Jumbo Johnny's Digi Piccys

[jumbojohnny]

I suppose I should have thought of this myself, but Scarlet contacted me to suggest a single thread for all of my posts, rather than single posts for each piccy, so, here we are. .

The first readers will notice, no piccys! That's because it's late, and it's time for bobos, but will start posting some piccys soon.

Jumbo Johnny

[telracs]

glad to help....

and what's "bobos"?

[jumbojohnny]

Bobo's is a Casino in Liverpool, I spent about half my spare time there, and is probably why I'm skint.

[jumbojohnny]

Here's the first for this thread. This was, if memory serves (its a few years old now) a marble, just mashed up and messed up every which way. If you look at it and think 'Jackson Pollocks' then I'll understand.

[jumbojohnny]

And here's today's, if you look closely you will see aliens.

[jumbojohnny]

The reflections or kaleidoscope options and similar on image prog tend to return many mediocre results, but as ever there are exceptions, and I think it's the case here. I just like the pattern and the rounded borders.

[telracs]

it makes me think of New Mexico and pancakes.....

[jumbojohnny]

I am glad it's reminiscent of pancakes, love 'em.

[jumbojohnny]

Sometimes the bland / harmless things I find in books have something I just like. This is a stamp from a Victorian book. It looks water-markish but it wasn't, it was embossed / in relief on a page in the front matter. I have reused it just the once, just to number a short series I gave away to workmates.

[jumbojohnny]

I couldn't mash this one up in a million years, well, of course I could as it would be a copy, but you know what I mean. This is a high quality Victorian illustration of Joseph Grimaldi (the younger), from the 1854 edition of Memoirs of Grimaldi. It is a brilliant book, more of a monolopy of editors than a more usual biography; it was painstakingly constructed from the original autobiographical attempt by Grimaldi himself, and then passed to a series of writers, and it finally fell to Dickens to make sense of it all. Anyway, I digress, this is about the piccy not the booky. The odd thing is, and I think it is astounding myself, the image as is, in the antiquarian book is far smaller, and yet it enlarged so well. Summat spooky methinks, and Grimaldi was known for being mischievous off the stage as well as on.

[jumbojohnny]

It's odd how we like to tinker with nature to achieve a synthetic look, and this is the case here. I am no good at flower and bush names etc, but I think this was forest flame, so for once I deliberately sifted through the filters to get appropriate results rather than the usual mash it and see routine. There is a brilliant option on Photofiltre for reviving the colours, and if I had have used that then it would have a lot more fiery reds and oranges but I preferred the softer look it is at now.

[jumbojohnny]

One thing I have been doing over the last couple of years is seeing what can be done with photos / existing digi images that were either useless 'as is' or were beyond being useful. And although it's the very essence of this entire thread as per what we all upload, with some of my mashings I don't crop, I work and work on the image at the size and res it was at, and see if the filters and various options can create something entirely new. It doesn't always work, most such images cannot be morphed into anything satisfactory, but the odd one does. This is one I am made up with, as they say round 'ere, totally abstract of course but I just like it. So much so it is now a POD mousemat posted elsewhere, won't say where though.



This second one is also now a mousemat, but a fun one. The original piccy was one of those tattered battered ripped here and there piccys we all lose in a drawer about 20 years ago. I just gave it the gawdy look and I think it does the job.

[The Hooded Claw]

What a variety of digital effects!

[jumbojohnny]

Thanks, and the beauty is, anyone can do this, they just have to be everything we are supposed not to be when working with digi images - sloppy, imprecise, choose options blindly, recklessly, and eventually, you will get something good from a sea of tripe.

[jumbojohnny]

It's odd how random filtering, cropping etc can then return something that looks like something real, like this for example -



I can see a monkey either pulling tongues or sucking on material the way a cat likes to do, and yet all it was originally was a bobble hat, then a kaleidoscope of a bobble hat, then a tiny section of it cropped, enlarged and, hey presto, Mitch the Monkey pops up.

[jumbojohnny]

Not a digital process or filter in sight. My other passion re images is Victorian Illustrations. I don't know why, but they seem, even with all the intervening years and all the artists, designers and illustrators that have come and gone or are still with us, the modern ones simply cannot match their Victorian counterparts. The one here is not exactly in ratio, but sometimes a little out-of-true can add rather than detract.



Credit must also go to the original publishers of these antequarian books, many scan so well it's as if the book is brand new.

[jumbojohnny]

Here's another one where the end result was not looked for, but purely accidental. I jokingly call this one 'Pink Searchlight'.

[jumbojohnny]

Occasionally I copy football team profile photys, this one was from the Man Utd site.