Hopeful Heart

Hard Times

Digital Background Swap

Thanks to the generosity of some wonderful artists on the AMStamps Yahoo group, I've had amazing backgrounds to use in Photoshop practice sessions. Some members of the group are "swapping" digital backgrounds and playing with them in Photoshop. I got my first version of Photoshop Elements a few weeks ago and started weekly tutoring at the same time. The background swap has motivated me to practice what I'm learning in my tutoring. Here are a few samples of what I've done so far. I'm still very much a novice at this, which speaks to the versatility of this software.

This first one is thanks to Zeborah Loray who created a beautiful encaustic wax background. I used a coneflower center for my contribution to the piece. Because I'm not so skillful with the software yet, I couldn't get my coneflower creation to match the colors of Zeb's background, so I changed the hues and saturation to match the coneflower.



This one is also Zeb's encaustic wax background, but in it's original color. With more practice, I was able to create a foreground that worked with her colors.



This image started with an inspiring Memory Mist background created by Pauline Palmer. I manipulated a photograph of a butterfly taken last summer in my garden. I removed all the color from the wings and turned it into a stamp.



This one is a very nice marbled background created by Phyllis J. I used one of my original doodles and transformed the colors to match those of the background.



Here is a creative background by Adrienne Goodenough using citrasolve on a page from National Geographic. I added a manipulated canna lily from my garden and an original drawing on which I changed the colors to match Adrienne's background.



And finally, another background from Adrienne which I manipulated without adding anything of my own.

This is more fun that I could have imagined. I'm hoping to create a project from every background that is posted. It's a great way to do my homework!