Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Canvas Art Effects

By Annie Marks

Canvas artworks are classic in the community of interior design. Because of their elegant and attractive look, they are never out of trend. Commissioned classical artworks, however, can be very costly. Photos mounted on canvas are wonderful alternative to this. Not only do canvas photos give the same look and feel of a commissioned artwork, they easily brighten up any living space and bring a burst of colour and life in to the room as well.

A few clicks of the mouse and you can turn your own pictures into your own masterpieces. Let your creativity spark into life by playing with Photoshop's various filtering effects. You can render your photographs to look like traditional artworks. Add textures to your photos, play with its colours and saturation, have it distorted and even transform it into an abstract art.

Artistic Effects. Have your pictures look as if it had been painted in water colour or in oil paint. You can even transform them into a coloured pencil drawing and charcoal sketches. Most picture editing software allow you to tinker with these effects through various options such as brush strokes length and strength, the amount of light and shadows, and even paper brightness.

Distortion. Distortion effects include 'diffuse glow', 'glass' and 'ocean ripple'. Diffuse glow gives your photographs a fog-like effect. You can edit the amount of graininess and glow to your preference. Glass effect gives your photos a look as if you're looking at it through a glass panel or even through an ice block. Ocean ripple creates an ocean-like surface on your photograph.

Textures. You can add various textures in your pictures to make it look as if it had been printed into various textiles. Such textile includes craquelure, grain, mosaic tiles, patchwork, texturizer, and stained glass.

Colour. There are many options you can use to enhance your pictures' colours. Edit your pictures' hue and saturation, turn them as a classic black and white picture using the desaturate option, or transform them into pop art through the use of colour variations. You can even give them an antique feel by applying sepia tone.

Blurring. You can easily alter the depth of field of your image by playing with the various blurring and smudging tools on most image editing software. Soften your subject's features by using the different blurring effects, like 'radial blur', which gives a hazy circular blur on your photo and 'motion blur', which gives off movement effects.

By experimenting with various effects and filters, you can come up with an artwork worthy to be mounted on canvas and displayed for everyone to enjoy. What's more, your beautiful canvas art can not only be used to decorate your walls, but it can also be a wonderful gift to family and friends. - 16651

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