Steve Wessing
September 2023 - Solarized Bee
Original
Original 2
Original 3
About the Image(s)
At Jan's suggestion, I have gone back to my roots. I first solarized an image in around 1977 when I was in high school in Chicago. Later I worked as a printer's apprentice, cutting and waxing rubylith, and creating transparencies and vellos for poster printing.
There is in fact a plug-in for gimp that I could have downloaded to create solarized images easily, but for the group's benefit I've decided to do it manually.
First I created a duplicate layer. Then I desaturated it, using 'color-desaturate' at the 'average' setting. Next I used 'color-curves' to apply a sharp inverted 'v' curve, for the basic solarization effect. After that, I used 'color- curves' again to apply a soft 's' curve to smooth out the effect. The next step was blending the adjusted layer over the original using 'layer-blend mode-value'. I completed the image by using 'layer-new from visible', and adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation.
All in all, a lot quicker (and less messy) than the old photographic process.
I hope in the future I will be allowed to return to my preferred path of creating themed art.
6 comments posted
I couldn't resist having a play with it - I placed Original 2 over the final image in Luminosity mode (70% opacity), stamped up then used Quad Pencil to bring the texture up a little. Posted: 09/07/2023 16:10:26
I do fiddle with solarization periodically - NIK app. But it's not a 'go-to' app as I think I still have not worked out in my head what solarization brings to the party. Thank you for giving us the 'recipe' - will at some point have a crack at it vs. the filter.
I like this image for the subject and colours. But for overall appeal, I prefer Original 1 and 2.
Posted: 09/13/2023 10:25:08