Digital Layout - Brighton Gibbs

I thought you guys might enjoy a glimpse into my Photoshop World today. This is a digital layout that created a few months ago of my son Brighton.  The photo was taken back in 2009 in front of  tin wall.

© 2012 Tonya A. Gibbs Photography - All rights are reserved.

This took hours in Photoshop, but I will try and break out a few of the steps for you.

1. When I go on photo shoots I'm always looking for things to photograph that have lots of texture, color, and patterns. Such as:  Rust, Concrete, walls, plants, wallpaper, grass, etc...Organizing these photos is KEY! I have an external hard drive that I store all of my photos on, I have all these fab textures stored in a folder titled "Stock Photos" and inside that folder by Texture, Pattern, Colors.   This helps me get a better idea at a glance. 
2. Always start your digi layouts in the 300 dpi resolution and the size of the final printed piece.  I knew I wanted mine to be printed on 8x10 so that I could easily store, share, frame  or even add to a scrapbook page later.
3. Then the creative process begins, I start with my bottom layer and add a textured image, then just start playing with brushes and blend modes  building layer after layer until I achieve the look I'm after.  

How long does it take for one of these to emerge? Well it is hard to say. Sometimes I limit myself to an hour or two and sometimes days. Just depends on where my mind is at the moment.  I know many of you have art journals that you test out techniques or color combos on. I use photos like this as  a "Digi" art journal.  When creating these pieces, I'm testing out new Photoshop techniques so that I stay on top of the latest trends.   It is an added bonus that I can print them out and share them with my family.

Thanks for stopping in today,

Tonya Gibbs

http://www.psychomoms.com