Please read this first before you watch the video. It will give you a better understanding as to how I came up with this design and how I recreated the original photo.

I read this great article about Color vs Light and it made me think about us Artisans.  How we can see color and light in our minds and recreate them on a surface.  But there are times when we get stumped, I know I do.  So what do you do when you find a picture that you really like, but the colors are all off and the lighting is not that great? 

Many times we know what we want, but dont see it in our mind. So we are searching for this inspiration only to not find it right away. This is what happened to me when I first found the image of Orphan.  I did the hunt on Pexels, I clicked on an image I liked, but it wasnt quite the one I wanted.  So I clicked on the designers name.  I searched through her AMAZING work and then there it was!  Orphan is not the name of the piece, but it’s what I decided to name it as it fit every thing in my little brain!

So, I downloaded the image.  Its a bit bland in color but I knew what I wanted to do with it as soon as I saw it.  I am a HUGE fan of Photoshop, and TOPAZ LABS.  Topaz is a company that makes these awesome plug-in’s.  They are not cheap, but you can get them on sale from time to time.  If you are a photoshop fan like me, this would be the best place to get some super amazing plug-ins. Topaz ReStyle is the plug in I used to create all these variations.  I thought it would be great to show you an example of how I use it so I created this video for you.  The beauty of this plug-in is it is totally adjustable to your likings.  You dont need to stick with the style the way it is, make your own adjustments and save it for future use.

As you see, the image went from bland to FANTASTIC.  You can adjust the lighting, the colors and even the texture if you want to add a texture to it.

So the bland photo was a bit dark for me.  It also lacked color.  I went through many of the different styles until I found one that looked great!  I proceeded to make 5 different color/light combinations to pick from.

PS, as I was writing this article, I learned that Topaz Labs does not openly show Topaz Restyle to purchase. It was a challenge for me to locate the plugin.  SO I had to search for it on Google and found it.  So if you go directly to the website,  they only show their newer AI versions of the plugins, not any of the older ones.  But they are still there, you just have to hunt for them a little..  🙂