Painted Leaves (Digitally Modified and Posterized Photo)

Painted Leaves (Digitally Modified and Posterized Photo) Originally uploaded by randubnick

Still time for another look at autumn leaves. This image began as a photo I took a few weeks ago in the gardens at Long Hill. When I saw these leaves with their beautiful colors and patterns, I thought they looked hand-painted. So I took a photo with my phonecam. Of course, later when I looked at the image on my computer screen, I could see that the leaves had been snacked on by insects and torn up by the wind. So I opened the image in Painter IX and started patching little holes in the leaves with digital pastel. But I also noticed some major rips and broken leaves, so I did more work with the digital pastel. So now these leaves really are hand-painted. But I matched the color digitally, so the colors in this image were all in the original photo, and followed the pattern in the leaves. Finally, I posterized the image, adjusting the levels to get the effect that you see here. It is good pay attention to autumn leaves, because they will all be gone very soon.