This image was inspired by looking at the trees a few nights ago while taking out the garbage. I think it may be a little too dark to make out clearly, but it's tricky to go any lighter and still retain the nighttime effect. I used two layers, the background was black and had the stars and the lighting effects that weren't on the trees, while the foreground has the trees and the moon. to do the trees I used a gray that is barely lighter than black to make the trunks and branches, and a green that's barely darker than black for the leaves. Then I used the dodge/burn tool to lighten the entire foreground until it was visible but still dark, then I added the moon and I shaded everything with the dodge/burn tool (using the dodge for light given off by the stars and moon, and burn for the shadowy parts). Then I used the blur sharpen tool to blur the moon and make it look more realistic and sharpen some of the leaves to give them dimension.
I think this is a really good picture, and a good display of a lot of the Gimp features. It looks realistic, and shows the result of using layers properly. Your trees and the shadows on them are really nice and the way the moonlight shines through them, the way you created that, is excellent. It does look a bit blurry, so maybe you could zoom in a bit and get a little more detail in there, but besides that it is very beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI really like the moonlight coming through the trees and sky looks great.
ReplyDeleteI think Aaron did a really good job with the lighting and shadows. The tress look realistic with the lighting and the leaves.
ReplyDeleteThe sky looks really cool too with the stars.
Good job Aaron.
The blurriness of the trees doesn't bother me at all. What technique did you use for the stars? They look really realistic. The tops of the trees almost look like they're floating, but that doesn't bother me at all since the rest of the picture is almost surreal.
ReplyDeleteWith the stars I actually just used the paintbrush at a really small size and made a lot of dots, and then I used the airbrush at a low rate and opacity to give the stars a tiny bit more depth
ReplyDeleteWell, it worked. They look great.
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