that’s everyone who commented. Oh well, I’ll bend the rules a bit this week. Next week, though, only the closest guess (or two) wins a link! (Multiple guesses/comments allowed.)

First, thank you to all of my visitors yesterday, especially those of you who commented. I’m enjoying posting an abstract image followed up by a how-to post, so if you want to be sure not to miss anything, please subscribe to my RSS feed (really, it only takes a second!).

There were some great guesses as to how I captured this photo, ranging from colored cellophane to on-board photo filters, but the magic was performed by Photoshop CS2 and a little extra something. I actually posted two photos yesterday. They just happened to be one on top of the other.

Some time ago, I posted an image using a similar technique but I used nearly identical source images. This time around, I used two completely different images – one of a cloudy sky and another close-in shot of a painting (taken by my daughter, hence the partial photo credit). Here’s how it works.

In Photoshop, open two photos and make them equal sizes. It works best to have more contrast between the photos, but I’m sure it will work with anything. Then drag one layer on to the other image. In this case, I dragged the clouds over to the painting image. This should create another layer in that image. Close the image that you just dragged from.

I left the bottom layer (the painting) set to 100% opacity and kept the blending mode at normal. (The layer blending mode selector can be found on the layers palette next to the opacity setting.) The top layer of clouds is obviously going to block out the bottom layer, so we need to make it more see-through. Here’s where I adjusted the opacity to 75% and then changed the layer blending mode to luminosity. And that’s it.

Try experimenting with blending modes and opacity percentages in general and you’ll see a lot of interesting things happen. Just remember that you probably won’t see anything exciting happen with a single layer. Add another image or text layer and then adjust the blending mode of the top layer. Some modes will lighten, some will darken and some will cause a ghosting effect. Any way you slice it, blending modes are worth a look and can amplify the effect of your images significantly.