Jan Handman
About the Image(s)
Back to surrealism this month. I started with Original 1 sky and a patch of grass with a few mushrooms growing in it, but once I added the stairs and frame, the grass just didn’t seem right. The next day I discovered the shale rock piece on a walk and decided it would probably work better. The stairs blended into it nicely, so it seemed to make more sense composition-wise. I added the background and planet inside the frame next. I wanted the steps to curve into the frame so I used PS warp and skew tools, and ended up having to duplicate the layer to create more steps. Lots of tweaking, sizing, and fading to get them to blend into the distance. A few stars were added using a soft white brush tool of various sizes. I wanted to have a few light beams coming out of the star on the edge of the planet; tried a few different times but they didn’t look right. I remembered using a PS fading technique at some point in the past, but couldn’t remember how. Google search helped to find the right settings, which involved changing the Brush Setting > Shape Dynamics > Size Jitter > Control > Fade > 100%.
At this point I wanted to add some human or animal life to the scene and tried birds (which I tend to use too often), a cat, dog, etc. I ended up using just the guy climbing the stairs, but then decided I needed a little flora to go with the human fauna, so I added the daisies growing out the rock crevice and the vines on the stairs.
My final version was taken into On1, where I added Canvas texture at reduced opacity, Vintage color filter, and a slight vignette.
3 comments posted
  Posted: 02/03/2025 01:47:43
Being hypercritical, which isn't really deserved, most of the sky is nicely muted into the base, but there is one small area on the left border which seems to have a much clearer straight line which could perhaps be blurred to the same degree?   Posted: 02/03/2025 09:56:02
(Group 54)