Something that I came up with when messing around with some bricks. The slopes create a perfectly flat surface (except for that ugly indentation), perfect for some crazy SNOT. I'll try to incorporate this into some of my builds and challenge you to do so as well.

I don't know if I'm the first to produce this, but if I am, feel free to use it. If I'm not, give credit to whoever made this brilliant technique.

In portrait and glamour photography, skin retouching is as important as anything we do. I have shot exactly ONE model with perfect skin and she was 6 years old! I’m not a big fan of the super-smooth look. While it’s certainly trendy, to my eye it can often look over-processed and a little plastic-y. So except for highly-stylized images (like vintage pinups), I try to retouch wrinkles, blemishes and other imperfections while preserving realistic skin textures. That’s hard, and so I’m always looking for new ways to improve my technique. I’ve been using a process I adapted from the Lee Varis book “Skin” for a while. I recently stumbled across a new technique shared by pro photographer Joel Grimes and wanted to give it a try.

I decided to compare techniques on a somewhat challenging retouching job. This is a detail from an image where I used directional lighting to emphasize the model's sensual pose and lingerie. Unfortunately, this kind of lighting accentuates any imperfections in the model’s skin and needed careful retouching.

Both techniques start out the same way, smoothing out major imperfections with a clone stamp. I always begin with a small brush at high opacity and gradually increase the brush size while decreasing opacity. [2011 update: i now use a combination of the clone and patch tools. and, with CS5, the spot healing brush seems to be turning out acceptable results on small blemishes, stray hairs, etc] In the middle image, I then used a fairly generous surface blur on a masked duplicate layer and adjusted opacity til I got a nice balance of smoothing and texture. In the third image, I tried the Grimes’ technique. Instead of the surface blur I used a median filter layer for smoothing, a high pass layer for texture, and a masking layer to isolate the adjustments. Again, tweaking opacity of the various layers til I got a combination i liked. [2011 update: I now typically start with 60% opacity for the high pass layer and 30% on the median layer and adjust from there]

Both techniques yielded good results. Here, I slightly prefer the surface blur treatment which I think is a little more subtle and fits the image better (feel free to disagree). The Grimes method produces some interesting specular highlights – sort of a subtle glittery effect. This was my first experiment with the Grimes technique and I plan to use it more. I think I'm gonna love the look with higher key glamour lighting, especially on lighter skin tones, and look forward to giving it another test drive.

Here you can see this detail larger

And here’s the full, finished image (filtered moderate because flickr has me a little neurotic about such things).

Here is a new set of LEGO ideas and techniques, made with LDD

I'm sure you'll find a use to this idea

I tried to make the explanation readable thanks to the colors as if we had a tutorial

Do not forget to watch the album with all the right techniques on your right =>

Find all my creations on Flickr group « News LEGO Techniques ».

This Flickr group includes:

- Ideas for new LEGO pieces

- Techniques for assembling bricks

- Tutorials for making accessories, objects, etc.

circa 2006

This set of beads features an array of patterns made using my Cutting Edge Peeler techniques. I peeled lots of slices from different slabs I'd built and altered. Then I used handmade templates to cut and piece the patterns together, sealing the seams with burnishing to create more complex composite veneers.

The beads were constructed using my Draped Bead and Sponge Bezel techniques. Draping gives each bead its subtle sloped surface (a nice way to highlight the shifting mica). Sponge Bezelling gives each veneer a nice outlining frame, and that frame continues seamlessly to form the back of the bead. You can see other beads made with these Drape and Bezel techniques in some of my finished pieces: Matrix Necklace, Red Necklace, and Botanical Necklace.

Together here for this image, but then sold during a few international teaching tours, these beads are now scattered all over the world... Do you have one? Which one?

photo by Robert Diamante

I decided to play around with drops and strobes today, so I prepared by going to the University of Youtube, and watched a wonderful tutorial by Gavin Hoey. This is watered down blue acrylic paint that has been expelled from an eye dropper and dropped on a piece of white lucite board. Here is the link to that video, if you'd like to see it done properly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAM9H8uSN-A

Strobist Info: There's a setup taken in my garage below in the comments. I propped a white piece of board behind the board the paint was dropping on to and pointed a bare YNN560 from camera left and a bare YN560-II camera right at that board so that the light on the drop was bounced off of that board and illuminated the drop. I ran a bar over the board with an eye dropper duct taped to it and squeezed that to start the drop on its way to the board. I then pressed a remote trigger to fire the camera and the flash. I took over 100 pictures and got maybe 4 useable images. I had intended to use a laser trigger to fire the flash when the drop passed thought the beam, but I couldn't make it work. Probably pilot error. I'll try again. The strobes were in manual mode at 1/32 power and were triggered by a Yongnuo RF-603N. If I practice more and get my laser trigger to work, I think I can do much better.

I've played around with drops and emulsion before, using different techniques, and those pictures are in my Drops/Bubbles set. www.flickr.com/photos/9422878@N08/sets/72157625432239555/

Thorpe bay hour

I discovered the secret to the gavel. It's got some odd dimensions but like everything else it conforms to the LEGO system grid. very nicely. See my writeup at www.dagsbricks.com/2013/11/lego-techniques-bring-down-gav...

digging into duff,or loose dirt...often used when flipping leaf litter .

Varied Thrush VATH (Ixoreus naevius)

young female with very little sign of a breast bar

West Saanich Road

Brentwood Bay BC

DSCN4085 vath used

These guys are one of my all time favorites.

Typically shy and retiring - but snow conditions bring them out to forage with more boldness.

On this day as i had a bobcat buddy do snow removal ...he also pushed around a wood chip pile and secoundary access road...much to the delight of a few VATH and a single robin.

They were obviously getting some food items ...and were more vocal than normal...the VATH females squabbling and being somewhat territorial over this new & comparative bonanza of a food foraging area.

Taken on February 12, 2019

*Oddly enough i didn't think i would end up able to feature this species as much as i have. Many years i mkay not run across them that much at all.

A suggestion for Jakub Marcisz aka Kuba The Builder/syzygy87

自拍術

didn't fit into what it was supposed to, but I liked it well enough to snap some pics anyway...

The Witches Tower build techniques. When I make these large builds I usually try to come up with a technique I haven’t seen before or try something I haven’t done before. It helps make these projects more interesting to build and makes bulk ordering parts a lot simpler.

This build I wanted to try messing around with flex tube to get the correct spacing I wanted for the bricks. I did try mixel ball joints and hinges but I quickly realised the price would get expensive quick. Flex tube just ended up being the simpler option and gave me a lot of options to attach things to.

The technique I use for the framing in the rock has been used in all my show displays. It is the best solution I have come up with to help make elevated terrain. It is very strong and light for transport. Its also quick to build and easy to change if need be.

A simple alien build that resulted from testing out some mecha building techniques.

quickcard107 - Love the theme and all the great technique by Cat. I tried to include all three technique in my card, I stamped one of the stamp from the CL383 - Stencil Art stamp set on yellow card base with Mustered Seed Distress ink for tone on tone look. This Butterfly by Hero Arts is my all time favorite stamp and I gold embossed it and then used some watercolors to color it and added some pearls by Hero Arts to finish my card. Thank you Cat for the fun Scramble.

Thank you. :-)

I am probably covering old ground here but will work on the premise that you can't have too many examples. The aim was to prepare a Scania 143M to receive a range of - then undecided - new liveries. I was fortunate in obtaining a suitable base image (1) from regular contributor Martin Vonk.

The first task was to remove the existing livery to create an undecorated version in a single plain colour (2). I won't go through this step-by-step; suffice to say that all the dark grey parts sit together on a new layer above the original image. Whilst doing this work, I took the opportunity to remove the chrome smoke stack.

I also created an additional layer in light grey (3), in part to test how responsive the image would be to colour changes. It proved difficult to subdue the metallic finish of the original and the result is actually a metallic silver-grey. Whilst attractive in its own right, this would prove problematic for liveries with lighter colours - except, of course, for those with a silver base.

For the WH Malcolm draft (4), each of the four colours - dark blue, light blue, red and while - was created on a separate layer using the more appropriate of the two grey layers. The lettering and logos were copied from previous images. It was only when I thought I'd finished that I noticed the base image is left-hand drive - but that's another story, which I will recount when publishing the finished version (14-Feb-16).

All rights reserved. Follow the link below for terms and conditions, additional information about my work; and to request work from me:

www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7...

Nezashi takara

Ōsaka :Shibukawa Kiyoemon,Enkyō 2 [1745]

biodiversitylibrary.org/page/60936551

Life continues to move on and I am now sixty…how did I get there so fast?…the reality is I have! I moved into my sixth decade of life earlier this year and it has given me a renewed outlook on my cross-dressing. I do have regrets in my life, the biggest being my self imposed suppression of my transgender self. Why did I hold back? The answer is I was not brave enough. I feared the reaction of others, I feared losing my family life and I feared losing my income. I just caved in and tried to ignore it.

Well, back in the year 2000, 19 tears ago, at the age of forty one I began to cross-dress as a woman. I could no longer suppress my inner desire to appear as a woman. It caused a lot of upset with my family and though I am now fortunate enough to engage in cross0dressing, it is a compromise in regard to the opportunities I have. My family tolerate it but my moments as my female alter-ego are rare. I have no wish to jeopardise my family life and work so I accepted the limited opportunities. I do adore becoming Helene and though it is rare it is always an amazing and rather emotional experience.

Now I am older and less hung up about my cross-dressing I find myself being more confident and at ease with it and having more fun when I do dress up as a woman. Last night I had a sudden opportunity to become Helene again ad I totally went for it. i was somewhat tired and not quite as focused as I would have liked, not to mention very much out of practice, but I intended to enjoy my time en femme.

Having emerged from the bath with freshly shaved, legs, chest and arms I enjoyed plucking my eyebrows into a better shape and excitedly sat down to start putting on my make-up. Part of my excitement was a new piece of equipment I purchased in December purely for my make-up application. I’m sure many of us struggle with getting a real world foundation coverage because of our beard shadows. The dreaded beard shadow , even after a super close shave, can feel smooth but the skin is bumpy due to the underlying hair follicles and this also leaves a visible shadow (unless you are fortunate enough to have light hair colour).

I usually employ all the techniques to neutralise the beard shadow cover then several layers of heavy foundation and can usually get a successful coverage result but it is rather heavy looking compared to real women. I had been looking into trying to get smoother coverage but without the thick layer result. On my male face after decades of shaving I could never get the look I hoped for ski coverage on my face.

I have new aspirations to spend more time out in the real world as a woman. I do love make-up and enjoy wearing it but to be amongst women and men in public in daylight had me wanting nice smooth makeup coverage that successfully disguised my shadows but did not look like a heavy coating on my face. As I say, I love wearing make-up and when I cross-dress in private I have no issue with wearing heavy coatings of foundation at all. For the real world though, I realised I need to up my game if I was to be perceived as a female when out and about.

This led me to look at applying foundation using an airbrush with a small air compressor. The look and finish from foundation applied with an airbrush is very good. I bought a kit and some silicone foundation for use with the airbrush and I have been biding my time to give it a go.

Last night was my chance. I set it all p, watched the manufacturers tutorials and set about spraying the foundation onto my face. It is a very different feel to the traditional method of applying foundation. It is a far more subtle approach. as you gradually build up the coverage using a light misted spray and moving in small circular motions.

I had to laugh when I began as I soon realised this required a degree of practice and my initial spraying efforts were somewhat inept. I was getting the hang of it but I definitely need a lot more practice and..patience! You cannot rush it. I think once one gets competent with it it is possible to apply the foundation considerably faster than my first effort.

Despite my poor technique I was amazed by the coverage, your skin looks amazing! It’s like a flexible, durable, long lasting coverage but none of the thick make up appearance. My skin is unavoidably bumpy around my upper lip, cheeks, chin and neck area but this cover was unlike any previous efforts and the realisation that this was going to work for real world trips in public made me dizzy with excitement. Even on m y sixty year old skin it was as smooth as I was ever going to look.

I bought the Airbase HD kit, which is bigger than I expected. In hindsight I may have been better with the compressor and airbrush alone. The HD kit comes in a se with a lighted mirror. There are alternative kits from other manufacturers such as DInair and Luminess.

If you are serious about trying to look female and avoiding the heavy coverage look during the day then I can recommend using airbrush foundation application. I will admit I have decided to book myself onto a one day training course in the late Spring in order to learn how to use it well. As I am obsessed with trying to look as female as I possibly can I think the cost of the training is a god personal investment as was purchasing the airbrush kit.

I took a lot of selfies last night and one accompanies this narrative. It was rather fabulous to be appearing as a woman once more :-)

Photography merged with realistic digital illustration. Photograph taken by me.

My mother used to tell me when I was a child during meals: nothing is thrown away.

As a semi-professional photographer I have a fairly large bank of images of my own, and since I have been exploring in depth the field of graphic illustration of nature, in which at the moment I represent isolated subjects, I have been curious about how complicated it would be to merge both techniques to create a final image that shows what I'm looking for.

This is one of those tests, based on a photograph taken of an aspen in autumn, in which I could fit almost perfectly an illustration I had made of a cape sugarbird.

To begin with, I wanted to break the strong contrast between the appearance of a photograph and an illustration, no matter how realistic it may be, so I applied one of my recipes to give a painterly touch to some of my photographs. Once this is done, I trace the drawing on the stage, taking care of the scales of course. After this I begin the digital painting, taking care that the tonal values fit and of course, that the light is coherent.

I know that in this case, which was a study, the specific species may not fit in this scene. Sorry to the biologists ;)

The process could be seen a little in the next image.

I hope you like!

Full tutorial on Instagram:

www.instagram.com/p/DEdBAQSo9N0/?igsh=MWw1MTd4cWN2ZGZmYQ==

For your very own art deco skyscraper.

A combination of traditional and digital art techniques.

Here is a new set of LEGO ideas and techniques, made with LDD

I'm sure you'll find a use to this idea

I tried to make the explanation readable thanks to the colors as if we had a tutorial

Do not forget to watch the album with all the right techniques on your right =>

Find all my creations on Flickr group « News LEGO Techniques ».

This Flickr group includes:

- Ideas for new LEGO pieces

- Techniques for assembling bricks

- Tutorials for making accessories, objects, etc.

Polymer clay necklace, diferent kinds of techniques

No clue what the yellow piece was when I picked it up in a bulk bin. Turns out to be pretty handy! www.dagsbricks.com/2016/01/lego-techniques-rhotuka.html

Don't ask me what it is. I don't know :P

"7 Days of Shooting" "Week #33 - Lines and Curves" "Technique Tuesday" ICM (Intentional Camera Movement)

Since I uploaded this image in January, I have rotated it 90 degrees CCW and flipped it vertically. I like the lines more moving upwards horizontally. (You can see both versions in my Un-still images set.)

Taken at The Regency, Laguna Woods, California. © 2014 All Rights Reserved.

My images are not to be used, copied, edited, or blogged without my explicit permission.

Please!! NO Glittery Awards or Large Graphics...Buddy Icons are OK. Thank You!

one of my contacts talked about this technique - and I'd been meaning to try it. It's very simple - you fill a glass pan with a half inch of water, then pour in some cooking oil. Just a bit. Lay something colorful on the ground (a Hawaiian shirt in this case) and put the pan on top of it. You need to put something between the pan and the cloth to lift the pan up a bit. I used a few drinking cups.

Then shoot. I think the original instructions said someone used a telephoto, but I wound up using my extension tubes and getting very close.

(79.)

we've all seen or done the 1 plate offset for colored slopes... but what about the half plate.

jean-boccacino.tumblr.com/

techniques mixtes sur bois

100x100cm

circa 1995

Josh Adamski Technique

Technically overexposed, but I like the mood...

Techniquement surexposée, mais j'aime l'ambiance...

Liege, Belgium

Here is a new set of LEGO ideas and techniques, made with LDD

I'm sure you'll find a use to this idea

I tried to make the explanation readable thanks to the colors as if we had a tutorial

Do not forget to watch the album with all the right techniques on your right =>

Find all my creations on Flickr group « News LEGO Techniques ».

This Flickr group includes:

- Ideas for new LEGO pieces

- Techniques for assembling bricks

- Tutorials for making accessories, objects, etc.

Here is a new set of LEGO ideas and techniques, made with LDD

I'm sure you'll find a use to this idea

I tried to make the explanation readable thanks to the colors as if we had a tutorial

Do not forget to watch the album with all the right techniques on your right =>

Find all my creations on Flickr group « News LEGO Techniques ».

This Flickr group includes:

- Ideas for new LEGO pieces

- Techniques for assembling bricks

- Tutorials for making accessories, objects, etc.

when i'm reaching around a tripod, that is. I'm actually doing a k10, p1 here so i say "knit" and then "purl" a few times :)

i'm trying to upload a video I also shot of me knitting English, which is the way I used to knit, but it's taking forever.

I saw Slnine's vent technique the other day, and I thought up a very similar one, which takes up less space but looks nowhere near as good. I hope you can understand it from the pic. Feel free to replace the headlight bricks with 1x1 Technic bricks when building in real life. The ones on the top though allow for a plate to be put on, which will line up perfectly with the plates on the bottom.

(I think it looks more like a zip fastener than something on a LEGO vehicle, hence the title.)

Heres what I do:

1. Use an x-acto knife and turn the polaroid face down and cut around the edges of the negative (the black part on the back)

2. Pull the two pieces apart and save the negative for later to be taped back on.

3. Use watercolors on top of the chemicals on the positive side (the back of the photo where it looks pastel) and apply a heavy layer; they almost instantly blead through and "stain" the image.

4. When you reach your accomplished look just clean off the excess paint and then re-attach the back and tape all 4 sides.

That's it! youre done :)

Sidenotes:

When you pull the two pieces apart sometimes you get areas where there is more emulsion than in other parts so these areas will need to have thicker watercolor applied and may need more time to sink in.

I hope all of this makes sense; its kind of like painting backwards

:)

Just play around with trying new things and have fun!

Black Card Technique. No HDR.

Find higher resolution images like these and others at my official website - many available as showcase prints:

Official Website | My Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Design Portfolio

Réseau des Pharaons - Caussols

Technique: I spotted this tiny beetle foraging for pollen on a Strawberry flower and looked for an angle that would make the most of what little depth of field I had. I held on to the stem with my left hand and then rested the lens on that same hand to help keep the scene steady.

Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/250, ISO 200 with highlight tone priority) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (around 3x) + a diffused MT-24EX (both flash heads on the Canon flash mount, E-TTL metering with -1 2/3 FEC). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held.

Oil on canvas; 95.9 x 60 cm.

Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish, expressionist painter from Belarus. He has been interpreted as a forerunner of Abstract Expressionism. From 1910–1913 he studied in Vilnius at the Vilna Academy of Fine Arts. In 1913 he emigrated to Paris, where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Fernand Cormon. He soon developed a highly personal vision and painting technique. For a time, he and his friends lived at La Ruche, a residence for struggling artists in Montparnasse, where he became friends with Amedeo Modigliani. Modigliani painted Soutine's portrait several times.

In 1923, the American collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes visited his studio and immediately bought 60 of Soutine's paintings. In February 2006, the oil painting of the series 'Le Boeuf Ecorche' (1924) sold for a record £7.8 million ($13.8 million) to an anonymous buyer at a Christies auction held in London - after it was estimated to fetch £4.8 million.

Soutine produced the majority of his works from 1920 to 1929. He seldom showed his works, but he did take part in the important exhibition The Origins and Development of International Independent Art held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in 1937 in Paris, where he was at last hailed as a great painter. Soon thereafter France was invaded by German troops. As a Jew, Soutine had to escape from the French capital and hide in order to avoid arrest by the Gestapo. He moved from one place to another and was sometimes forced to seek shelter in forests, sleeping outdoors. Suffering from a stomach ulcer and bleeding badly, he left a safe hiding place for Paris in order to undergo emergency surgery, which failed to save his life. On August 9, 1943, Chaim Soutine died of a perforated ulcer.

A example of bright field technique from Light Science and Magic but I want to experiment with alternative light source, so instead of standard strobe, I use LED.

strobist info : 1 white LED to paint the background's glowing halo. The glass is on clear acrylic and black cardboard.

My first attempt at the awesome Brenizer technique so, named after its inventor Ryan Brenizer. This look like an ordinary image? Well, it isn't. This is actually a composite of 11 images shot at f/1.6

I later realized that i'd screwed up slightly on the focal planes somewhere while shooting the 11 images. Hence the mismatched ridges on the bridge.

Read more about the Brenizer Technique here..

blog.buiphotography.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-expla...