Last Christmas, I started a new holiday tradition by creating photo manipulation art gifts for all of my family members in Canada. It costs a butt load of money to ship items across the border, and I am but a humble homemaker, so this was an option that was both personal, and practical.
As I mentioned in my last post, I've only been taking my photoshopping seriously for this last year, so the first gifts were.... uh... full of good heart, but not fantastic. This year, however, I had done tons of tutorials on Youtube. Mostly by Rafy A (check out his video's!! They are Great). I'm not perfect, but I definitaly got a lot more "ooohs" and "ahhs" than last year.
One of the best ways to flatter my family and friends is to put their children in imaginitive art. The above picture is my sister's daughters sitting in the clouds. I put a photo of the stars in the background and set the layer to "screen" so each star showed up like a majestic sparkle. The girls loved the picture. The only thing I would do differently, if I were to do this one again, is try to make the background look less like heaven. Maybe I should have added a unicorn or something.
During this entire year, I have been dreading trying the "shattered glass effect" on a photo. It looked so complicated that I was very intimidated. Finally, I forced myself to try it while working on a photo of my friend, Joshua. It was my first shot, and I could use more practice. But my friend loved it. So it was a win for trying new things.
This last photo, I did just yesterday, a bit last moment for Christmas gifts. I turned my oldest brother, Timothy, into a futuristic soldier and labled the picture, "A rare look at my brother Tim at his day job." ;) Personally, I think he looks pretty awesome. :D
A few tips for if you are considering creating photoshop art as gifts. First I find many background photos on the website Pexels. This site has a huge selection of free photos to use, but it is limited. When I need armor, people, weapons, etc. I find this on Adobe Stock. This has to be paid for, but it can be really well worth your time for making high quality photoshop images, and you don't have to worry about copyright issues, because you are legally purchasing the right to use the images. All the rest is my own imagination, and I can't stress this enough, tricks that I learned from Youtube tutorials. Want to make your gifts even cooler? Pick up a frame (I'm cheap so I get them from the dollar store) and print them for family that live closer by.
And that, in a nutshell, is how I wow my family members with imaginative pictures of themselves!
Well, I hope you got something out of my post! Merry Christmas everyone!