Abstract - Smoke

[Manfred M]

Photographing smoke is not all that difficult, other than having to work in a dark, smoke filled room.

The real fun begins when one digs through the images and goes wild with the tools found in Photoshop.

[Shadowman]

Nice concept.

[Rufus]

The mind can see all sorts of things in this image...could it be a bug, a transformer toy, or a glass crystal sculpture...? The small amount of red adds further interest and intrigue.

The mirror image works very nicely, but you tease by alluding to the tools you have gone mad with. A bit of smudge here and there perhaps and...?

[Manfred M]

The mind can see all sorts of things in this image...could it be a bug, a transformer toy, or a glass crystal sculpture...? The small amount of red adds further interest and intrigue.

The mirror image works very nicely, but you tease by alluding to the tools you have gone mad with. A bit of smudge here and there perhaps and...?

1. This is the original image.





2. I cropped out this part to use.





3. A bit of a tweak in Camera Raw and with Nik Color Efex to produce this. That is what has been done in the bottom layer in Photoshop as per the screenshot shown in #4.





4. Duplicated and horizontally flipped the bottom layer, lined it up where I wanted it and used the Difference blending mode on the middle layer. The top layer is a Curves adjustment layer, shown on the right hand side of the screen shot.





It took some playing around to get there, but in the end, it was quite simple.

[FootLoose]

It can be fun to play around in PS but I prefer the original image in post #4

[Manfred M]

It can be fun to play around in PS but I prefer the original image in post #4

My very first effort with this image was something I did 6 years ago and it looks quite different than this latest go.

[Rufus]

Post #1 is simply a superb image displaying great creativity. Thank you for sharing an insight into how it was arrived at, Manfred.