Nightblooms Process

Animated Background Tutorial

2011-08-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have completed another animated tutorial posted to You Tube. This one shows how to make digital backgrounds. I will be adding more animated tutorials to my You Tube channel.

Radial Background to Oval

2011-08-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

There is something else we can do with the radial backgrounds. We can distort them into an oval and scale them up to fill a rectangular page.

Animated Calendula Star Tutorial

2011-04-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

I have just completed my first animated tutorial. It is still rough, but good enough to be helpful; and I will be able to improve upon it with future productions. I am giving you the link to its You Tube site.

Ring of Love

2011-02-21T20:08:00.000-08:00

This star is made with hollyhock flowers. I created it just in time for Valentine's Day next year. If any of you need help wrapping text around a circle, let me know. I use it a lot.
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I have not done it here, but it occurs to me that if you want, you could improve these designs by digitally painting over them. Just create another layer to work with and merge it down when you are satisfied. You could also overlay other photographic elements to make more sophisticated images. I may go there eventually, but for now; I like the surprise elements and prefer to keep it natural.
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I look at what I do as a launching pad from which many of you will take off in directions I wouldn't think of. Enjoy the adventure.

2010 Christmas Cards

2010-10-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

The bottom image shows a composite design I made from photos of succulent plant we have in our yard. I finally identified it as an ice plant. It grows well here in Tucson, and has pretty little red flowers, so I thought it would work well for holiday creations. This image could work well for a calendar or placemat.
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The middle image is my Christmas card for 2010 with the Merry Christmas salutation. The top image is an alternate version with a Season's Greetings salutation.
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RERERENCE: i144,145,146 t117

Loa Tzu Quote on Still Mind

2010-10-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

Brian posted this on facebook a couple of weeks ago and I use it here with a star made from succulent foliage. I posted in as this week's illustrated thought on my Tidbits From Tucson blog. I am posting it here to add the text to our list. I am not referencing the star, as it is used as an element in larger designs and is not meant to stand by itself. If you ever want a print made with one of these star designs, I would be happy to fill your order.
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REFERENCE: t117

Flower Outline Stars

2010-10-21T20:32:00.001-07:00

There is a soc/rec program here that makes their own Christmas cards every year to send to its members. Last year, I offered to let them use my Christmas Cactus design, but they declined because it was full color and would have used to much ink. So this year, I wanted to offer them something more cost efficient, and created this black & white star using outlines of cosmos flowers.
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I don't know if they will use it, but in the process; I developed a technique which will have wide applications. There are endless possibilities here for beautiful and interesting designs. The top image shows that these can be colorized. This could be useful for t shirts, where the detail in some of my complex photographic designs doesn't work so well. I like making t shirts because it is fun to combine the images with sayings, but some of my designs don't translate well to fabric, so this may be a solution.
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One could create these stars using the outlines of all kinds of textures and objects, but the idea of using flowers works especially well for me. One could also use freehand lines and shapes; as well as all kinds of geometric patterns, shapes, and designs.
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The other new technique I developed here was a new way of doing fills. I have tried several ways, and ones which give you a separate color fill as a layer are nice in that they are easy to change with color overlay. I used that method with the butterflies as demonstrated earlier.
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Here, I created the outline and then merged it down with a white or colored solid background. I then used the magic eraser to remove the color around the star. That gives me the star as a separate layer. By saving the outline in an original file as a separate layet, I can repeat the process to get any color I want.
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This is important, because if you try to overlap flowers to make the triangular cutouts, the lines overlap. Sometimes, that can create interesting patterns, but it can also create a mess.
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So experiment and see what you can come up with. You can bet I will.

Sunflower Foliage Dodecahedron

2010-09-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

Let's give you one more polygon made with sunflower foliage. To create the triangular cutout, I overlapped several plants so that I could extract a long, narrow triangle with lots of variation along its length. The result is the extra intracacies of this design.
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Let's carry this one step further by adding a ring of the whole plants.

Flower Stars

2010-09-12T10:52:00.001-07:00

In creating this composite of pink daisies, I created some simple stars with lines of the blossoms. I made them more complex, by taking the 6 pointed star and duplicating and rotating it 30° to create the 12 pointed stars. By putting smaller stars inside of the larger ones, and repeating that process, I came up with even more intricate designs.
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I thought it worked very well here, but in experimneting with other flowers; found that it doesn't always work as well. Still, I think it will have usefulness; and perhaps some of you will figure out how to improve the method.
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I did use this approach with the sunflowers. I have made several attempts in the past to "spherize" some of my images and have not been satsified with the results. Under Photoshop filters there is a distort funciton. As a subcategory under that is the spherize option. I used it to turn the star complex into a shape wrapped around a virtual sphere. Again, some of you may find more use for this than I have so far managed.

16 Point Star

2010-09-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

I include this one because I got the idea to stack several overlapping flowers to create the triangular cutout. That has the potential of adding a lot of complexity to these designs.

Sunflower Octagon 2 Demo

2010-09-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

The bottom page shows the triangular cutout I made from a sunflower. I created a mirror image triangle and formed a diamond shape which I rotated to form the ocatgonal figure you see here. I could have widened the diamonds to make them fit together or narrowed them to make a twelve sided figure. As is, this appears to be a mistake; but I decided to duplicate this figure, and put it behind the first one. I them rotated it 30° to create the top image. You almost can't go wrong with this approach. I could happily spend all my time creating these kinds of designs.

Sunflower Star with 6 Points

2010-09-11T06:13:00.001-07:00

Here is another variation of thousands of possibilities.

Sunflower Cutout Demo

2010-09-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

Let's demonstrate how to do the flower cutouts and turn one into an octagon. We begin by taking one sunflower and putting it on our design page. We could do a cutout from the single blossom, but we can add some interest and complexity by combining two. The top image shows the outline of our cutout in green.
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This is done by choosing the shape tool in Photoshop and selecting the polygon. We set the sides to 3 to create a triangle. We then use the cursor over the flowers to form the triangle. By setting the shape fill to 0% opacity, we can see through our shape. By choosing the move tool with the V shortcut, we are able to reposition our triangle as needed. We can also rotate it and adjust the shape to fit our purposes. We want a long, narrow triangle that takes in a bit of the dark center and as much of a petal section as we can get.
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When we have what we want, we click paths in our layer palette and choose make selection, and new selection. With the move tool, we can put it on another page. From there, we duplicate the layer, and flip it horizontally so as to create the diamond shape of the second image.
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We then turn it into an octagon, by rotating around a center axis 7 times. We ended up with thin lines at the outer edges where background showed through. The solution is to duplicate the layers, merge them and pull them below the first set in the layers palette. By rotating 22.5°, we fill in behind our gaps and add the set of additional outer points.
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We could probably improve on this, but I have yet to come up with something that was ugly using this method. Of course, I will keep trying.

Desing Element Pages and File Organization

2010-09-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on sunflower designs. I want to share with you the way I organize my design files. I start by creating a new folder such as Sunflowers. I then create a sub folder labeled extractions. I will further subdivide that into flowers and foliage.
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I will add other folders for: mandalas, backgrounds, elements, for design, borders, composites, and arrays. I then create design pages starting with single blossoms, then paired flowers, lines, arcs and other combinations. By bringing up these pages in Photoshop while creating a mandala or array, I can simply drag the elements I need into the page I am working on.
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Here are pages I have created for working with the sunflowers. The first one shows the 7 flower extracts I started with. Everything else has been created by combininng them. By the time I am done, I will problay have another design page of flower elements and one or two pages of foliage elements.
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I am currently using a 1TB external hardrive for backing up my images, but I also have most designs on disc. I find that CD's are not sufficient, so I use DVD RW's to store on disc.
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Being organized in storing files is important as you start expanding your inventory. I am constantly going back and taking elements from old designs to create new ones. That is the beauty of digital technology, but it makes it imperative to be able to find things when needed. If anyone has tips to share, I will gladly post them here.

Mandala Array Elements

2010-09-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

I have revisited the pink tree bells and created a new mandala and what I call a mandala array in which I create a complex of various elements radiating out from the central mandala. In the process, I created these designs for use in the arrays. They are all made by taking triangular cutouts from photos of flower petals. I then made a dodecagon for the center, stars and diamond shapes. I kept the mandala relatively simple so that it would work well in the array.
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I also show an array expanded into a larger pattern which could actually be used for something like wallpaper. It could be expanded as much as necessary. I will show in more detail how to do the array at another time and even provide you with a template for doing so.
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The mandala array on the blue background has another innovation. Up until now, I have been using a rectangular grid pattern for the backgrounds. While these are interesting and have many uses; for the mandalas, a radiating pattern makes a lot more sense. See my Emerging Patterns blog for the post of this same date, for more detail on that.

Using the Pen Tool to Extract Images

2010-09-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

This is the most impotant update I have for you at this time. I had shown you using the extract filter and eraser tool to extract flowers from the background in photos. I have now learned to use the pen tool to do the extraction, and it makes things much faster.
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At the top is the original photo of a sunflower leaf. I duplicated the image and labeled the file as needed. We will talk about organization and storage of images at another time.
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I begin the extraction by zooming in several times so that I can work at a high resolution. The higher the resolution, the more precise the outline, but the longer it takes to complete the outline, so try to strike a balance here.
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I then took the pen tool (short cut = P). You can use a mouse for this and click various points left clicking as you go. With an electronic pen and graphics tablet, it is much faster; and you just touch the pen to the tablet to add outline points. Trace around the outside of the leaf and you will be able to watch the points as you add them.
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On the upper right of the layers palette, you can adjust the fill opacity of the mask. If you leave it at 100%, a solid mask will develop as you trace around the leaf. I usually reduce the opacity to zero. There are times when I will use 40% or so. I suggest you experiment with what suits you.
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If you place a point off from what you wanted, click the directional tool, A and you can drag a point as needed. You also have add point and subtract point options in Photoshop. If you need to back track, use the history palette to erase a series of points.
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When you get back to the start, you will complete a loop which is your whole outline.
Go to top of layers palette and choose paths. Right click on the highlighted bar which appears and choose "make selection". That will bring up a pop up window with options of new selection, and add or subtract from selection. Choose new selection. Your outline will start flashing.
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You can lose all your work if you make a wrong move here. There may be other ways of dealing with this. I am new to this mask function myself. and don't understand all the ins and outs of masks, but his works for me.
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First, I merge the selection layer down to the background layer. You may also simply merge the two layers.
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I then duplicate my image. With the new image, I add a new layer, and then add a new layer from background. I then move the blank layer below the layer with the image. I can now delete the image layer and end up with a blank page. Now I go to the layer with the mask, clik "V", and put my cursor inside of my selection. I can then drag the selction to the blank page. The selection will now be a stable layer on the new page. I can add a layer and give it a solid blue fill to get the image you see next.
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I have added some red arrows to indicate points that have blemishes. Touching up photos is a whole other subject, and I am just learning how to do it. One tool to experiment with is the healing brush tool and its cousin the spot healing tool. They can work wonders, but can be tricky to use.
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What I did here, is use the eye dropper tool to sample the surrounding color I want to use to fill the blemish area. I then use the brush tool to dab color on the spot. I zoom in to do this, and can sample different colors to fill a large area so as to give a matching kind of texture to the leaf. I can blend the colors with the blur tool, "R". While your fix may not look perfect at high resolution, when you return to normal, your patch will be unnoticeable. One could use this method to turn a photo into a digital painting. I haven't taken the time to do so yet, but plan to in the future. Perhaps you want to beat me to it.
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The next image shows the leaf touched up. Not bad, eh?
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Things get more complicated when you have an image like the whole plant in the next image. The open spaces in the middle present another challenge. There may be a more efficient method of doing this, but this is what I have come up with. As always, I am grateful to recieve tips on improving my mehtods.
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Begin by outlining the whole plant and making your selection as before. Move it to a new page to stabilize it, and you can start extracing the areas where the background shows through. To do this, outline with the pen tool one of the "holes". Here, I use a 40-60% opacity and choose a contrasting color so that my mask shows up, but I can see through to do my tracing. Make it a new selection, and outline another hole. This time, choose "add to selection". In a complex image like this, I will do several outlines, and add selections. I will then go to layers and merge layers into background.
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If you have your mask opacity strong enough, you can take the magical eraser tool and click on a selection, and it will disappear. The background will show through. Repeat with each outlined hole, and watch the magic. With a complex image, I will continue to do a few outlines at a time. In extracting a whole ocitillo plant this way, I ended up with 225 seperate selections. That took awhile, but it saved me time over doing it with the eraser tool.

Tutorial Update

2010-09-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since I updated this tutorial, but there are quite a few things I need to add.
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I am exploring ways to turn these tutorial into videos which can actually show the computer screen as I am working. As I get this done, I will post them on You Tube. If anyone knows how to do this, I would appreciate your tips.
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My oldest son works in animation, and I plan to eventually animate my mandalas and set them to music. I know that he uses a software program called Maya to create his animations. As I learn how to do that, I will share it with you as well.
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On thing that Chris has done in instructing me is to show me how to perform Photoshop functions on Skype. It is a great over the internet phone service that provides free computer to computer phone service. Add a webcam, and you have video calls. When he lived in New Zealand working on Avatar, it was a great service because normal phone calls were too expensive to the States.
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A great feature of Skype is that it allows you to see the other person's computer screen and vice versa; so Chris has been able to show me new things, and I could watch his cursor move and so on. It makes it easy to follow along and see exactly how it is done. IF YOU WANT ME TO SHOW YOU ANY OF THESE PROCEDURES THIS WAY, I AM WILLING TO DO SO. Just sign up for Skype and e mail me about a mutually convenient time to do a lesson.
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Earlier, I showed you to use the grid to help position items on a mandala, and there are times when it can be helpful; but I have found it distracting and unecessary most of the time, so I work without it now.
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The important thing is to have the gridlines accurately aligned so that you have your page center to work with. I will zoom in a lot and make sure that my center is precise.
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The other little trick here is to create your page and fill it with a solid color. Click V to get the move tool, and Photoshop will show you the center of the page.
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When placing a new element for a ring, simply position it where you want it; say at the top of a ring. Then duplicate the layer, rotate it 180° and nudge it down to what looks like an equal distance from the center. Shift, click to highlight both layers and press V. You will see a square around the 2 layers with the midpoint in the center. Simply nudge the layers with the up & down arrows until they are aligned with the center.
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As you rotate new elements to form the rings, work in the same way to center each new addition or set of additions. EVERY SO OFTEN AS I ADD RINGS, I WILL ZOOM IN WHILE HIGHLIGHTING EACH RING LAYER, TO SEE IF IT IS STILL CENTERED PRECISELY. If I have 8 rings, I will check alignment of each before adding the ninth. If you notice new elemnts not lining up right, check this point.
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Since my last update, I have also learned how to download free fonts from the internet so that I have been able to expand the number of fonts available for use in Photoshop. Your operating system may work differnetly than mine, so I am not going to go into detail here. If you need assistance, let me know.
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In an earlier post, I showed you how to make butterly paintings. I have recently learned a technique for drawing the lines that works well for me. For some images, a variable line is wanted and the pressure sensitive drawing tablet is an amazing piece of equipment that makes that possible. For many of my outlines, however, I want perfectly even lines.
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In order to do that, I zoom up to a high resolution and do a shift click with my mouse to create a short straight line. I continue shift clicking to extend the line to create my outline. When I zoom out to normal resolution, the lines blend together to create graceful curves or whatever else I need.
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I suspect that there is a way to use the pen tool this way, but I haven't worked that out yet. As always, if someone wants to clue me in, I am ready.

Cactus Shapes for Design

2010-06-02T23:12:00.001-07:00

I have posted a detailed explanation of how I created these shapes on my Emerging Patterns blog. Go to the post for this same date, and go to the previous post to see how I used the shapes in a mandala design. This is a technique which has broad potential for any type of foliage. I can do the same with flower petals and most any texture you can think of. Use your imagination to come up with your own uses for this process.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 9

2010-04-01T05:34:00.001-07:00

The blue butterfly is fairly true to the original; the yellow one is a variation on that. On So Act, I have started a group "Digital Flower Mandalas" which I am using to encourage others to create designs using this approach. There are more possibilites here than I could ever realize, so there is lots of room for a group effort.
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Assembling the mandalas is a fairly quick process. It is creating the image elements that go into them that takes time. Over a period of time, I am creating a stock of images that can be combined in all sorts of ways. One possibility, is that we as a group can create an even larger image stock which can be shared and used to create thousands or millions of designs.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 8

2010-03-31T21:39:00.001-07:00

This is one of many variations we could do with our colors. I have used bright colors here, but you could use more subdued colors and be as subtle as you want to be. Do you see the possibilities? Have fun with this!

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 7

2010-03-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is where the fun begins and our hard work pays off. You can now take any layer of color and change it to any other color you want. In Photoshop, go to layer>layer style>color overlay. It will bring up a box which allows you to change the color to any you choose.
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Here, I have stuck with the same three colors, but shifted them around to different layers. It gives the butterfly a very different appearance. More importantly, for our mandala design, it gives us more variety to work with.
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You could use the fill tool to accomplish this, but I find that color overlay gives better results in less time.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 6

2010-03-31T21:17:00.000-07:00

Put all the layers together, and this is the result.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 5

2010-03-31T20:54:00.001-07:00

Here we add a layer of white. One can work even faster on this layer because it will be covered by both the blue and pink layers. You can see that I allowed quite a bit of overlap here.
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This a a basic approach we can use with this type of painitng. Each successive layer will be below the preceding ones and allows for quick addition of the color field. We could expand on this process, by adding smaller areas of more detail and extending our color palette to more hues. For our purposes here, this is enough detail and is sufficient to demonstrate the process.
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This is an approach that can be used for all sorts of subjects. Flowers could be done this way. Instead of using photos directly, they could be turned into digital paintings and varied as needed. I will be experimenting with that. One can combine flowers and butterlies in one mandala.
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This technique could be used for other kinds of designs as well as the mandalas. Anytime you want to be able to vary the color scheme on a design, this is a way to set it up. I could see doing this with fish, birds, turtles and lizards, angels as well as people in costume. I am sure you can find other applications.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 4

2010-03-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

I set a new layer and used the same technique to color in this pink which is sampled from the original photo. Note that I can be sloppy about letting this layer overlap the edges next to the blue, because it is going to be below the blue layer and the overlap will be covered. This allows one to work faster at this stage. I have to be more careful where the edge will meet the next color of white.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 3

2010-03-31T20:40:00.001-07:00

After creating a new layer, I used the eye dropper tool to sample the blue on the photo and set it as the color for my paintbrush. I could use any color I wanted and will vary them as you will see, but I wanted to start with the natural colors of the original.
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I zoomed to about 100-200% so that one wing fit my page. Again, with brush set to about 10-12 pixels; I filled in the area with the blue. I am starting with the largest area of color. This layer is quite a bit of work, but it makes succeeding layers easier. Again, I can use my eraser tool to clean up the edges and by placing this layer beneath the outline, I get the image you see here.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 2

2010-03-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

I opened the photo in Photosshop and added a new layer. I then zoomed in to 400% and set my foreground color to black. I then set my paintbrush to 2 pixel diameter and traced the outline you see here.
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I then created a new layer and set my color to 80% gray and my brush to 10 pixels. I reduced my zoom to around 100% so that the whole body just fit onto my page. Using an electronic pen and drawing tablet, I filled in the body with the gray.
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If you are using 100% opacity for you paintbrush color, then you can stop and start as much as you want; and you will get an even coat. If, however, you were using less than 100% opacity, then you would need to leave the pen down on the tablet without lifting it until you got the entire field filled. This gives an even tone to the color, whereas if you lift the pen and paint more; you get an overlapping of color and uneven tone.
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This would apply here if you wanted to mix 2 colors together. You could set them each at 50% opacity or 60-40 and so on. I often fill with reduced opacity when workig with flower photos to boost the color in an area. It is especially helpful where the photo has some white out from overexposure. That is a common occurance here in Tucson when taking a photo in full sun.
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I didn't have to be too precise about the edges for two reasons. First, by placing the gray layer below the balck outline, the black lines cover some roughness. By zooming back up to around 400%, I can also use my eraser to tidy up the gray to fit my boundaries.
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I then merged the gray and outline layers into one. You could leave them separate if you want to vary the body color.

Butterfly Tutorial Lesson 1

2010-03-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

I am working toward a mandala made with butterflies instead of flowers. I envision a whole series of them. I will post the finished design upon completion, but I want to show you the technique of creating the digital paintings of butterflies that will be the elements for the mandala.
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I start with this photo of a butterfly downloaded from the internet. Flickr alone has over a million butterfly images, many of which are available for free download. For our purposes, the resolution is sufficient.

Stones Overlay Pattern 1.

2010-03-13T20:24:00.001-08:00

I call this a stones pattern because it reminds me of a field of stones or pebbles. I created it by drawing the grouping of ovals of varying sizes. While this pattern is not that exciting, it demonstrates a technique that can be used to create a host of patterns, some of which will be more interesting than others. As I work with this concept, I develop a better idea of what will create dynamic patterns.

This and other patterns using this line technique can be used either as a background or an overlay. You budding artists out there, can have a lot of fun with this concept.

Blurred Triangle Mandala with Fan Overlay

2010-03-13T20:19:00.001-08:00

I created this overlay pattern which I call a fan pattern, by grouping radiating lines. There are many possibilites for creating interesting, pleasing patterns this way.

Blurring the mandala to varying degrees, produces a range of interesting effects.

Triangle Mandala 1

2010-03-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

I took triangular sections out of flower petals to create the elements for this design. I am not entirely satisfied with this mandala, and am not posting it for sale, but it serves as a demonstration project. I learned a good deal from the process of creating it and it opens new possibilities for me.

What I want to show you here is that we can take many of what I have called background patterns and turn them into overlays which can be superimposed over a mandala. By blurring the mandala, we can turn it into the backgound.

Yucca Background Pattern 1

2010-02-25T20:30:00.001-08:00

This pattern was created from a section of a photo of a yucca plant. These patterns magically emerge as we follow the process I have outlined before. I often feel that my job is to just get out of the way and let things happen.

Jumping Cholla/Yellow Prickly Pear Circle

2010-02-18T04:10:00.000-08:00

I am not sure if I should call this a mandala. I see someone on Zazzle who calls her creations synbalas. Others seem to like to call their's kaleidescopes. I am considering symmedra. If anyone has a suggestion, let me know.
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This is a different approach to the design process, but it is one I will do more with. It is interesting in that I started with the outside ring and worked my way in, which is the opposite of how I usually work the circle designs.
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Gestation or procrastination or artist's block; it is hard to know. I have intended to revisit my Yellow Prickly Pear/ Jumping Cholla Mandala since finishing it, but nothing had happened. Sometimes, I think we just have to let things gestate and kind of percolate for a while before it is ready to come out. When it finally does, it gives you that aha! feeling; and there is an element of surprise. That star in the center was a wondeful gift, and total accident from my point of view.

Jumping Cholla Background 1

2010-02-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

I want to revisit the prickly pear/cholla design. Let's start with a section of a jumping cholla blossom and turn it into a background pattern for our mandala.

YELLOW PRICKLY PEAR BACKGROUNDS

2010-02-07T07:24:00.001-08:00

What I am happy with on the mandala designs is the background that I used. There is a lot of potential here and I am excited about the possibilities.

This first image shows the yellow prickly pear blossom I used with the blue outlined rectangle being the section I used to create the background pattern.

In the first background; I duplicated the first rectangule, flipped it horizontally, and duplicated again. I rotated 180 degrees to complete the pattern.

I expanded that to a six element pattern by the same method.

Finally, I expanded the pattern to our 24 element design. I could take it to another level if needed. Do you see how many variations can be done with this?

YELLOW PRICKLY PEAR & CHOLLA MANDALAS

2010-02-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

Let me show you my latest experiment. Brian asked me to try a mandala design with larger flowers and no negative spaces. This is my first attempt to work with the concept. While I am not enitrely satisfied with the results, I think this approach has potential and I will continue to work on it.

I am sure there are other ways of approaching this assignment and I will continue to explore those as well. The adventure continues.

STEP FORTY SIX

2010-01-03T11:57:00.000-08:00

I want to show you an alternative mandala design, so as to give you an idea of how many variations one can make with this. I joked on Facebook that I could easily create 100 variations of this design. I could do 1000, but I would probably get bored after 100.

STEP FORTY FIVE

2010-01-03T11:55:00.001-08:00

Let's overlay our mandala and see what we get. Nice, eh?

STEP FORTY FOUR

2010-01-03T11:50:00.000-08:00

To use the thorn pattern as a background, we need to subdue it, so that it doesn't compete with the foreground. So I have darkened it and made it blue. With some designs, I have added some blur or tweeked the level of contrast. PSP makes all that easy and fun.

STEP FORTY THREE

2010-01-03T11:40:00.001-08:00

Now, we just duplicate and fill the page. I have done this with various geometric shapes, applesauce, rice crispies, foliage, cantalope section, bread slices, skin section, and more. I am always surprised and amazed at the results, but this one is the best so far. This can be done with so many natural and artificial textures that I won't live long enough to explore all the possibilities. That is why I am enlisitng your help. Put your Safari hat on and start exploring. It's a jungle of potential images out there.

STEP FORTY TWO

2010-01-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

Here, we have simply duplicated our first group and move it over to fill the first rows. Isn't that amazing? And it is really very simple.

STEP FORTY ONE

2010-01-03T11:33:00.000-08:00

Here, we have duplicated the first pair, rotated it 180°, and moved it up adjacent to the original pair. Wow! But we are not done yet.

STEP FORTY

2010-01-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

Here, I have duplidated the square, flipped it horizontally to create a mirror image and place it to the right. You can already see pattern developing.

STEP THIRTY NINE

2010-01-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have taken the cutout and place it on my 4x6 grid on the poster size page.

STEP THIRTY EIGHT

2010-01-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

I want to demonstrate how I have created a new background for my new pincushion cactus mandala. I am offering it here, because it is a technique that has potential for widee ranging applications.
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I start with this photo of a pincushion cactus. Note that I have outlined a square section in blue which I cut out using PSP(Photoshop).

STEP THIRTY SEVEN

2009-12-26T20:43:00.000-08:00

CENTERING
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Keeping the rings of the mandala centered is crucial. Everything depends upon being within a pixel or maybe two of center so that we can maintain symmerty of design.
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For me, the trickiest part is when I add my first new element to a ring and then duplicate it. I usually start at the top and rotate the first element 180° and then drop it to what I want to be the bottom of the ring. I will use my grids and design landmarks to get the new element into approximate position and then I will check my positioning by selecitng both elements in the move mode. This will give you a boundinng box around those two elements. Check that the central circle that goes with your bounding box lines up with the crossing of your central grid lines. Adjust and recheck as needed.
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If you get this alignment precise, then adding additional layers to the ring is easy.

STEP THIRTY SIX

2009-07-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd use a square of gravel to create a backgroumd pattern, but could see right away that it was not going to create the same kind of symmetry as the other experiments I have done. I decided to continue on, however, thinking that I might come up with something useable.

After filling the page, I applied Gaussuan Blur to the image and some symmetry appeared, but it also got rid of the hard dividing lines that showed pepples being cut in half. I proceeded to darken and increase contrast until I ended up with the image you see here. I think this is interesting in its own right although not as dramatic as the last patterns I have shown.

APPLESAUCE BACKGROUND

2009-07-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Applesauce anyone? I'll bet you didn't know this was hiding in your applesauce.

STEP THIRTY FIVE

2009-07-13T21:59:00.000-07:00

We can use the same technique to make this pattern out of a close up of a slice of bread. The possibilities are endless.

STEP THIRTY FOUR

2009-06-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Let's play with the patterned backgrounds some more. Here, I have taken an X and turned it into 8 radiating lines. By duplicating and repeating, we create this simple pattern. Now let's put Photoshop to work. We duplicate the pattern and shift it over and down until we get this more complex design.

We could probably make the lines thinner and repeat the process to create an even more intricate design; but I'll leave that up to you.

Now let's add a remake of our previous jumping cholla mandala. Each one teaches me something new. This one is about improving the spacing of the rings. I also did not expand the mandala off the page as far which left room to make the corner duplicates larger.

STEP THIRTY THREE

2009-06-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

This mandala is made with bouganvillia flowers. I use what I call a wave effect in many of the rings. Rather than creating even concentric rings, I get the undulating motion you see in this composition.
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In the corners, I have placed reduced versions of the central mandala.

Now, let's talk backgrounds. For posters on Zazzle, I use dimensions of 23" x 34.5". If I divide that up into four segments across, I get 5.75". If I divide the 34.5" by six down, I also get 5.75". So I can make a pattern of 5.75" squares. Here I created the blue circles and fit 4 in a square of those dimensions. I then duplicated across and then down, until the pattern filled the whole page. One can then play with color, contrast, brightness and so on to get the desired effect as a background.

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Next, I did the same thing with these celtic knot designs. The possibilities are endless.

I then took the calendula mandala and put it over each of the backgrounds. Here, I show it over the celtic knots.One neat feature of this design involves the reduced mandalas fit into the corners. While the large, central mandala expands off the page; the smaller ones include the whole mandala. I am impressed by the software that allows that.

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I liked the wave efffect I got with the bouganvillia clusters. The calendula flowers are small, and suited to curved combinations that work well for the waves. Because they don't grow in clusters, however, I needed to create my own combinations. Before assembling the mandala, I created this page with individual flowers and mirror image pairs. I then created a second page with a series of curved combinations as you see below. Together, the two pages offered a large variety of elements to work with in composing the mandala.My thought is that with large blooms with a lot of detail, the concentric circles of individual and paired blooms is best. With smaller blossoms and especially the clusters, then a larger number of concentric rings is called for, and the waves add interest to the design.

Here, I give you the same mandala over the circle pattern. You can let your imagination run wild with this stuff.

STEP THIRTY TWO

2009-05-31T22:15:00.001-07:00

Here, we have used the flowers to create a mandala with the open star which you see here. I like the way the open area changes the rythmn of the concentric circles. On the other hand, the empty spaces almost beg to be filled. For that reason, I offer a second version with extra flowers added. I would appreciate getting feedback as to which you prefer as the star is something I can use in other designs.

STEP THIRTY ONE

2009-05-31T22:05:00.001-07:00

I have reworked the daisy mandala to utilize the mirror image elements. I started by creating this page of flower elements to use in the design. To the individual blooms, I have added the pairs of mirror images.
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In some cases, I have created double pairings in which I reverse the left and right images to create more than one version of the same pairing. By rotating the indvidual blooms and pairing them up in various ways, I could create and alost infinite number of elements to work with.
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The page also includes some line elements. That too, could be expanded. Now with the photos of a single bloom, we have created quite a wide variety of elements to work with. It is enough to create an interesting design.

STEP THIRTY

2009-05-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

I have made enough changes in my technique to warrant an update as a new lesson. With this mandala, I created more symmetry and created interesting negative spaces. Instead of using individual blooms for the concentric rings, I paired mirror images all the way around.
I think this adds a whole new dimension to my designs and I will be doing a lot more of these. I have also started expanding the mandalas out to the edge of the page. I think this gives a suggestion of growth out to infinity.

STEP TWENTY NINE

2009-03-18T22:40:00.000-07:00

I used the star tool and the complex star tool in Corel Draw to create this star background. It could be done in Photoshop with the shape tools, but it would be more work. I created each kind of star in Corel and exported to Photoshop where I was able to duplicate, scale, rotate and change fill color to create the variety you see here. Just keep adding layers to the bottom of the layers palette so that new layers sit behind the previous ones.
This gets a little tricky with the parts that go off the page, but you'll be able to figure that out.
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This kind of background is something I am sure to use again.

STEP TWENTY EIGHT

2009-03-18T22:32:00.001-07:00

Going back one step, I created a star background and dragged our mandala onto it, but found that it was too light; so I created a new layer from backgorund and went to image>adjustments>hue/saturation. The bottom slider in the dialog box is for lightness. I slid it left -50 to darken the background to what you see in the previous post. I think you will agree that it is much better than this.

STEP TWENTY SEVEN

2009-03-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Let's revisit this mandala one more time, again. I created an alternate background and dragged our mandala onto it. Let's see how we arrived at this point.

STEP TWENTY SIX

2009-03-15T21:54:00.001-07:00

I decided to revisit this mandala one more time. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever really be done with any of these. I added flowers inside the star points and darkened the background. I think this is an improvement.

STEP TWENTY FIVE

2009-03-15T21:13:00.001-07:00

We have one other option before class is dismissed. Here, I have superimposed text over part of the image. This is especially useful for card designs.
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Visit my Brightlight Mandala site and see if you don't get more ideas and inspiration for ways to expand on what I have shown you here. If you have specific questions about how something is done, put it in an e mail, and I will be happy to respond.
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Enjoy!

STEP TWENTY FOUR

2009-03-15T20:59:00.001-07:00

The next step is to change our backgorund. We could just fill with a different solid color. In this case, I use a textured pattern with the gray to add a subtle effect that makes the flowers float on top of the background. Dark, neutral colors will bring out the color in the blooms well, but sometimes I like a brighter background to add color to the total image; especially when I am creating a card design.
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I have also used foliage backgrounds and will do more of that in the future. I got a very nice effect with that on my poppy line mandala. You can take a small image of a piece of foliage and tile it to create an almost kaleidoscopic effect.

There is plenty of room for you all to add your own approach to all this and to create your own style of flower mandalas. I hope you have as much fun with it as I do.

STEP TWENTY THREE

2009-03-15T20:40:00.001-07:00

Once our mandala is done, we have the problem of what to do with the rest of the page. We could do a square print, but if we want to go with standard size prints and not waste paper, then we have page to use up. I have worked with this in several ways.
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In some cases, I have moved the mandala to the top of the page and added text below it. We could keep adding rings to the mandala so that they fill the whole page. With my first calendula mandala, I added just one extra ring that ran off the page. Photoshop has all the data to recreate the whole ring, including the elements that don't show on the page; truly amazing technology. If you create extra rings expanding off the page, you could even shrink them down to fit if you wanted to for some applications. The idea is that you would fill the entire page with mandala that simply gets cut off at the sides. It can be a nice effect. I have seen people do it with their fractal mandalas.

The solution I use the most is to add individual flowers or flower composites above and below the mandala in a symmetrical arrangement. It gives me a chance to give the viewer some large flower images to appreciate for their detail. I think it makes a nice balance to combine the pure beauty of the flower with the grace of the geometric mandala design. I'll let you be the judge.

STEP TWENTY TWO

2009-03-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

OK. Let's shrink the mandala down enough to add some individual flowers at the star points outside the outer ring. We will label this as phase7.

STEP TWENTY ONE

2009-03-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

This is phase 6. I have duplicated, saved, merged and labeled as usual. I began by expanding the polygon a little. We had created 2 lavender line elements, now we add 2 pink lines. We will use them to create a 12 sided polygon around the star. By now you know the drill on how to get that done. This completes the mandala itself, but we could keep going and add more rings, more elements and more complexity if we wanted. Our mandala has expanded beyond the sides of the page, but it is a simple matter to scale it down to fit. If we wanted to add another ring or two, we would scale this down as needed first.

STEP TWENTY

2009-03-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

Now, we are going to bring in a whole new element to create a star. So far we have been able to let Photoshop do most of our placement for us in creating perfectly concentric rings. This time, we need to give our program a little help. I use the polygon shape tool set to 12 sides to create a yellow polygon surrounding our outer ring.
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In some mandalas, I will take a shape like this and make it a design element. In such a case, I will usually stroke it with a contrasting color so that it has an outline. We could create a series of such shapes concentrically, each with a different color; so as to add more color to our backgrounds. See some of my mandalas with figures.
We now take 4 flowers and create what I call a "line element". Arrange the flowers in a line as seen above and overlap them to create the line. Play with it until you get a design you like. You can then duplicate your image and flip it horizintally so that you have a pair to work with.
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Scale the lines down and drag to the top of our outer ring. Rotate them, position and scale until you get the star point you need. Link the layers and duplicate. Follow the preceding process to complete the star all the way around. You may need to readjust if the points don't quite fit. In this case my points were spaced out too far, but came together as I wanted, so I linked all the star layers and scaled them down for a perfect fit.
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If we wanted to, we could put a small flower at the tip of each point to create a sharper point. We could also place a larger flower in the center of each point and another between points. I am going to leave this more open look, but you are free to experiment.
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When we are done with them, we can hide our line elements. Hidden layers will be deleted when we flatten our final phase.

STEP NINETEEN

2009-03-15T11:05:00.001-07:00

This is developing nicely. The beauty of all this is that if you don't like how it is turning out, you can go back and change things so easily.
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I like to set up a varied rhythm between the concentric circles. To do this, I vary the size and spacing of the rings and in this case; we are alternating between the pink and lavender flowers. We are going to create a ring of 24 blossoms and set them just outside our ring of 12.
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We choose a pink blossom and place it above our previous ring. Proceed as before through the first 4 layers. Now duplicate and rotate 45° creating a set of 8 layers. Duplicate and rotate 30°. Repeat. This gives us a ring of 24. Amazing, eh?

How about we add a smaller ring of flowers and layer it behind the ring of 24? Now we have a double ring with 48 blossoms. Are you starting to get the picture and see the potential in all this?
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Save, duplicate, merge and get set to tackle phase 5.

STEP EIGHTEEN

2009-03-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

In this lesson, we will create another ring, but it will echo the cross shape as well. We have duplicated our image, merged the 16 layers of ring 1 and labeled this as phase 3.
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We now select a lavender blossom and create a ring of 12. When I am tansitioning from a ring of 8 to 12, I like to leave sufficient space between the rings so that the eye is not offended. Proceed as previously duplicating and rotating through the first 4 layers. Now, however, instead of rotatin 45°, we will rotate 30°. Duplicate those layers and rotate 30° again. Presto! We now have a ring of 12 flowers. Again, we have some big gaps. We could adjust scale and positioning to convert this to a ring of 24, but I want to try something different.
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Select anothe flower to fill in gaps and scale to a little smaller that our exixting blooms. Rotate so that it fits into ring. Duplicate and flip horizontlally. Duplicate and proceed as before to create the image you see here. We could duplicate our first smaller flower, rotate it to fit and fill in the gaps to create an unbroken ring. I am choosing to leave the gaps and create an echo of our central cross.
The mandala designs are about repitition and symmetry, but we need to add interest by breaking up the sameness and incorporating some elements of surprise.
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After you get through staring in amazement at what you have just done; duplicate image, save original, label duplicate as phase 4, merge layers of ring 2, and fasten your seat belts for lesson 19.

STEP SEVENTEEN

2009-03-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

We will start this lesson by duplicating our previous image and merging the 4 layers of the cross and label the resulting layer as cross.
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I do this as I proceed with my mandala creation. We can keep the number of layers to a manageable level, but retaining all layers between the various phases, so that any step can be changed or recreated as needed. This takes a lot of memory, but gives us a lot of flexibility.
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Label the new image as PH2 for phase 2. Now we will kick it up a notch. Let's create a ring of 8 blossoms. Select the flower you see here and positon it above the cross allowing some space in between.
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We could choose other numbers of flowers for our ring, but 8 is the easiest to work with and we want to ease you into this. We could create rings of odd numbers, but even numbers are much easier to work with, so I usually use rings of 8, 10 or 12 and multiples thereof.
Duplicate layer, then go to edit>transform. You can rotate 180° or flip vertically. You could drag the duplicated layer to the bottom of the cross and it would be quick, but I usually use the arrow keys, because it maintains one axis of movement, which aides in positoning. So use the down arrow until you have your duplicate layer in positon. Use your grid lines to help in this.
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Select these 2 layers and duplicate. Rotate 90°C. Now select the 4 layers and duplicate. Go to layers>transform>rotate. Up in the tool bar, enter 45° in the angle box. Watch the magic. We now have a ring of 8 flowers. Click the check button in the tool bar to apply the changes.
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If the flowers overlap or don't have a symmetrical arrangement, then click on the cirlce with the diagonal slash in it to deny application. Go back and redo as needed. You may need to rescale the flowers up or down or positon closer to or further away from the center.
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In this case, we have some pretty big gaps, so we are going to fill in with new blossoms and convert this to a ring of 16. Are you ready for this?
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At this point, we need to create a circle to use as a guide. I go to the shape tool and select the ellipse tool. By alt shifting from the center, I drag out until my circle just surrounds my ring of flowers. I have chosen yellow, but there are other choices. This layer can be hidden and won't show in our final image. It can also be expanded to serve as a guide for succeeding rings.
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Select a new flower and drag onto page. Position between the top flower in our ring and the one just to the left and roate so that it fits. We could scale these flowers down so that they don't touch or barely touch. We could also let this new flower overlap the first 2, but let's put this layer below the first 8 in our layers palette so as to position it behind the first 2. Our circle comes in handy in guiding our positioning of this flower.
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There are a couple of options here. We could rotate 180° and proceed as before with duplicating and rotating layers as with the first 8 flowers. I want to show you and alternative, however.
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Duplicate layer and go to edit>transform>flip horizontal. Use your right arrow key to position this flower just to the right of our top blossom. Now, we select the 2 layers and duplicate. Rotate 180° or flip vertically and move to bottom of the ring with the down arrow key. Select the 4 layers and duplicate. Rotate 90°. Now we have a ring of 16 blooms. Isn't this fun?

STEP SIXTEEN

2009-03-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

So let's start the mandala. We will begin by creating a new page. I like to use 23"x34.5" because it is a good sized poster I can have printed through Zazzle. Another printer might use 24"x36" or similar size. I could probably go a little larger, but would start losing resolution if I tried to go much bigger or get into prohibitive costs. Choose the largest size you think you will want to use. You can always shrink images down.
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We may want to reduce the image down for use as smaller prints, cards, bookmarks, etc. On Zazzle, we can even make such small items as pins, business cards and postage stamps. I am filling the background with cyan. We can and probably will change the background at the end. Use whatever color pleases you.
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I add grids and guides. I like to use 1" grids for this size image. I use guides to divide in half vertically and horizontally. This also establishes your center which is essential. In fact, I zoom in so that I can match the guides up with the grids at the center. It will be critical that we and the computer know exactly where the center of our page is. Everything will revolve around that.
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Next we will choose a flower for the center of our design. I like to use a round, symmetrical image for this. Click and drag the appropriate flower from our assembled page. Move to the center of our mandala page and reduce the size downt to what you see here. I like to zoom in to center our flower precisely.
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Since we started with a pink blossom, let's choose a lavender flower with a side view for contrasting color and shape. Again, drag to the page and scale to fit. Zoom in to align precisely to the right of the central flower.
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We have a variety of choices here. We can scale flower to the same size as the central one of make it larger or smaller. We can align our new bloom close to or touching the central one, or move it further out. We can also vary the number of blooms surrounding the center.
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In this case, we will have our flowers barely touch the central bloom and create a cross by using 4 blooms.
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Now comes the fun. Go to layers tab and choose duplicate layer. Go to the edit tab and choose transform. Select flip horizontal. Using the left arrow, move the duplicate to the left of the center. Zoom in as necessary to align accurately.
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This is where it gets interesting. Use shift click in the layers palette to highlight these 2 layers. Using layers tab, duplicate layers. Go to edit and transform. This time, choose rotate 90° CW for clockwise as opposed to CCW for counterclockwise. Voila! We have our cross. Isn't this great?

STEP FIFTEEN

2009-03-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

Let's create a new page with dimensions of 13"x19", figuring that that we will be large enough to contain all our flowers. Just for the heck of it, I have put them on cyan again. On the right, we have extracts 1-5 in pink. On the left, we have our lavender bloosoms. As it turned out, we just barley have enough room to fit them all. I have also created a couple of "lines" of linked blossoms on a smaller scale. We will come to the how and why of that later.
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Each flower will show up on its own layer and you can label each as you wish. We could, of course, combine these flowers with other kinds of flowers, portraits, figures, geometric designs, animals and all kinds of other images to create an infinity of designs. You could take one or two flowers and put them into a woman's hair for a portrait. Use your imagination.
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Using this page, I will create flower compositions with various combinations of blooms with or without foliage for prints, posters or cards; borders/frames, bookmarks all with or without added text. I can also go to Zazzle or Cafe Press and make the designs into t shirts, mugs, buttons, ties, postage stamps and more.
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In this tutorial, we are going to create a flower mandala. In it, you will learn all the skills you would need to create the other forms.

STEP FOURTEEN

2009-03-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

One other thing that can be done with color adjustment is to change the hue. I first did that with yellow carnations. I made a border of them for an early version of the Serenity Prayer. I liked it, but decided that I would like to have them in pink as well. I was able to do that by going to the hue/saturation window and using the hue slider until I got what I liked.
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So let's see what we can come up with. Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation>Hue. By taking the hue slider 3 points to the right, we get a slightly more vivid pink. If we go further to the right, we start getting into orange which clashes with our pink. Going still further, we get a yellow which doesn't look good and I don't want to get into an unnatural blue or green. I also want to avoid bright red, so this lavender seems to be our best option. I make a note that I have adjusted the hue to a minus 32. This gives us two images of different hue which is going to add interest to our final image. Now, we can go back to extract 1 and create a lavender duplicate of that.
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We now go on and use the same procedures to complete extractions 3, 4 & 5. As I worked with these, I settled on using a tolerance level of 11 or 12 in using the magic eraser.

STEP THIRTEEN

2009-03-13T20:15:00.001-07:00

Now, let's adjust the color. many of you may know more about this than I do, but let me share what I have learned.
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Go to Image > adjustments.
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For many photos, I find the levels command to be the most important tool I can use in adjusting the color. It is especially good with complex images like scenery. With these simpler, extracted images, it may not do much; still, I will check to see what difference it will make. Getting more color intensity is usually my goal, but I don't like to push until it becomes unnatural. The other choices under adjustments include brightness, contrast and so on, but I find saturation to be the biggest help.
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I generally increase saturation by just a few points because I don't want to get into the unnatural look.
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I try to take most of my photos in the shade. If you have taken one in full sun, you may need to make a gamma adjustment as well. In this case, I think we have found a nice vivid color without overdoing it.

STEP TWELVE

2009-03-13T05:48:00.001-07:00

This blossom was part of a bouquet that was getting old by the time I photographed it. If you look at the previous image, you will see some brown spots that are the result of aging.
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I don't worry about small blemishes on the flowers, but there are often spots that need to be touched up; so this is an opportunity to show you that.

I use the eyedropper tool ( I ) to sample the color next to the spot and then use the brush tool (B ) to paint over the spot. That works well much of the time. The healing brush also works, but I find the spot healing tool to work the best ( J ). Simply select that tool and brush over the spot lightly. You may need to use a combination of these to clean up the whole image.

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The other shortcut I use is X. With that, you can switch back and forth between the foreground and background colors. It is especially useful with a black & white image, but I often paint or fill 2 colors at a time because this is so helpful.

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The healing brush & spot healing brush don't work well near defined edges, so I usually have to use the brush tool in those areas. Quite often, my flower photos will have an insect on a petal, and this method works well for removing them as well. Better than pesticides.

STEP ELEVEN

2009-03-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

My next step is to create another layer and fill it with black. I then zoom in a bit and use the standard eraser to take care of any spots which show up against the black that weren't evident with the blue.
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You can hide the black layer at anytime by clicking the eye icon in the layers palette. I am giving a lot of detail in the tutorial, but I necessarily skip over some steps. If you have trouble with something and need more detailed instruction, e mail me and I will be happy to respond.

STEP TEN

2009-03-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

After going all the way around the edges, we end up with this beautiful image. Extractions are the most time consuming part of the design process for these mandalas; so anything that can speed up the process will help. You will figure out your own ways to save time as you get practice. I understand that you CS3 users have other, powerful tools at your command. The process here in Photoshop, is very similar in Corel Photo/Paint. I have not worked with other programs, but there are other options out there.
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To my mind, they are all magic. I look at this beautiful image and my heart swells with gratitude to have these tools. To be able to work with the amazing beauty of nature in this way is humbling.

STEP NINE

2009-03-11T20:03:00.001-07:00

I don't like erasing against the gray checkerboard, so I have created a new page with the dimensions of 6"x6". I then filled it with cyan. I like absorbing the blue color while I work. For most flower images it works well, but there will be times that another color will work better.
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The shortcut for the fill tool = G. Another very useful one for our purposes.
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You will need an electronic drawing tablet for this. That is how I got started in all this. My son bought me drawing tablet for Christmas and I had to see what I could do with it.

At this point, I zoom in to 66.7% or 100% and use the standard eraser tool at a diameter of 20-40 pixels. The idea is to clean up the larger areas around the image. I use the hand tool ( shortcut = H ) to move around the image.
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The other very useful keyboard shortcult is to use the right and left brackets to increase or decrease the diameter of the eraser. I use this for the brush and healing tools as well.
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Once I have the big stuff taken care of, I zoom into 300% and set my eraser to around 3-5 pixels to do the detail work. I use smaller diameters to get into tight spaces and the larger diameters where I can go faster.
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With this image, we don't have a lot of background left; it is more about smoothing out the edges left by the magic eraser.
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It is up to you how detailed you get with this. For the mandala, the edges don't need to be too smooth. Once you have the flower extraction done, however, you will be able to use it for all kinds of projects some of which may demand more detail, so it is worth taking the time to do a neat job.
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Sometimes, as you work around the flower, you will come across an area where the extraction filter or magic eraser gouched out too big an area from the petals. Take the eyedropper tool ( shortcut = I ) to sample the color in the area and switch to the brush tool ( B). You can then brush in to fill the gap. If the area is large, you don't want it to be conspicuous by its uniformity compared to the rest of the image; so sample more colors and sort of dab them in to imitate the existing texture.
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With this image,the edges are in relatively sharp focus. This is because the flower is a relatively flat, simple shape. With most flowers, however, with more complex forms; you will have areas of sharp focus and others with more fuzzy focus. In the areas of sharp focus, the edge will be well defined with little tolerance for variation in the line. In the more out-of-focus areas, however, the foreground and background blend into each other and exactly where to define the edge is a matter of choice, and there is more tolerance for varialbility in how you actually define the edge.

STEP EIGHT

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I then go to the eraser (shortcut=E). This is a very useful shortcut for what we are gong to be doing, for we will do a lot of switching from one tool to another. At his point, I select the magic eraser.
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I leave anti-alias on to get smoother edges and leave it set to contiguous. We are working with only one layer at a time so we don't need sample all layers. Opacity = 100%. The variable choice is to set a tolerance level.
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For most images, I set it between 20 & 30. Smaller numbers give you more control. Larger numbers speed up the process, but allow for loss of part of the image you want to keep.
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Exactly how I proceed, depends partly on the complexity of the background and the amount of contrast between foreground and background. Here we have a relatively simple background, but not too much contrast between foerground and background.

Here we have a relatively simple background so that we can erase large areas at at ime, but since the contrast is not great; we have to be careful not to erase too much. This can be compensted by choosing a lower tolerance level, but I also like to zoom in a bit as I erase so that I can see if too much gets erased. By clicking and observing the results, we can catch it if the eraser cuts into our image.

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If you spot it right away, it is a simple matter to go to edit and click undo. If you don't spot it soon enough, you will have to use the history palette to correct the damage.

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Most of this has gone well, but I ran into trouble at the very bottom. This section of gray background is too close to the shaded petal. Using a tolerance level of 30 cut into the petal drastically. I had to go down to 5 to erase safely. At that, it is not clean; but we will use the standard eraser to finish up.

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Strike your own balance and be flexible to adapt to varying circumstances. Experiment to find a compromise between speed and precision. Take large areas with the magic eraser at high numbers to speed up the process or use a small diameter on the standard eraser to maximize control and detail.

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For our purposes here, we don't have to be too precise, but the perfectionist in me likes to get them pretty close. If we were going to blow this image up a lot and hang it in a gallery, then we would need more precision. The beauty of the mandala designs is that we can create poster size images without blowing up individual flowers so much that they start to pixelate. It is a big advantage if you are not a professional photographer with a lot of expensive equipment.

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Let's move on to the next step.

STEP SEVEN

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Now let's take the second photo and see how it is extracted. Start by duplicating the image and labeling it as an extract of a certain type and give it a number.
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There are other ways to extract images from their background. I encourage you to experiment to find what suits you best. The method I will demonstrate suits me, but may not be best for you.
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If any of you have suggestions of better ways to do this, then please share them with us.
I then go to filters and choose extract using Photoshop CS2. You could take a lot of time to outline in detail. You could also use the "smart tool" function, but I find it kind of dumb; or maybe I'm just too dumb to use it correctly. I also understand that you lucky CS3 users have new options which are impressive.
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I generally don't take a lot of time trying to outline in detail; rather, I make a broad outline, fill, preview, and OK the extraction. I wind up with this image on the checkerboard background which jpg won't show.

STEP SIX

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This is our first photo extracted from its background. We are going to do this for all five photos. The image has been touched up, color adjusted and put onto the cyan background. So let's see how this is done.

STEP FIVE

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Here we have our final photo in the series. Between them, we have an interesting combination of shapes to work with. There is not much variation in color, but as you will see; we will take care of that through the magic of Photoshop.
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You could do the same with Corel Photo/Paint which is the only other graphics software I have worked with. The instructions I will give are for Photoshop, but can be easily adapted to other programs. They are all magic in my view.
My aim in this tutorial is to share a process I have discovered largely by accident. I seem to have stumbled onto something unique for I don't see others doing a similar thing. I don't know why others aren't doing this. To my mind the results are beautiful and we are starting with the beauty of nature, so how can we miss?
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I work mostly with flowers of the American Southwest, but the same could be done with other parts of this country, and the world.

STEP FOUR

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This is our fourth photo that we will work with. I am not a great photographer and have a pretty simple digital camera, so I will not give much advice on photographing flowers except to say take lots of photos. The beauty of digital photography is that it doesn't cost more in film to take lots of pictures. Some will come out great and be at just the right angle, light and focus. Others will not, but they are easily deleted once downloaded to your computer. The other recommendation I have is to take pictures of flowers in shade whenever possible. In full sun, you get spots that will white out. Getting shade here in Tucso can be a problem, so when we get a cloudy day, I am out with my camera whenever possible.

STEP THREE

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You will want to create a folder to contain all the images we will be working with. You can subdivide it as needed. I am creating a folder that is labeled as pink daisy. I have subfolders for original photos, mandala 1, composites, borders, cards, and bookmarks. I often create more that one mandala from a set of flowers so I number them. I do the same with the composite images within the sub folder. In this tutorial, I am going to concentrate on the mandala. It will give you the skills you need to create the other products. If you ran into specific problems or had questios about creating other products, I wil be happy to help.

STEP TWO

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This is the second of 5 photos we are going to use in creating our mandala. All five photos are actually different angles of the same bloom. One can create more interesting designs by using photos of different flowers with contrasting shapes and colors or shades of color. As you will see, however, we can get a very pleasing composition with these simple elements.
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I want to keep this demonstration simple, but it will be enough to give you the tools to go own and create your own awesome, perhaps complex designs.
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For my flower mandalas, I like to start with 5-7 extracted photos. More can be used, but with diminishing returns. While variation is important for the mandala process, it is also about repetition. As in all things, it is about finding the balance.

FLOWER MANDALA STEP ONE

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In my first tutorial, I showed you how to create a digital mandala based on my Brighthawk Mandala. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a flower mandala. I call this one Pink Daisy Mandala 1. It is my newest in a series of digital mandalas create with flower photos. This is the first of the 5 photos we are going to use to create our mandala. It is taken with a digital camera and downloaded to my computer.