Please note that the Coffee Pot Textures shop is closed at present.

I will be providing some free textures from time to time.

If you are interested in purchasing the Winter Warm textures as displayed in the Shop please feel free to CONTACT me.

Thank you
Kathy

Winter Tree

Hello Everyone,

Have you ever seen a tree that has an interesting shape but you'd like to dig it up and put it in a more interesting spot to photograph. Well that's how I felt about this tree. Sitting right beside a main road with ugly weeds in front of it made it very hard to photograph it with a pleasing result.

The shape of the tree appealed to me though so I took the photo and had a play with some of the textures in the Winter Warm pack. My goal was to replace the blue sky with warm textures and make the shape of the tree and it's branches the centrepiece without distraction.

The original photo.

I tried many different textures and combinations of blend modes until I got the look I wanted and finally settled on these three, using a combination of soft light and multiply blend modes with varying opacities.

Once I had the tones I wanted and slightly cropped the photo I then added some photoshop filters as well.

Firstly - Filter - stylize - emboss  - changed blend mode to overlay and reduced the opacity.

Secondly - Filter - brush strokes - ink outlines - blend mode overlay and again reduced the opacity until I was happy with it.

The two filters gave the image an almost textural feel as if it's made of cloth and raised.

I then added a radial gradiant layer to lighten the center and darken the edges.

The result is quite dramatic and may not be to everyones liking but I think it achieved my goal of making the bare branches of the tree the definite focal point and eliminating the distracting sky and field by changing the whole tone of the image.

(click to view larger to see the full effect of the textures and filters)

What do you think?  Comments welcome.

Do you have an image of a tree that you have enhanced using textures that you would like to share?  Leave a comment with a link to your image so we can all see it.

Common, break the ice and be the first to show us your creative work.

Cheers
Kathy

August 2012 Free Wallpaper

Hello everyone,

I can't believe that yet another month has gone by.  I have created a free wallpaper for you for August.

Click the following links to download them.


* Screen resolution 1920x1200
* Screen resolution 1920x1080
* ipad3

This is the first time I've made wallpapers so any feedback on how they fit your different screens would be helpful eg: is the calendar or the url cut off? Thanks.

Hope it's a good month for everyone.

Kathy

Competition Winner

AND THE WINNER IS..........................................

Hans Kawitzki for his entry - Pride of India.

BEFORE

AFTER

click to see larger

Hans' use of textures to replace a distracting background illustrates just how much the mood of a photo can be altered with the use of the right texture/s.

Congratulation Hans, you will receive an email shortly with a link to download the Winter Warm collection of textures.


RUNNER UP......

Steph from the UK.

Steph says, "...I decided to compliment the classic antique-look of the brown butterfly by overlaying it with a vintage paper texture".

BEFORE

Texture used.

 AFTER

click to view larger

Love the vintage look Steph has obtained with this combination.

Congratulation Steph. As runner up you will receive a sample of 6 of my textures, 3 from Winter Warm and 3 not yet released. You will receive an email shortly with details of how to download them.

Congrats to both of you and thanks for your entries.

Kathy

Featured Photographer

Introducing Award winning photographer, Barb Leopold.

Barb applies textures to a variety of subjects and her work is both creative and artistic.

Barb recently purchased the Winter Warm collection and has used several of them in the processing of the following beautiful images.

“Your textures are a dream to work with, I just love them, and you have saved me all the hard work of making them too.... “   Barb Leopold.

Shell Still Life

Expecting

Click on the image names to see them in greater detail on Barb's Redbubble site or

or to see more of her work go to her Portfolio

Remember, only a few more hours left to get your entries in for the COMPETITION to win the Winter Warm collection.

Thanks again for visiting

Kathy

Win a Collection of Textures

Want to win a set of 24 high resolution textures. Collection 1 - Winter Warm.

Keep reading.

There are several ways in which textures can modify and enhance an image.

Three of these are:
1. Mood
2. Age
3. Tone.


For example.

1. Mood.

This is Molly. In this first example I have used a texture to give her a dreamy mood. Click to view them larger to see the full effect.

 (texture is from Collection 1 - Winter Warm)

2. Age.

A texture was added to this image to create an aged, vintage look.

(texture used was Kim Klasson's Embrace)

3. Tone.


This time I have given Molly a warm tone by using a different texture from the Winter Warm collection.

The last example was originally a colour photo, converted to black and white but still lacking the richness of tone that I was seeking.  Two textures were used to create a much richer tone to the image and also add a textured background to what was otherwise a blank sky.

(textures used Kim Klasson's paper2, crackerjack)

Competition.

If you would like to be in the running to win a pack of my textures, Collection 1 - Winter Warm, then email me your best before and after photos where you have used one or more textures of any kind to change the original photo's mood, age or tone.

Your photos will only be used to display on this blog for this competition and will not be used or displayed in any other way or for any other purpose without your permission.


Photos should be 600px max on the long side, file size max of 150k, jpg.

Remember you must send the before and after photo. You do not need to show the texture/s used but you can if you wish. You can also include a little about the process if you wish.

Email to:  kathyt.thompson@gmail.com   Subject - Mood Competition
(don't forget the dot between kathyt and thompson)

Entries must be received at the above email address by 12 midday, Monday 30th July, Australian Central Time.

Winner will be announced on this blog about 8pm the same day and the winner will be notified by email.

Details of the prize texture pack can be seen HERE

Looking forward to seeing your images,
Kathy

Some details have been edited 07/23/2012 for the purpose of clarification.

Textures for Photography - SHOP OPEN

Textures for Photography.

Coffee Pot Textures Shop is now Open.
The first pack of textures made by myself is now available for sale.

See the SHOP for details.

Collection 1 - Winter Warm - launching soon.

I am hoping to be able to launch Collection 1 - Winter Warm in a few days time.

Details of the collection can now be viewed in the shop.

See slideshow of textures here - best viewed fullscreen.

Music is moonlight

(click to view larger)

I am sure all of us have at some stage been mesmerised by a beautiful moon. The most beautiful moon I have seen was witnessed from the jetty at Ardrossan, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia.

It rose up from the horizon over the water as a huge orange full moon. Everyone just stood and watched it. It must have been a 'super' moon for it appeared so much larger than expected and I guess most of us don't get to see it right on the horizon. Once it had moved up into the sky it appeared as normal. Unfortunately I had just packed all my photography gear into the car so didn't catch it on camera.

The above image was made from a photo I took of our recent super moon shrouded in mist.

I have added a texture which I created and stamped with a 'window' PS brush I made from a photo of an old ruin window.

Blue Window

The scrolls and vintage music came from "The Graphics Fairy".

http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com.au/

A great site for royalty free vintage graphics.

FREE DOWNLOAD.
If you would like the above   'BlueWindow'   texture I am making it available for a limited period free of charge. This is a large resolution 8MG file.

Credit to "Coffee Pot Textures"or a link to this blog would be appreciated.

Terms of use: royalty free, personal use or sales as part of a hobby when blended with other photos and or textures. Not for professional or commercial use.
************
Download
************

Hoping you all have some music in your lives this week,

Cheers
Kathy

Aim for the Moon

While returning from a country drive on Saturday the Super moon was rising in the east. However it was covered with misty cloud and though it didn't exactly look very 'super' it did look quite nice.

I pulled over and took a photo of it with the tele lens.

I thought a little texture would suit it and chose a blue texture I have created since doing the Art of Textures course.

I've used 2 layers of this, one of soft light and one of screen, both with reduced opacities.

The result - Aim for the Moon

The font is called "Before the Rain" from www.dafont.com


Thanks for visiting,
Kathy

Happy Easter

Took some time off making textures today and had some fun marbling eggs.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter.

Cheers
Kathy

Schools Out

Well the Art of Textures course is nearly finished. We've been given an extra few days which is great. So now the challenge is to take all the wonderful things we have been taught and learn to put them together with our own creative style.

That's quite a challenge. It's like being given all the tools and techniques but the possibilities are endless so it's hard to know where to begin.

I suppose it's just a matter of playing with it all enough to find my own style and begin to understand which technique to use when.

Here is one  I tried on the weekend.

I had taken a picture at the old school house at Old Tailem Town, one of Australia's largest pioneer villages and I loved how the light was coming through the window. I wanted to accentuate that and add some contrast and also warm up the light and give a more vintage look to the image.

Over the weekend I made a few textures, one was with coffee, tea and nutmeg and baked (perhaps a little too long) in the oven. The back of this page also proved an interesting pattern so I used that too. The third one was made using texture paste and then staining it with coffee.

I decided to try blending all three together and after trying a few hundred possibilities I found one that I was happy with.

It proved to be just the right texture to get the result I was looking for with the school house photo.

School's Out

click to view large

thanks for looking,

Kathy

Week 4 - Putting it all together.

This week we have been learning to put together all the things we've learnt over the last few weeks.

This image is really an exercise in putting together some of the textures, scans, brushes etc that I've made.

The base pic was simply some coffee stains on canvas paper.

I then blended in several layers of other items such as a photo of the side of a very old, well used cake tin,

and some brown paper,

I added a crack effect by using a brush I had made from a ruin wall

I cannot remember everything I did to them but after changing blend modes and experimenting with different processes I came up with this final texture image.

I then blended this texture with one of my stock pics of an onion, added some text and distressed it a little.

click to enlarge

Looking forward to trying more of the hands on messy type of textures,

thanks for looking,

Kathy

Why textures.

So what are all these textures about?

Well for me it is taking an image which otherwise might just sit on my hard drive and enhancing it to be a piece of artwork that could be used as an image for a card, calendar or wall art for example.

I have thrown subtle out the window for this one and gone for a much more dramatic, bold look.

The final result is always subjective and will not be to everyone's liking.

I've chosen a picture I took of my bouganvillea set against the blue sky.

Though this image has great colours, as it is it would sit on my hard drive as just another photo of my garden.
The bold colour of the flowers always makes me think of fire.

I had created two textured backgrounds using some photoshop brushes I created out of splashes of paint and they remind me of fire also. 

They are very similar, one a little lighter and more yellow than the other.

I blended both of these backgrounds with the original photo using different blend modes until I was happy with the result. Also added a lens flare in the top left corner to add some highlights.

Finally I cropped it slightly and added some text.

Final image.  Bloom...

click to view larger

I hope you like the final result.
Feedback welcome.

I'm still working on my brushes sampler so maybe I'll have it ready for next post.
See you then,

Cheers
Kathy

Art of Textures Course Week 2 - Brushes cont

Hello Everyone

I'm having so much fun with these brushes both making them, using them to make textures and then blending the textures with photos.

Here is an example.

Using this photo of paint

I created a Photoshop brush

Using this brush I created a texture pattern in blues and whites.

Then I blended this texture with a photo of a water lily from my little water garden I have in a wine barrel.

I used two layers of the texture - first set to Soft Light and the second to Screen, opacity adjusted for both and a subtle border added.

And the final image

Water Lily Blue

best viewed larger to see texture (click).

The effect is subtle but I think it suits the soft water lily.

I've also had fun making brushes of my kids, a friend's grandkids as well as wood, stone, foliage etc. I'll do a collage of them for my next post.

Please feel free to comment. I have set it to public so you don't have to log in.

Cheers

Kathy

Art of Textures Course Week 2 - Brushes

In the Art of Textures Course this week Kim has taught us how to make our own Photoshop brushes.

I used a photo of my old wooden box  to create some grungy wood grain brushes.

Then I used those brushes and some Freebie drips and drop brushes I found on the net and created a new texture image out of an old one I wasn't happy with.

The limitless possibilities of these brushes both the creating and the using is amazing. I wake up at night dreaming about them but they are a lot of fun.

I have used one of my new textures in this image...Sit and Ponder.

Introducing Molly.

I found her in a shop a few years ago when life was giving me a few thorns and she looked so forlorn I just had to give her a home.

She is a very willing model and you will see more of her in the future. (and she's not nearly as forlorn as she looks).

Cheers

Kathy

Art of Textures Course Week 1 - Day 3 cont

Still on Day 3 (I'm a bit behind as there is so much to learn) - Tutorial on removing the textures from a selected area of the photo without changing the tone of the subject. I used this technique to remove most the texture from the vase and flower allowing a little of it to remain so it would blend in.

This was an amazingly simple technique but all new to me as I had not used Smart Objects before.

Texture used: Kim Klasson's greydayvintage.

Here is the final result.

Hibiscus

Cheers
Kathy

Art of Textures Course Week 1 - Day 3

Day 3 Tutorial was called 'Whisper'.  Another process to produce a dreamy whispery effect.

Original photo

Final image

Textures used:  kk_Flourish (for the image)

kk_golden hour (for the text)

Beauty Lingers...

Cheers

Kathy

Art of Textures Course Week 1 - Vintage Colour

Hi Everyone,

I'm a bit behind in the course. I realised how few photos I have with light backgrounds that blend easily with textures so I scouted around the house and found some new subjects and spent Sunday afternoon (Aussie time) shooting them against the white paper tablecloth used for my son's 18th birthday party Sat night.

Day 2 - we also learnt how to give a vintage colour look to a photo and add a texture (kk_sonnet).

For this one I have added Kim Klasson's - "Sonnet" plus one of my own textures.

Vintage Roses

Now I'm off to try Day 3...then Day 4...I'll catch up eventually!

Cheers

Kathy

Art of Textures Course Week 1 - Day 2

Day 2. One of our tasks for today was to try cross processing a photo and adding a texture and some text.

Here is my original photo taken recently at Pt Willunga beach.

Texture added - Kim Klasson's "Embrace"
Quote - Michelle Held via scrapbook.com/quotes.

Final image - Day at the Beach.

click to view larger