If it’s in a photograph, is it really there?

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Red Tree in Central Park

Red Tree super-imposed over the Central Park West cityscape

Did you ever wish you could make up your own landscape? Painters do it all the time. They might take some mountains from one place and a lake from somewhere else and paint them together to create their own Shangri-La. I used to paint — back when computers were practically non-existent and I was a budding artist at the High School of Music & Art in NYC in the early 70’s.  I painted landscapes in oil on canvas. I was ok, but not destined for greatness as a fine artist so I traded in my paint brushes for a career in graphic design. It’s a way to earn a living, while still being creative, but sometimes I still get the itch to create just for myself.

Now with a digital camera and Adobe PhotoShop CS4, I can once again use my imagination to create new landscapes (and seascapes for that matter) right on my computer. I can add my own touch to nature!

How do I do this? I use the layers palette  in PhotoShop CS4 to combine the two photographs that were used to make up the finished image above. Each photo gets its own layer. The photo with the red tree is on the base layer and the buildings on Central Park West are on a layer above. I then add a layer mask to “reveal all” to the buildings layer. Now, making sure that I have the layer mask selected on the layers palette, I use the paintbrush to brush away the parts of the buildings photo that I don’t want. I adjust the opacity of that layer to give the photo a more distant look and making the red tree layer pop more. By using layer masks instead of the eraser tool to get rid of unwanted parts of an image,  my original images are untouched so that if I need to go back and add parts back in I can. When I get the composition the way I want it, and after I have saved the PSD file, I then flatten the final image and save as a tiff, a png or jpg file and I am done.

The above image is available for purchase at my Dive Art & More gallery

Below are the two original images that I used:

Red Tree in Central Park- original photograph

Photograph of a red-leafed tree in autumn

Buildings along Central Park West

Central Park West with the Central Park Lake in the foreground

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About Sheryl Checkman

Sheryl Checkman is an award-winning designer with more than 25 years' experience in applying innovative yet pragmatic solutions to the full range of communications and design challenges. Before opening Checkman Design, Sheryl was Vice President & Manager, Design Services, for the public relations agency Burson-Marsteller from 1981-1992. Prior to that she was an Art Director at the The Barton Gillet Company, a marketing communications firm. Sheryl graduated from Cornell University and attended a Masters program in Communications Design at Pratt Institute as well as a three-month design program at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York City. Sheryl is an avid skier and scuba diver. She swims, plays tennis, practices yoga and enjoys taking pictures, both above and below the water. She adds her creative signature to her photographs by creating Digital Fine Art which she currently exhibits in her online gallery. She recently launched a line of inspirational sports-themed T-shirts under the name Life is Balance®. In addition to her design work, Sheryl also creates custom photomontages for a variety of corporate and consumer clients.

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