A LITTLE HALLOWEEN AND A LITTLE CREATIVITY WITH PHOTOSHOP

Had some fun doing these Photoshop pix – I love doing Halloween images and the one below is called “The Botanist.” Decided to show all the steps and resources that went into making them in this blog. If you are not interested in using Photoshop brushes or applying special effects, just skip the discussion and hopefully enjoy the images.

For the Halloween image the same basic face and hair layers as those created in The Botanist, which I did earlier, were used. The background was created using Flux 2.0 with the AI prompt “Add a spooky Halloween house towards the left side of the image with a black cat with gold eyes, an owl, a bat and a full moon in the image. Want realistic image with lots of blacks.” Firefly 3 and 5, and Gemini Nano Banana 3.1, were also tried, but Flux was much better for this. I added some text (Fladeo Font), the fog (can’t find this one but any will work), the spider (brush by Inobscuro) necklace (chain brush from Jessica Johnson but could not find the direct link), and the witch jpg in the upper right (from Graphics Fairy – used the Remove Background command on the Contextural Task Bar and then applied the mask). Enough Halloween, so now moving on to more of the actual processing with The Botanist image.

The Basics:

1. Started with a sepia tone AI image using Google (Image FX) from January 2025 with prompts of portrait, sketchy, black and white ink, and sepia.
2. Next went to Image -> Image Size and changed the Resolution to 300 ppi so the Width became 5 inches X 9.167 inches – this makes it much easier and speeds up PS when using complicated brushes and lots of layers.
3. Selected just the black lines (Select -> Color Range and choose Shadows – adjusted sliders with mine set to Fuzziness 48 and Shadows 44). With selection active, added a New Layer (+) at bottom of Layers Panel and filled with black – do this by pressing ALT and Backspace together – make sure your foreground color is black. Deselect.
4. Decided I wanted a wider image, so now back to a larger image. Turned off the black line layer and selected the background layer. With the Crop Tool, changed the Width size to 16 inches and Height to 9 inches in the Ratio drop-down menu.

Below shows image with the sepia Background layer turned off and this is where the creating begins. I wanted a bit of a messy watercolor feel for this image. Switched to the Brush Tool and dragged the face sketch to the right a little so I had room for some big hair!

How to Find and Load Kyle’s Free Photoshop Brushes:

His watercolor Wamazing brushes were selected and are located in PS’s Kyle T. Webster’s free Watercolor set. To get to any of his brushes, select any regular brush and in the Options Bar, press the Brush Preset Picker (to right of brush tool icon that shows a brush tip) and click the arrow down – it opens up the Picker. Click the Cog and choose Get More Brushes in the menu. (Can also go to Windows -> Brushes to open Basic Brushes Panel – in Hamburger icon in upper right, click and will see the same Cog and menu settings.) You will be taken to a screen that has over a thousand free brushes he created. Need to scroll down a bit to find the Watercolor set to download it. To open in PS, just double click the abr file where you downloaded it – the Watercolor Folder will appear at the bottom of your Brush Preset Picker or Basic Brushes Panel list. There are a bunch of other great watercolor brushes in this set. Also the Megapack set, which is great, has several different watercolor brushes in it too. Try them on a paper background for some interesting effects, but that is for another blog.

TIP 1: Use Wamazing Brushes to Get a Nice Watercolor Effect

The Wamazing brushes used here are near the bottom in his list and a little tricky to use – once you try them and practice a bit, they are really nice. Paint a shape, then keep scrubbing and they will paint and erase in one stroke – just do not lift your stylus and use very light pressure. Increase the pressure to bring back some of the paint with a chunkier grain. In the Options Bar the brushes are set to the Multiply Mode (as are most watercolor brushes) to darken whatever is under them. Change back to Normal if the effect is too strong. What Warmazing brushes do so well is on a shape’s edge – bits of it can be removed which adds more realism to a digital watercolor effect. The tilde key or eraser while using a Wamazing brush on a different brush’s strokes is another creative way to use the brushes. For more info on how Kyle uses all them, check out his 2021 video called Illustration Masterclass-Watercolor in Photoshop – it is packed with information. BTW, if you are missing Kyle, he now makes brushes only for Procreate. For this image the Wamazing Basic, Extra Rough, and Grit brushes were selected for the faces above. Pretty fun to use!

For the Lips, utilized the free Pixelstain Lip texture brushes for the gloss effect. A basic Mixer brush was used for the solid color on the actual lips. For the Eyes an Iris brush from Obsidian Dawn was selected – she charges for her brushes now, so check out a nice free one from PS guru Unmesh Dinda. Same with the eyelashes and eyebrow brushes used – I used Kristina Sherk‘s and Lindsay Adler‘s (both great retouchers) for these, but DeviantArt has some for free to download if you log in. Can also just clean them up using a small brush.

TIP 2: Creating the Hair

Duplicated the sketch layer and turned off the original for a backup. Then erased all of her original hair so crazy hair could be added. This was totally using a trial and error effort. Needed to download Kyle’s Spatter Brushes and chose the Splashy brush for the main effect. This time both the mouse and the stylus were used as they gave very different results and both looked nice in the bright orange colors. The splashes on her face are from this brush. A 33-brush set from Zsolt Kosa for $7 can be downloaded at Cubebrush and are very nice and included her Messy 04 brush (the blonde hair lines) and Afro 2 brush which were also used. Aaron Blaise’s Hair Brushes Set 2-SB 77 (can get as cheap as a $1 when he has his sales) was added in for the final look. It took several layers and different colors and opacities to get this right. This was a lot of fun!

TIP 3: Add Interesting Background with a Pattern Adjustment Layer

The image above used Heart 821 from Resource Boy at Deal Jumbo Heart Patterns. This is a set of 1017 free jpgs that must be converted to a .pat file when using it as a pattern. (This site has all kinds of wonderful free textures that I have saved as Patterns when needed.) To convert, open jpg into PS, then go to Edit -> Define Pattern – name and it appears at the bottom of the Windows -> Patterns Panel or go to the Patterns Panel at bottom and select the + icon for Define a New Pattern. I like using Pattern Adjustment Layers because it is very easy to adjust the size and see immediately how different sizes will look like on the image and the angle can be changed very quickly. This time it was set to a Scale of 484%. (See bottom image in Pattern Panel Tych below.) The pattern can be moved by clicking and dragging the mouse or stylus over the actual image. Lots of really cool effects can be made using this technique. The Pattern Adjustment Layer was duplicated and turned off since PS made me rasterize the layer before going into Topaz Studio. Topaz Studio 1 (yes 1) was opened and the Van Gogh Painting I preset was applied. For some reason it looked different than the one in Topaz Studio 2. After application, it was set to Darker Color layer blend mode. A Selective Color Adjustment Layer was clipped (ALT + click between the layers) to it and the Reds were turned to more of an orange color to match her hair and the Cyans were adjusted just a little.

TIP 4: The Shadows and Highlights Make a Huge Difference

For this image, Sam Peterson’s Shadow & Highlights brush was used. The brush is a Soft Round brush and in the Brush Settings Panel the Wet Edges were turned on (which I sometimes turn off) and Smoothing. In the Options Bar the Size is 500 px, Opacity 43%, Flow 80%, and Smoothing 10%. To use as a Shadow brush, set a New Layer to Multiply blend mode and the Color Swatch to a grayish-blue tone (Color #8e969e at bottom of Color Picker Panel). Paint in shadows where they should be. The layer opacity was set to 37%. For the Highlights effect, set another New layer to Color Dodge blend mode and do the same technique for Highlights with a darkish mid-gray color (Color #42403d) – set layer opacity to 82%. These two layers work well together and give some beautiful results. Can use a Smudge brush if they do not mesh well together.

TIP 5: Create a Dot Brush for Sprayed Watercolor Effect

Bert Monroy, possibly the best PS gurus ever with an incredible knack for making brushes, created this type of brush first. To make a brush for the scattered watercolor paint effect, his settings were for a 60-pixel Soft Round Brush and in Brush Settings Panel – Brush Tip Shape section: Hardness 50%, and Spacing 451%; Shape Dynamics: Size Jitter with Jitter set to 100% and Minimum Diameter to 26%; Scatter – set to 514%; Color Dynamics – set to Control Pen Pressure, Hue Jitter 6, Saturation Jitter to 24% and Brightness 14%; and Smoothing checked on. The paint dots layer was set to 54% opacity.

Below is how the image appeared before the Finishing touches.

Finishing Up:

• A Color Lookup Adjustment Layer set to Fuji Reala 500D Kodak 2393 (by Adobe) preset and a 42% layer opacity was selected.
• Used the Filter Gallery PS plugin that is older and does not run great on my computer, but was able to apply an effect called Warp Wave on a stamped copy of the image. Made the layer mask black by clicking CTRL + I inside mask and painted back just the yellow-green plant.
• Created another stamped layer and ran it through Topaz Adjust AI (which is no longer available – if you have an older Adjust version, even it will still run and would work) using the Seafoam preset.
• On two New Layers used Sam Peterson’s Lighten and Darken brushes, as described in Tip 4, on the green plant.
• Used the Photo Filter Adjustment Layer set to Warming Filter (85), Density 85% and then set the layer blend mode to Multiply at 28% opacity. This tip is from a great classic older book called Digital Painting Techniques Volume 1 (pdf linked) with lots on how to create brushes for digital painting so check it out. On page 55 in an article by Levente Peterffy, this Photo Filter technique was performed and he uses it often to finish off an image (and so do I).
• The eyes were selected with the Selection Brush Tool and an Exposure Adjustment Layer was added – the sliders were tweaked to make the eyes pop. (I use this technique all the time as it always does a good job on eyes.)
• Added a Levels Adjustment Layer to fix the tone.
• A Selective Color Adjustment Level was added and just the Reds and Yellows sliders were adjusted so the front leaf colors separate from her hair. Then switched the layer mask to black (CTRL+I in mask), and just the front leaf was painted back. Lots going on in the finishing steps but this is where the image pulled together.

Know this was long. If you like to do creative things in Photoshop, I believe some of these links will be very helpful. Digital Painting Techniques Volume 1 (pdf linked) is extremely interesting and useful. Hope everyone has a fun Halloween……Digital Lady Syd

IS IT WORTH TAKING THE TIME TO DRAW WITH AI BEING SO GOOD?

This is a topic I have been struggling with over the last year or so. My drawing skills are getting better the more I use them, but does it even compare with what can be done with AI just using the various Photoshop models? Not sure I have totally convinced myself it is worth the time to draw, but it is much more creative when you do it yourself. The Scrawled Cowfish image below (same fish as above but flipped) was drawn from several examples, one of which was my main resource (image on far right on web) and no AI was used to draw the fish image. My top result has a Grok (X) AI Background for a different look (for more on this, see further down).

If you look at the main resource, it could have been AI generated, but the colors and patterning were so interesting it was fun to try to draw. Question is – how can you tell if the resource was AI generated or not? By putting the resource image through AI Image Detector, it said it was 97% fake. TruthScan’s AI Image Detector-Spot Fake & Manipulated also said it was 97% Fake with High Confidence. I cannot verity either of these sites are that accurate, but it does give a sense if an AI effect seems to present. Compare this with my drawing above which got a 98% chance of real in both. Both said my AI background image was 97% real. Guess the AI background was not significant enough to be picked up as AI. And in this case, I may have used AI indirectly to draw my image. This can get complicated it seems. For steps used to create my fish, check end of blog.

Below are several results from using the prompt “Want a drawing of a scrawled cowfish in a dark underwater background” using Photoshop models. I was feeling pretty good about my drawing attempt after seeing the AI results below.

All are examples of PS’s native AI Firefly Image 3 (from October 2024) and the three variations it created using PS2026. The last one showed the same model using PS Beta, where my drawn image was used as a Reference Image by pressing the icon on the Contextural Task Bar to load it (also tried in PS 2026 and was just as bad – had to remove the badly written nonsense text on shown image and on all variations as it also ran off the documents). Only 1 credit was needed in PS2026 and PS Beta. Definitely not the greatest results but I will say the Beta version actually looked kind of cool.

Also in PS2026 was the Flux Pro 2 model (uses 20 generative credits) as in top left image, Firefly Image 5 (released in April 2026 and used 10 credits but only get one variation) as shown top middle, Gemini 3 with Nano Banana Pro (this is Google and cost 40 credits per generation) as shown in bottom left, and the far right is Gemini 3.1 with Nano Banana2 (this is Google and in PS2026 it cost 20 generative credits for 1K or 2K resolution outputs, and 30 credits if larger). I actually liked the top left Flux image’s background – looked really nice. Gemini 3.1 with Nano Banana2 (this is Google) also had a nice background but the light beams were a bit much for a deep water fish.

This last AI group were created using software outside of Photoshop – just thought it might be interesting to see what they would create with the same prompt. All the created images below were free to download. The top image used Grok (X). The bottom left image was created by Google Gemini (another free AI image program that uses Gemini 3.1 Flash image or Nano Banana 2) – note it is very similar to PS’s Gemini 3.1 with Nana Banana2 but more colorful (see above for PS credits needed if created in PS). The bottom right image was made by Chat GPT. These were a little uncomfortable for me considering all the effort it took to draw my original image. It does appears that these AI programs found my main resource image to create their cowfish images. Interesting!

Below are some of the backgrounds created using PS, Grok, Google Gemini Nano Banana2, and Chat GP – just so you can see what kind of results occurred. Here is the basic prompt used for all of the images: Create a deep ocean darkish blue background with only sandy bottom and possible sunken ship or rocks on bottom. Wanted to use PS so started with Firefly Model 3 and overall it was not bad. The first three variations were of big fish swimming around so I had to change the prompt to the one above. (Apparently I mentioned fish in the prompt for the first iteration.) Tried to work with Variation 1 (the others were not too good), but had trouble removing the sunrays, adjusting the icy looking rocks, and the boat appeared to be too new (top right image below). Decided not worth using a bunch of credits to fix up in AI or spending time to correct all of this.

By using the following AI programs, no credits were wasted in PS. The Grok (X) initial image decided I didn’t really what a ship and left it out so the prompt was adjusted to get the correct image (right below). Then I had to get it to remove some sunrays and move the boat further right so I had room for the fish (the one I used in top image above). Google Gemini Nano Banana2 had rocks in the foreground that looked funny and a bright highlight behind the boat so another image was rendered without these – liked the result but too realistic to go with a drawn image (left middle image). Chat GPT had a great image but the boat was too big and too dark and had weird lighting on the ocean floor – tried again and still too dark with weird lighting (bottom left image).

So this is my dilemma – should I do something because it is fun, or should I try to do something else and keep up with all the new-fangled things coming out with AI? It personally is much more rewarding to do it myself – just trying to keep the AI urges under control but still using them. I kind of like the idea of letting AI just create the backgrounds, like the top image, which are hard to draw and can be quite time-consuming. This gives you more time to explore the creative process. The AI background image is more pleasing to me I think, but the fish is not as realistic looking. And I do want to keep in mind how much cheaper it can be to use some of the free AI products as PS AI does require credits to use it. Don’t know how most people feel, but the credits and/or monthly charges I do not like. Figure I have not resolved my issue yet, but working on it. For now, just keeping an eye open to see what the next big AI breakthrough will be. Have a good week!….. Digital Lady Syd

How the top image was created:

Used Aaron Blaise’s basic technique – did a blog on this a while back called Doing the Daily Drawing with Aaron Blaise – some great tips in his videos. Started with a 16″ X 9″ document Size at 300 dpi. A rough drawing was made using several resources – had to decide on a basic configuration of the fish so used this one Scrawled Cowfish . Also used a basic image of all the parts of this type of fish to understand how the fins are placed in the image. Lowered the opacity of the rough drawing and added new layer to make a Refined drawing layer for use as a guideline of the fish. I use Aaron Blaise’s Erodible Tip brushes from years ago, but any brush can work. Painted the body a solid light blue color. Used Obsidian Dawn’s SS Painted Flowers-flowercenter 03 (got on DeviantArt a long time ago-she sells these brushes now). This brush was just a basic brush with 25% spacing. To make it useful, added Shape Dynamics Size Jitter of 40%, Angle Jitter of 56%, Roundness Jitter of 51% and checked Flip X Jitter; Transfer 11% Opacity Jitter and Control set to Pen Pressure; and Smoothing on (default set to 10% even if field is blank in the Options Bar). The Size was adjusted for what I was painting and I painted almost everything on the fish body with this brush. Turned on Texture section when needed using a texture by Yaz (really rough black and white effect), Scale of 6%, Brightness 48, Contrast 30, checked Texture Each Tip, Mode Multiply, and Depth 69%. This gave the fish the interesting texture in parts of it. To create the flower effect a Pattern Stamp by Jessica Johnson was used called Bubbly 6 from an Advent Calendar she gave out for the holidays in 2021 and used a glitter pattern. (It may be in her Jungle set.) Fins were tricky and used Pelleron‘s Sunray brush 2 for Pectoral Fin and tail fins and brush 5 for the dorsal fin – then added a layer mask to shape the fin. I tried lots of different effects, and this one seems to be the best. Unfortunately none of these brushes are free, but they can still be found. Just wanted to give an example above of how to be creative with the brushes to get different effects. Rarely do the original brush settings have what is needed to get the effect desired. The other steps were using Aaron Blaise’s recommended Highlighting and Shadowing brushes as shown in almost all of his videos. This step really makes the drawing pop and gives a more interesting look.

Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:

Scary Fish

Just Drawing and Painting in Photoshop

USING THE ART HISTORY BRUSH ON AN AI IMAGE

I can’t seem to stop trying out AI. Not doing all the fancy stuff, but for some reason I have to use up those Adobe AI credits I haven’t used at the end of the month and that’s when I try things out. The original image (see below) is one of an old fishing boat that was basically abandoned at Spanish Cay in the Outer Banks of the Abacos Islands in the Bahamas. It seemed to be begging for something interesting to happen to it! All that was done at this point was to do some Lightroom editing – no masking but just basic adjustments to improve the contrast and color a little.

Ran this image through Photoshop AI using Gemini 3.1 (Nano Banana 2) with the prompt “Create an abstract effect with the great color and lines of this old boat and place in water” which ate up 10 credits (Ouch!). Though I have to admit I kind of like the result it made. So I decided to fix this image up and give it a little more pizzaz! The water looked interesting but the trees had to be redone. After some consideration, the Art History Brush was used to create most of the effects in both the top and last image. Different brushes and colors, but the same process.

Where to Download Art History Brushes

In recent PS versions, to download the PS Art History brushes go to the Brushes Panel – in the top right pop-out menu, and append the Converted Legacy Tool Presets which are all the old PS Tool Preset brushes will be appended. There is a folder with just the Art History brushes (can just delete all the others). There are several that work very nice and all can be adjusted as shown below. Probably the best brushes I have recently come across are from a Photo2Paint YouTube short video called Photoshop Art History Brushes – Art Painting. Underneath in info is a link to a short video and a download link for the free brushes – (or click on the following link to just go to the course directly called How to Work with My Art History Brushes which has a download link below the video screen). This video describes all the brushes and how to use them. BTW, the site has many different ways and courses to learn how to paint your images for a fee.

Since you are going to want to adjust these and any other Art History brushes, here is what you need to know. Most info is from Julieanne Kost, the Adobe Evangelist, in her YouTube The Art History Brush in Photoshop from 2015 (the Art History Brush has not changed at all since then and it still works in CS6) for all kinds of tips.

Definition of Various Settings

• Mode – can change the brush to different ones in Options Bar or change any Layer to different blend modes in Layers Panel.
• Opacity – can try different strengths for nice effects (also useful with Layers Panel).
• Styles – the tightness or looseness determines how closely the brush will follow the original line. Julieanne does not use Curly and feels Dab gives a filtered look – the others give painterly effects. Using one of the Tight styles works a little better because it keeps the brushstrokes closer together.
• Area – how far or much is covered with each paint stroke. A larger area creates more with more abstract strokes. A smaller area uses fewer strokes. Large brushes tend to have more area than smaller brushes. For example, set to 100 px, it looks at an area up to 100 pixels from where you are painting. Best effects are usually at 40 px or less.
• Tolerance – controls how much the brush respects the original edges of your image. A lower tolerance restricts strokes tightly to the original outlines. If set higher, it will only look in big areas of change. A high tolerance limits strokes to areas that differ from the color in the Snapshot.
• Brush Settings – change them if you do not like the how the brush works – could use a different Brush Tip in the Brush Tip Shape section, or add or change a texture to a more interesting one from the Texture (same as a pattern) drop-down menu. Be sure to Save the brush as a preset if you like it (press the plus key at bottom of the section).

Steps for Creating an Image

1. First select the Art History Brush (in a group with the History Brush)- uses shortcut key Y.
2. Create a snapshot in the History Panel – don’t use the icon at the bottom of the panel if going to create different effects to add to your painting. For more than one in the pop-out menu, select New Snapshot and in the Dialog Box, change From in drop-down to Merged Layers per the great PS Guru Jack Davis (see * at bottom of blog as to why, but basically it allows different snapshots to be created and used for painting). You do not have to do a lot of Snapshots – the one on top used just one with no changes in the Snapshot. To be safe, I did use the Merged Layers Snapshot so if later a different effect might be nice.
3. Click only on the left box to select Snapshot to use, not on the text or you might lose all your painting history. The Art History Brush icon moves from the top icon Snapshot down to the new one.
4. Add a New Layer in the Layers Panel for painting – can label it. I usually list the brush and Snapshot used here, and create New Layers for each time the brush is changed. Choose one of the Art History Brushes you have, and look at the Option Bar – it contains different options from other brushes.. Julieanne says the default settings are not that good so try changing settings in these fields.
5. It has been suggested that you use a large brush as an underpainting, then use a medium brush to bring back some detail, and a small brush to bring back fine detail, preferably on different layers.

Helpful Tips

All kinds of things can be done – can even do just part of the image to get just a bit of effect. This is so easy! A few tips from my oldie but goodie standby PS book called The Photoshop Wow! Book by Linnea Dayton and Cristen Gillespie – extremely creative people, along with some of my own tips are listed below:

• There are at least three ways to operate the tool: Click each time you want to apply a series of strokes; Hold down the mouse button (or stylus) and watch the strokes pile up; and Drag the brush to set down several sets of strokes.
• In general use Tight strokes (set in the Styles field in Options Bar (see Styles above).
• It is helpful to “anchor” your strokes by clicking the cursor in the area of color or contrast that has a clear edge so the strokes will follow the detail to be emphasized.
• Each time the settings are change in the Options Bar, do a quick stroke to see if you like the results. If not undo and change settings.
• My tip is that if small detail is going over edges that have a different effect on them, change the Options Bar to settings like an Area of 5 px and a higher Tolerance like 30% – and try changing the Opacity also to keep from getting bad edges on the other layers
• If you really messed up some strokes, you will find the Eraser does not work. Must turn off all the other layers and go into the layer with the mistake where you can now erase it.
• I had to do some clean up after painting and found a useful trick with the Photo2Paint brushes. There are some really nice textures in the brushes so I downloaded a couple in the Brush Settings Texture section (press the little plus icon to the right of the texture swatch and Invert box – puts it at the bottom of the Pattern Panel – by clicking on the little arrow to the right of the current texture it opens the Pattern Panel where new texture can be selected. Then your regular brush strokes will blend in better with the painting strokes to some extent.

For my AI image the Art History Brush was used following the listed steps. Top image used just the one Snapshot. For the above image four different Snapshots were used to get this result (a Color & Vibrance Adjustment Layer created – and then the Snapshot of the results was created, same with a Burn Layer, a Dodge Layer, and a Clarity & Dehaze Adjustment Layer). By switching the Art History Brush icon between Snapshots at top of History Panel, different parts could painted in the image – therefore four different effects have been added to this image. This is also why the Snapshot Merged Layers was used. A Color Lookup Adjustment Layer set to 31%, the Camera Raw Filter and a Gradient Map using a Purple to Green Linear Gradient set to Soft Light Blend Mode at 50% Layer Opacity. Figure the images turned out very different, even if the AI prompt had requested some kind of painterly effect. And this was a lot more fun than letting AI do it all! Hope this gives a few of you creatives some new things to try out! Enjoy your Summer!…..Digital Lady Syd

*Why use a Merger Snapshot instead of a regular one? Often when painting PS puts up a “No corresponding layer” – you want to do something in the past and there is not corresponding layer to work on in the present. To avoid this, click the upper right pop-out menu and select New Snapshot… and a dialog box opens. In the From drop-down menu, select Merged Layers. Now PS does not care about what is currently visible, it makes a Snapshot of it – can use it to paint from no matter if layers were added or deleted, or possibly an added filter or Dodge and Burn Layers. Jack Davis many years ago did a Painting Class in Photoshop for Creative Live where he showed how to use the Art History brush – best info I have seen.

Digital Lady Syd Related Blogs:

Creating an Art History Action in Photoshop

How to Use the Art History Brush – It Really Is Pretty Nice!

Butterflies Posing in Abstract

MORE AI COMPARISON

Doing another AI comparison using the same prompt and a template just for the fun of it. It turned out kind of nice. Several of the same programs used in my Trying Out Different AI Programs blog from a couple months ago were selected, but this time created portraits. Note my older blog has more info on accessing and create inthese AI programs.

This idea came from a free download at Deal Jumbo called Collage Photo Frame Free Template (by mristudio) which showed baby images. See the basic template below – it is a PSD file with many layers. It was a little difficult to utilize, but does offer a lot of extras that were not selected for the above image.

The same prompt “Create a portrait of a woman from the 16th century France” was entered for all AI apps. The difference between this image and the ones created in my previous blog is that some corrections were made using the Clone Stamp so that the individual images would fit properly into the round template frame openings and the square frame. It was a bit of a problem. The round frames were changed from just white – used layer styles to get the gold effect on them (Bevel & Emboss, Stroke, Inner Glow, and Gradient Overlay). The top photo used a Pencil drawn frame I had created a long time ago with a Bevel & Emboss, Satin, and Gradient Overlay styles added for the gold effect. The trick was to find the right texture in the Bevel & Emboss Texture section. Drop Shadows were added to all frames.

Four different AI programs were used in this image. The top one, and my favorite result, was created using Google Flow and Nano Banana 2. Since it was not created in Photoshop, no credits were used, but they will probably start charging for this soon. The middle image used Grok 4 (which was introduced for free for X-users at the beginning of July) and did a pretty good job. Felt this lady looked quite a bit younger than the Flow image. The ChatGPT portrait on the right looks much older and more regal. The younger looking maiden on the left was created using Firefly 3 – selected the best version of the three. This image was way too photorealistic. It was given a painterly more vintage look by applying an oldie-but-goodie filter – Exposure Software’s (the old Alien Skin) Snap Art 4 using the Impasto Detailed preset and masking the face for more clarity. One thing that had to be done to each of the images was to apply a Grain Adjustment Layer which adds some normal looking texture. AI effects tend to smooth out everything in its created images.

Generative Expand was done to accommodate an area for text at the bottom of the template. The font used was the classic movie poster font Trajan Color – Jeanne of Montague – my middle name of Jane (or Jeanne in French) and my Grandmother’s maiden name Montague, shortened to Tague when the family moved to the US a long time ago. The Montague’s did originally come from Normandy in the 1000″s but eventually ended up mainly in Britain. Even so, the ancestry info above is not factual. The texture is from 2 Lil’ Owls called Autumn Whimsy 8, from a retired texture set of hers.

I am finding AI useful for creative endeavors, but not so much for my photography. Still love the Remove Tool and Generative Extend for the Background command, but overall do not use AI that much. This was a fun project and I would not have done it at all if not for the template from Deal Jumbo. Have a good week – very hot here!…..Digital Lady Syd

250 YEARS – HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA!

I love photographing and everything about the National Bird, the beautiful American Bald Eagle. Just reposting a few of my images from over the years and a couple update or new ones. for this wonderful celebration! (For older blogs on some of the image – top one, third one, and forth one, click on images to open in Flickr where link is located.)

Drew the above image following the wonderful Aaron Blaise’s Birds of Prey course.

Both the above and below Eagle images with a Corel Painter background. They reside at the Jacksonville Zoo.

If you really enjoy watching the Bald Eagles, there are some wonderful Web Cams showing the birds from when they are born until they fledge (take off on their own flying). Check out this site which has several nest cams for following them. Best time to watch is in the early part of the year, but the site has several highlight videos to watch if the birds are not currently available. Below is a composite I created trying to show the babies – not the best but it does show how dark the eaglets are when small.

In the meantime, it is a great time to be an American in the USA – if you are lucky like myself, it is a real privilege to live here. Happy 250th Birthday – go enjoy the Fireworks and have fun on the Fourth of July!

TRYING OUT DIFFERENT AI PROGRAMS

Wanted to compare some different AI program results – not all of them of course – but a few using the same image and prompt. No real changes were done tonally after the AI was applied. Borders were added in some cases, but I believe you can see the differences easily.

In all cases the JPG image below (see my Tidbits Blog called Big Bird for info on its post processing) of a Yellow-Billed Stork (the scientific classification is Mycteria Ibis shown on some of the AI images) taken at the Jacksonville Zoo was used. I thought the image would look good with an Audubon effect so this very basic prompt was used except where noted: Create a nature illustrative effect similar to Audubon painting.

Below are two examples of John J. Audubon’s drawing plates (the Great Blue Heron and the Wood Stork or Wood Ibis) from his book Birds of America (can download all book plates from this site). They represent what my results look like to some extent.

ADOBE FIREFLY (done in Photoshop 2026)

The very top blog image was done in Firefly using PS – it took me a lot longer to create than all the others. I won’t go into all of the details on this. Generative Fill using Firefly Model Fill and Expand Model (and it uses only one Adobe credit with three choices each time it is run) was selected with the prompt “Create a nature illustrative effect similar to Audubon painting.” PS would not let me use this prompt that referred specifically to Audubon. The prompt was changed to “Create a nature illustrative effect” using my original image as a reference. This required it to be run 3 times to get a somewhat similar bird and background. Then lots of clean up. It ended up with a really nice overall feel of an Audubon plate.

LEONARDO AI (via DeeVid)

Thought this stork image turned out rather nice. There was a limit of how many iterations you can use for free, but I was able to get a few. The site called DeeVid AI-Leonardo AI Image Generator is pretty easy to use. For this image, it was set to Google’s Model (Gemini 3.1) Nano Banana 2, which Photoshop will let you use (and only one choice is given) for 10 of your credits. (And it better be good unless you have a lot of credits.) I think that is why this one looks pretty nice. Only adjustment made was to the text to fit with my info.

GROK AI

This image created in Grok turned out very different. Used the same Audubon prompt but Grok’s AI engine has the Aurora Model, not like the ones PS or the many other programs appear to be using. Very simple to create – if you use X, just scroll down on the left to Grok and drag your image into the field and add the prompt such as the Audubon prompt.

GOOGLE LABS FLOW AI

This AI program, which requires a Google log-in, can be found at Flow and is using the Banana 2 Model. It was easy to follow and it actually created a similar effect as the left side Great Blue Heron Audubon plate. Had to create a border and add my info is all.

CHAT GPT

The above were all created using the Chat GPT AI free users program which uses it own GPT Image 2 Model. Just drag image into the Ask Anything field and type in your prompt. The results were interesting as the top one used the standard Audubon prompt like the others. Chat GPT was the only program that gave me suggestions on how to make the image better by improving on my initial prompt. The middle image used a more detailed prompt: Transform this photo into a vintage natural-history illustration in the style of an Audubon bird plate, with delicate watercolor textures, botanical details, aged paper background, and realistic engraving-style shading. The bottom image prompt had what Chat GPT called a strong template: Using the attached image, create a detailed 19th-century natural history illustration inspired by Audubon paintings. Preserve the subject anatomy and colors while adding watercolor textures, fine ink linework, botanical surroundings, and an antique paper background. The differences were subtle between the bottom two, but it did give a more Audubon-authentic effect to the image.

So far these are the only AI programs I have explored. Midjourney will not let you even have a trial without paying the monthly fee, which is as much as my Photoshop subscription. But overall the other examples gave a pretty nice representation of what is out there I think. There is a program called Comfy UI which allows you to create your own AI interface, but it has a large learning curve – there are You Tube videos available on it for those who want to create their own AI program.

BTW, this blog idea came from a recent Kelby One class called The AI Mindset by the great photographer Rick Sammon – it is not a “how-to tutorial” but more on how to create effective prompts using various AI software. Creating short videos using just one image is also included in the class, but this is a whole other blog for me!

Hope you get a chance to try some of these programs on your images. It is really not too hard. And if you get a weird result, go back and try again. AI seems to like to present very different results when repeated. Until the next blog…..Digital Lady Syd

ADDING A PATTERN TO AN IMAGE

Above is one of my favorite free images from ISO Republic that I use to try out everything Photoshop. In my E-mail there were some free Chinese New Year textures linked, so I decided it would be fun to see what I could do with the celebration of the Chinese New Year where 2026 is the Year of the Horse. A couple of patterns were added. The reason to use a pattern is there are more things that can be manipulated in the Pattern Fill Dialog Box than with a regular texture (as shown in the background of this image).

To start, the first step was to select the whole guitar player from the his background by creating a duplicate layer (CTRL+J) and then using Select Subject (go to Select -> Subject or press the Select Subject button on the Contextual Task Bar (if Bar not showing up in your Photoshop, can quickly open it by right clicking outside the image and choose the top menu item) and then add a layer mask. If anything looks bad, just use a hard edged brush in the layer mask to clean up problem areas. On another duplicate Background layer only the guitar body was selected – I had a little trouble with this until the Magic (or Tragic to some people) Wand Tool was tried with Contiguous checked in the Options Bar – it worked with just two clicks (hold Shift to add second area)! A layer mask was added showing the two parts of the Guitar Body in white.

Creating a Pattern:

Both the background and the guitar used textures from a DealJumbo set called 6 Free Patterns – Chinese New Year. PS will not open anything except a .PAT file as a pattern, even though lots of people call a texture file a pattern, technically it is not. For the Guitar Body, one of the Chinese New Year JPG files was turned into a pattern files. In PS load the texture file to be converted to a pattern (it can be either a JPG or PNG file). Next open the Patterns Panel (if you do not see it, go to Windows -> Patterns and it pops out as seen below). At the bottom of the panel click the (+) sign icon (middle one) to make the texture file into a pattern – just name it how you want. An alternate way to do this is to go to the Edit -> Define Pattern and name it. The pattern will appear at the bottom of your Pattern Panel list. I made all 6 Chinese New Year texture files into pattern files and put them into a Group (bottom right icon). CTRL+click patterns to choose the ones for the group – then drag them into the Group. It is a really easy way to turn any of your JPGs or PNGs into patterns which can then be easily manipulated in your images. Below is an example of what happens once the (+) sign is pressed.

Using the Pattern Panel:

For the Guitar Body, the Pattern Panel was opened and a pattern in the list is chosen (in this case it was it was the Chinese New Year Pattern 02). Note: The Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer is automatically clipped above the layer that is highlighted in the Layers Panel by default. If no layer mask is present in the layer below, it is still clipped but fills the whole image like a texture.

To open the Pattern Fill Dialog Box which has some pattern options in it, click on the Pattern thumbnail in the Layers Panel. It shows another thumbnail for changing out the pattern, the Angle, and the Scale percent. In the image below you can see the actual pattern was changed in the Pattern Fill Dialog. To position the pattern to fit your area, just drag the pattern in the “image” – only works when the Dialog Box is open. For the top image the Pattern Fill Dialog was set to an Angle of 41.08 degrees and a Scale of 20%. The layer was set to Hard Light blend mode at 51% opacity.

Some Tips: In the example right above, an AI image I created was made into a pattern and placed on the Guitar Body. It was set to an Angle of 45 degrees and Scale of 75%. Sometime a pattern will appear very small when the same settings are used – this is dependent upon the resolution of the pattern file when it was created. Just up the Scale if needed. Another place to change the pattern is at the top of the Patterns Panel where little tiny pattern icons are shown. They indicate the patterns you had previously tried in the current session – to go back to one, just drag it onto the image. The Pattern Fill Dialog settings are sticky and will remain so until you change them.

Adding a Pattern in a Layer Style: Another option for adding a pattern to your image is to highlight the Layer with the layer mask and double click the layer (not thumbnail) to open up the large Layer Style dialog. Check Pattern Overlay to open up its dialog. In drop down, select the pattern to add to your image. Below is an example of how this looks.

Note if a Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer had been created and clipped to the image and then you change to a different pattern in the Layer Style Pattern Overlay, you will no longer be able to see the original pattern in the Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer when the Layer Style Dialog is closed. For the cool Guitar Body above, check out DealJumbo’s Free Pirate Patterns (#140 was used below) which are really JPG textures. DealJumbo has lots of free different “patterns” that can be turned into PS PAT files as shown in this blog, so check them out. The cool thing about applying a pattern in the Layer Styles Dialog is that there are all kinds of special effects that can added to it to make some really interesting results!

For the original top image, the final Guitar Body was created by adding a clipped (to clip, press the first icon at bottom of adjustment layer) yellow to orange Gradient Map on top of the pattern layer set to Soft Light blend mode at 28% opacity, and a clipped Selective Color Adjustment Layer set to Neutrals with Black set to +23. Also the Chinese New Year pattern 1 was place in the center black area of the guitar and set to a tiny Scale of just 5% and an Angle of 45.68. A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was clipped above it to make it a darkish blue color.

Finishing Up:

THE BACK GROUND TEXTURE: The Background texture used Chinese New Year 4 as a JPG and was inserted under the duplicate layer with the guitar player selected. The color of the original image was changed by clipping to the Background Layer (double click to unlock to do this) a Solid Fill Color Adjustment Layer of dark brown to remove the overall dark blue. Then the Chinese Texture layer was set to Linear Burn blending mode with Fill set to 55%. The Layer Style was opened and the Blend If Current Layer’s white tab was split and set to 160/217 – to open up the light color in the texture a little bit.

COLOR OF CLOTHES: This was not as hard as it seems. Used the Quick Selection Brush to select his jacket for one layer, his shirt for another, and his pants for the last. Any selection tool could be used for this. Each layer was set to the Color blend mode and with Kyle T. Webster’s Oily Goodness from his Summer 2023 pack, the selections were painted in with colors in the brown and black tones instead of the blues. To access Kyle’s extra brushes, go to the Brushes Panel (Windows -> Brushes) and in the top right hamburger pop out, select Get More Brushes – should be logged in if using PS so scroll way down to the Summer 2023 Brushes and download. There are gobs of brushes to try in all these sets so have some fun trying them out!

FOG, FLARES, HORSES & FONTS: Then a fog layer using one from Resource Boy 200 Free Fog Textures (used #200) was added to darken the bottom and top and add light in the middle – set to Overlay blend mode at 36%. A Flare (Kyle Nelson’s Flare 15 – can’t seem to locate it but there are a lot of flares available) was added to darken the hand just a small amount – set to Multiply blend mode at 33% opacity. Last step was creating a rough drawing of the horse using a textured erodible brush that comes with Photoshop and a couple reference photos. The text is Avene font with an Outer Glow Layer Style.

Lots went into the varying results on this image but it was fun trying out different things. Enjoyed drawing the horse especially! Have a good week!….Digital Lady Syd

DIGITAL LADY SYD REFERENCE BLOGS

How to Use a Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer

SHARPENING WITH SURFACE BLUR

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope it is starting off great! This little dove ornament above is enjoying one of her last days of freedom before December comes again. (BTW, got this pretty little ornament at Walmart for $1.85 (could not find link) this year and the Red Berries also.) Had some fun playing with the lighting on this one. Christmas Tree lights always give such nice effects.

Most of the time using the new AI Lightroom/ACR Denoise slider and, in my case, with an older version of Topaz’s Sharpen AI (that still works incredibly well) is all that is needed if a sharper image is needed. In the case above the image was taken close in using a 170 mm lens at F5.6 with ISO 400. Everything was in sharp focus except for the two red berried that were in front of the bird. I did add a preset on this image, which I do not do very often, FD Painting 1 from Frank Doorhof’s LR set at KelbyOne, and did the standard things in LR such as add a Profile (one of my camera profiles), turned on Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Corrections, and turned off Sharpening before running Denoise in the Detail Panel. A mask was created using the Brush to try to sharpen the berries with several sliders but it did not work really great. I mention this since to show it is not always a lost cause if taken into PS.

In PS Topaz Sharpen AI was used to sharpen up the overall image as it had a slight motion blur on it (when using this plugin, do not use Sharpening in LR or ACR). A layer was added to try and paint in some sharpness to the berries which did not work out. This is where Surface Blur was used.

Surface Blur Technique: Learned from watching the Photoshop Virtual Summit 7 in November in a presentation by Daniel Gregory – his presentations are always loaded down with great info! It uses a blurring technique to make things sharper. The following are Daniel’s steps for doing this:

1. Duplicate your image.
2. Go to Filter -> Blur -> Surface Blur. As a general rule of thumb, set the Radius within 10% of your Megapixel Size of your camera and Threshold between 10 to 15%. For example he used 50 for the Radius and 40 for his Threshold.
3. Next invert the Surface Blur layer by clicking on its thumbnail and press CTRL+I. This is the trick for converting this filter into a Sharpening Tool.
4. Set this layer to Vivid Light blend mode in the Layers Panel. This results in a solarized look on the layer.
5. Create a stamped layer on top (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and turn off the eyeball to the Vivid Light layer.
6. Change top stamped layer to Overlay blend mode. If Soft Light blend mode is used, it can add a little more punch into the highlights.
7. Adjust the Layer opacity down – usually around 50% good. In my case it was left at 100%.
8. Can also use a Mask on it or duplicate the layer if needed.

What happened with my dove image is that the sparkles became very sharp and more sparkly on its body which looked great, but the berries really did not pop as hoped.

Sharpen Tool: So as a last resort, I turned to a very old PS tool – the Sharpen Tool. This Tool is given a pretty bum wrap by PS gurus, but overall it is not that bad for quick little areas that need sharpening. Just do not paint over it too much or at too high a Strength setting. Not sure if it is necessary, but I created another stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and a New Layer added above it for the Sharpen Tool. It is nested with the Blur Tool in the Toolbar. Used a soft round 90 px brush and in the Options Bar set the Mode to Normal, Strength 35%, and checked Sample All Layers and Protect Detail. The red berries were painted over and it did sharpen the outside edges and some of the little highlights inside the berries – just enough to make them blend into the image better. BTW, I did try the High Pass Sharpen technique on the bird, but it was not quite as good. This image is definitely a case for trying out a new technique – it did improve the image very subtly.

The above was just another example – had fun with photographing the lighting here also. Used the Surface Blur after Topaz Sharpen and it also added just a bit more detail, especially in the highliglhts. It is a nice tool to have as an extra when the Sharpening is just not quite enough, and no AI involved. Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year!…..Digital Lady Syd

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas – hope the holidays are wonderful for everyone! I decided to get a little creative here and make my beautiful white water lily into a candy can effect for the season. No major AI here other than for a little sharpening using an older version of Topaz Sharpen AI (so far it is doing just fine) and the Remove Tool. I am enjoying using the updated Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer which made converting the selected flower to a red one very easy (Checked the Colorize box and picked a deep red for the color). How did I get the candy cane effect? Chose the Red Blend If channel and the Underlying Layer – then split the white tab by holding ALT and set it to 201/247. That simple! Turned the lily pads to green using a Selective Color Adjustment Layer and just the Neutrals color (-20/-53/+15). The snow effect on the flower and pads were from a really fun brush set by Maddy B – All Winter Frost Brushes. Used BB Ice Texture (no longer available but there are lots of newer one available on the internet) for the background set to Lighter Color and 47% layer opacity. This time the Current Layer Blend If Black tab was split and set to 241/255 to give a nice clear ice look. Basically just played with all the brushes. Added Distressed Textures free Holiday frame (don’t think it is available anymore). Last step was adding the text – the Merry Christmas text is called Bellisa Script – it has a lot of glyphs that can be substituted in the font. That was about it. I really love doing Christmas Card images! Enjoy the season!…..Digital Lady Syd

REMOVE FENCES WITH BETA PHOTOSHOP NANO BANANA AND FLEX AI MODELS EASILY

Not one to promote the Beta AI features but they recently put new AI Models in Photoshop. I want to show what it does on chain link fencing, mainly the kind in front of the animals at zoos, with just a few clicks. I will cover other new things later as I learn more, but this sort of blew me away! You can download the Beta Version at your Adobe Creative Cloud page if you have regular Photoshop installed.

All three images had various distortions caused by the chain link fencing as shown in the thumbnail images below. I tried to select the image that had the best detail in Lightroom. Lightroom’s Basic Panel’s Auto button, Detail’s Denoise, and Lens Corrections’ Panel’s Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Corrections check boxes were used on the Bird and Monkey images, and a few other adjustments were made. The Tiger was manually adjusted in the Basic Panel. Then all were taken into Photoshop Beta to do the cropping and remove the fencing.

To remove the fencing as on the top Black Howler Monkey (taken at the Jacksonville Zoo), do the following:

• Select the whole image by pressing CTRL+A.
• Go in the Contextual Task Bar’s Generative Fill field, use prompt “Remove the fence.”
• Select icon that is one over showing either an Fi or G, or possibly a Triangle icon – if clicked there is a drop-down that lists the model styles which represent Adobe Firefly, Google’s Gemini 2.5, or Flux Kontext Pro (used on Tiger image below). Select the G for the Gemini 2.5 AI which is the Nano Banana Google model, and then press Generate. BTW, each model gives different results and if one Model does not work out correctly after trying it a couple times, choose a different one.
• In the Layers Panel, a new layer shows the variation (a single one for Gemini 2.5 or Flux models) it created of your selection and in the case of all these images, removing the fencing.

No clean up was needed on the Monkey or Bird images. The Tiger fur needed to be adjusted a little bit. The only other thing done to the Monkey was to use the new Beta Color and Vibrance Adjustment Layer to brighten it up a bit and an Exposure Adjustment Layer to sharpen the eyes a little. This was totally amazing and took probably less than 10 minutes to do the whole image.

For the Sandhill Crane the above steps were followed and the fence was perfectly removed. To soften the background, it was selected. An Invert Adjustment Layer was set to Linear Light blend mode and a Fill of 18%. Learned this from PS Guru Blake Rudis’s YouTube Video Day 12 – See You on the Other Side. Very nice soft background effect. Tried selecting the Bird’s eye to sharpen by running it through Nano Banana and it did nothing even though it did work on another of my monkey images. So do try using it on the eyes for some brightening. I resorted to using the Exposure Adjustment Layer on this Bird’s eye. The Beta Color and Vibrance Adjustment Layer was also applied to this image – I really like this new effect. A Selective Color Adjustment Layer increased the Reds a little and added in Whites using the Black slider to enhance the head and a slight vignette was added. That was it.

This Malayan Tiger (at the Palm Beach Zoo) was the hardest one to do since where his paw and face meet are hard to differentiate. In this image, Nano Banana did not remove the chain fencing which was quite light and blurry in the image. Therefore the Flux Kontext Pro was selected and it took it all out and added just the right amount of fur! It was also amazing! Finished up in PS using the Blur Gallery’s Iris Blur to reduce the really detailed and overly sharp background. Had to clean up his paw some after blurring the background with a little fur brush. Lastly a slight vignette effect was applied. That was it!

Here are a couple current references for this new AI advancement: 27 (Beta)What Nano Banana Can Do in Photoshop Will Blow Your Mind! by Jesus Rodriguez and Nano Banana Officially in Photoshop (Beta) – 50+ Epic Uses by Unmesh Dinda.

Definitely give this a try, especially if you had wildlife images that were ruined by the fencing. Hopefully they will put this in the 2026 version of Photoshop. Apparently there will be a charge for using it after October 31st so now is a good time to see if you like it. I will try to add some other new things later as I learn how to use them effectively! ….. Digital Lady Syd

DIGITAL LADY SYD RELATED BLOGS (older blogs with some good shooting and quick tips:

How to Get Rid of Those Dark Fences in Zoo Shots

Photoshop Beta AI with Fenced Zoo Images