Friday, February 27, 2009

Simple Canvas Art Effects

By Hale Band

Canvas artworks are classic in the interior design community. Because of their elegant and attractive nature, they never go out of style. Commissioned classical artworks, however, can be very expensive. Photographs mounted on canvas are a great alternative to this. Not only do photos on canvas give the same look and feel of a commissioned artwork, they easily brighten up any living space and bring a burst of colour and life in to the room.

With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can turn your own photographs into your own masterpieces. Let your creativity kick in as you play with Photoshop's various filtering effects. You can render your photographs to look like traditional artworks. Add textures to your photos, play with its colours and saturation, have it distorted and even transform it into an abstract art.

Artistic Effects. Have your images look as if it had been painted in water colour or in oil paint. You can even transform them into a coloured pencil drawing and charcoal sketches. Most image editing software allow you to tinker with these effects through various options such as brush strokes length and strength, the amount of light and shadows, and even paper brightness.

Distortion. Distortion effects include 'diffuse glow', 'glass' and 'ocean ripple'. Diffuse glow gives your photographs a fog-like effect. You can edit the amount of graininess and glow to your preference. Glass effect gives your photos a look as if you're looking at it through a glass panel or even through an ice block. Ocean ripple creates an ocean-like surface on your photograph.

Textures. You can add different textures in your pictures to make it look as if it had been printed into assorted textiles. Examples of such textile includes craquelure, grain, mosaic tiles, patchwork, texturizer, and stained glass.

Colour. There are many options you can use to enhance your pictures' colours. Edit your pictures' hue and saturation, turn them as a classic black and white picture using the desaturate option, or transform them into pop art through the use of colour variations. You can even give them an antique feel by applying sepia tone.

Blurring. You can easily change the depth of field of your picture by playing with the various blurring and smudging tools on most photo editing software. Soften your subject's features by using the different blur filters, such as 'radial blur', which gives a hazy circular blur on your photo and 'motion blur', which gives off movement effects.

By playing with various effects and filters, you can create an artwork worthy to be mounted on canvas and displayed for everyone to enjoy. What's more, your beautiful canvas art can not only be used as decoration to your walls, but it can also be a unique and special gift to family and friends. - 15437

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