Poppy

I was interested in transforming a photograph into something resembling a woodblock print, with large, blocky shapes. I was able to do that here, and then I continued working to embellish it.

This is my original photo.

In iColorama, I applied Adjust/Tonelab preset 4 for clarity and depth, and Adjust/High 1 for sharpness and highlights.

I used Style/Flow to smooth the result of the above steps.

I made repeated applications of Style/Flat preset 18 and Style/ET-Flow to get here, with a touch of Effect/Raise. I just used this version to get nice definition of the separate petals, to help me do the next step.

In Adjust/Exposure, I moved the brightness slider all the way right to get a white canvas the same size as my image. Then I used Effect/Blend to bring back the image in Normal blending mode. I clicked on Brush Mask and started painting in these shapes to conform more or less to the shapes of the petals underneath.

I exported the brush mask.

I opened the brush mask image (not as a mask but as an image). I inverted it using Adjust/Channels preset 6. I used Style/Flow preset 1 twice to smooth the edges, and Effect/Sharpen to try to sharpen the edges.

I added color in Tone/Tint.

In Effect/Blend, I blended in the "Flow" version of the original photo at very low opacity.

I applied Style/Sketch preset 1.

Again in Effect/Blend, I blended back the original at low opacity and applied a bit of Effect/Raise.

And here I blended back just a touch of the original and applied Style/Flat preset 18 at low opacity, which gives a valley effect to the white areas, and again a bit of Effect/Raise, which raises the edges. This is a kind of stylized abstract poppy. Perhaps more abstract that I wished. Call this version A.

To make the image more suggestive of a poppy, used Effect/Blend to blend in a bit of the original. I used one of the Style/Flat presets at medium opacity and applied Style/Coherence twice.

I applied a Style/Water preset.

Here is a different Water preset.

Here is a different Water preset.

I blended two of these version.

Now I opened the image in Metabrush and created this using Stamp and some doodle brushes, using the same image as brush source.

In Effect/Blend, I blended with version A, using the gray slider under Set, and trying several blending modes.

I used Adjust/Tonelab preset 4 and Tone/Enhance for tone and color.