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Hello #Hive friends! 👽... Today I'm here to share with you some of my recent experiments with digitally transformed shots. This time I chose three photos of tree barks (not just any bark, these are two very twisted and full of elements and one totally covered with sharp and hard thorns). I also selected a close-up photo of a termite mound that looks like it really came from an alien world thanks to its strange shapes... But let's go with those works, I want you to have a look at them, these are my gift from me to you today...

Because these are alterations made from photos of natural elements, I thought it would be a good idea to call this little collection "ORGANIC"... I did something similar previously but with photographs of different themes and I shared it here in the past days. You can see that post by clicking HERE...

In doing this I have learned that its best to make two transformed images from the same base shot, as the creative process usually makes us look at the image with more than one transformation possibility. So I have found it a good practice to make at least two images with significantly different transformation techniques from the same base image.

I don't have a defined creative guideline for these transformations, I usually start editing the photograph from the RAW, exaggerating to the maximum the clarity and sharpening the details, this allows me a wide universe of possibilities when transforming the image later... But from that first editing step, the process can be as crazy and diverse as the things that go through my head second after second...

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ORIGINAL UNTRANSFORMED BASE PHOTOS

I and II	III and IV	V and VI	VII and VIII

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SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS

As I said before, I start from the original photos in RAW format and I try to exaggerate as much as possible (without spoiling the image, of course) the details, textures, contrasts and similar...

In some photos I go to the extreme of modifying the natural distortion of the lens to compress even more detail into less space.

Once I'm happy with the result, I export the image as a PNG and proceed to unleash my creative instinct (gosh, that sounded smug, and even more so considering I don't even know how to oil paint, I only do digital stuff 😂)... Anyway, I then edit the PNG image in Photoshop, where I can make use of various tools ranging from texture filters, blending, level variations, rotations and the like... Everything necessary as if it were a "virtual palette of tools" to convert the image into something I like...

Usually after doing everything I want to do in Photoshop, I save the image in JPG format and then edit it in PhotoScape to give free rein to my imagination using the wide range of simple, basic and elementary but very fun and useful tools that this editor (free by the way) makes available.

Cropping, filters, reflections, overlapping... There are a thousand things to transform photos in seconds and with a precise management of each tool, so it is something very close to "painting" but starting from a base image and not from a blank canvas.

With practice, you can create a transformed photo from start to finish in about 30 to 40 minutes, 45 minutes maximum if you are faced with some indecision. But in general it is a relaxing and very rewarding creative exercise... Besides, the images look like small pictures for an art exhibition!... That's nice! (and that's why I put them in clear frames) 😂

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_{ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL NOTE: Photographs captured with my Nikon D7000 DSLR camera in RAW format, then processed in Adobe Camera RAW for adjustments regarding light, sharpening, contrast and depth... The pictures are then exported to JPG format on which minor modifications such as straightening and adding watermarks were carried out using PhotoScape 3.6.3.}

Thank you very much for your visit and appreciation!

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Montalbán, Carabobo, Venezuela.