Every so often I get this boost of creativity and feel inspired to do something different, even a little outrageous with one of my images. This was the case with this image that I captured when we arrived at San Quirico D’Orcia in Tuscany
RAW file
This is the image straight out of the camera. I haven’t done a thing to it. What I love about this scene is the layer upon layer of the buildings and how the converge. As I stared at it on my computer screen I wondered what it would look like if the buildings were slanted and those stone walls started to squeeze together. I used the “pinch” artistic filter in Photoshop, at about 55%, to bring the stone walls in and the back buildings forward forcing the center door to inch closer. That looked pretty cool but I still wanted to make it a bit more ominous looking. I had a black and white image of a dark and cloudy sky and used that as a texture overlay using the blending mode “multiply” at 100% opacity. I then used a layer mask to bring back some of the detail in the walls and selectively lighten certain areas.
As you can see from the original image Fido was nowhere to be seen. He is from that village. I captured him only moments earlier standing on one of those high walls. I used the Quick Selection tool to select only him from the image he was in, created a new layer from the selection and then dropped him into this image. And there you have it…Beware of the Dog!
I don’t do these often but its fun experimenting. I would love to know what you think.
Click on the image to enlarge (it really does look better) or to Purchase a Print.