Redcurrants

Camera App: QuickPix - no flashlight


Additional Apps used:
ArtistaOil - to create an oil painting layer, Impression #2, Canvas # 17.
ArtistaSketch - to create a pencil drawing layer Sketch # 19
FilterStorm3 - to blend the oil painting layer with the pencil drawing layer so that in the end, the pencil strokes will be visible where the oil paint stops on the canvas, To achieve that, I added the oil layer as a second exposure with opacity set to 50%. That way, the drawing nicely merged with the painting, but I still was far from the result that I really wanted so I added the oil layer again as an additional exposure, this time painting over it to bring out the fruits and parts of the branches and leaves in oil while the rest remained as partially brown tinted drawing.
Blender - to blend the result from FilterStorm3 with the original photo again, settings to 50% Multiply to color the pencil parts again. I wasn't fully satisfied with that result so I added the original photo once more to blend it again with that result, settings 25% Multiply. Now I had what I wanted, a partial oil painting over a pencil drawing with nice contrasts and color.
PicGrunger - next step was it to create a canvas to blend into the picture. I love the Burlap texture so I extracted it. To do that, I first did a screenshot of a 100% white screen of my iPhone4. Just switch on one of these flashlight apps that use the screen for light and make a screenshot. Don't forget that this screenshot made only in the iPhone's screen resolution 960x640 pixels so you'll have to boost it up to the normal camera resolution your original photo had been made with, which is 2592x1959pixels. You can to that in FilterStorm3, for instance. Then open that white screenshot in PicGrunger and apply the settings for "Aged" and "After Hours" style but set "Strenght" to 0. Load Burlap for texture and you'll get a nice Burlap only layer to use in other apps. 
KingCamera - I wanted to have some kind of a very special frame for my picture and there is one provided by KingCamera that I really love. But I did not want to use it the normal way so I loaded my white screenshot in KimgCamera and applied that irregular black frame on it. Saved it. Then I also imported my finished picture to KingCamera and applied the same black frame to it that I applied to the white layer and the Burlap layer. Saved that one too.
Blender - In Blender I blend the white framed layer with the Burlap layer with settings to 100% Multiply. This brought out the black frame nicely on the Burlap texture. Also I blend the originally framed picture with the Burlap canvas, Multiply to 100%. Because the Burlap texture reduced saturation and contrast I saved, reopened it in Blender again as well as the framed picture and blend both layers once more, but this time with Multiply set to only 25%. This nicely enhanced contrast and saturation. I saved that result and openend...
FilterStorm3 again - here I opened the Burlap frame layer and I added the previous result from Blender as a second exposure. On that exposure I painted over the picture area to bring it out again, but I carefully avoided to paint over the frame because I wanted to have it Burlap textured. That was an easy job to do in FilterStorm3 where you can precisely adjust brush and eraser settings. I saved the result.
PS Express - to add an irregular black frame to the KingCamera frame. It did this because I wanted to partially eliminate the outer canvas part of the KingCamera frame.
FilterStorm3 - I loaded the result from PS Express to FilterStorm again to apply a 25% black frame with the gray outline to enlarge the black part on the frame. I experimented a bit with a white outline, a brown one or no outline at all but in the end I preferred the thin gray outline so I took that as my final result.
A+Signature - as usual I prefer A+Signature to add my personal copyright watermark.


Last evening I was out in the back yard and I discovered that our redcurrants and the blackcurrants as well as the gooseberries are all ripe and waiting to be cropped so I made some photos. I really enjoyed making this picture. I was big fun to work out the oil painting on that drawing and to find a way to create a special frame. And now the rain stopped which means I can get outside to crop the berries without being soaked ;o).