June 10, 2003

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  This blog was written a few days ago. I unfortunately copied it into the xTools browser over the top of another blog that I had posted & was editing. When I posted the new work, it wiped out my then current blog. Leave it to me to find a new way to lose hours of work in cyber space!   I was hoping that one of the 2 people who commented on it while I was editing it still had a copy of the original blog in their cache & would send it to me so that I could repost it. So far, no luck. So the reference to jacckkoiz's comment won't make sense. The comment's still there, only that I placed the blog private, leaving it otherwise intact awaiting a possible restoration of the original one. You see, I deleted my cache just before posting the other over the top in my editing process. Oh, well.

  
  

   

  
  

  jacckkoiz commented on my new decor on my last blog. The 'funny' thing about that, since it's been like that for a few days now, is that one subject I had intended to write on for that last blog was how I made the background. She said it looks kinda like paisley, which was very popular when she & I were quite young. I even had a few dresses in paisley patterns & had a book cover or 2 that were paisley.

  
  

   

  
  

  Although the background design isn't actually paisley, it does have that 'busy' appearance that paisley has. When I created it, I adored the colors & patterns that turned up in it. The neatest part about the design is what it originally started out as.

  
  

   

  
  

  I used a picture I snitched from MSNBC of the latest war in Iraq. I think it was one of the explosion hits on one of the palaces. I used Paint Shop Pro v7 to manipulate the image into something 180 degrees out of its start. Instead of the horror of war, the picture has become something beautiful (to me, at least).

  
  

   

  
  

  I have several other saved pretty manipulations of that pic. Same basic colors, but different shapes. I don't recall the specific steps I took in creating this image, but I did use several filters under Effects/Geometric Effects like Ripple, Warp, Twirl, etc., then Artistic Effects/Foil, then Reflection Effects/Kaleidoscope. Here's the same starting image, quickly manipulated using my last settings & doubled with the Kaleidoscope.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  After getting the base pretty, I'd duplicate the image window, cut the image, then copy/paste a resized (smaller) image onto that blank, so that it would be four copies of the same image, mirrored or flipped to fit together in a seamless larger image:

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  In the case of the above images, I didn't have to mirror or flip, since they matched up okay. But had I varied the filters to the point where the effects weren't centered, I'd have had to. I created this image in only a few minutes!

  
  

   

  
  

  It feels great to take something signifying a tragic event & change it into something of beauty. It's sort of like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes of destruction to me. I only wish that I could truly turn such horror around, wiping out that terrible deed & replacing it with beauty instead.

  
  

   

  
  

  Here's the same image, with a few additional manipulations, off-centering the pattern:

  
  

  

  
  

  And quadrupled with mirroring & flipping:

  
  

  

  
  

  Here's what the unquadrupled, unmirrored & unflipped image would look like as a background:

  
  

  

  
  

  Not quite so pretty, huh?

  
  

  As you can see, you can come up with a virtually unlimited array of images to choose from for a background! I work with large sized images, so what I use for my background is usually about 350 pixels wide (the size of the original digital photo image, in this case). When starting out with a large original, manipulating the image will stay crisper. I also like to use a higher pixel per inch ratio along with a larger image pallet, so that less definition is lost when making various adjustments. This image didn't have the pixel/inch ratio I usually use, hence the graininess of the image. Sometimes, that can be moderately fixed by using the 'Effects/Blur/Soft' selection, then 'Effects/Sharpen/Sharpen or Sharpen More. You can use these filters several times on the same image to achieve more distinct results. I sometimes switch to another filter, then return to the original one for an additional tweak.

  
  

  If the image is too saturated with colors, making it difficult to read text, it is a simple matter to reduce the color saturation so that one can choose from a greater array of font colors. The reduced saturation image could look something like this:

  
  

  

  
  

  One rule of thumb for backgrounds... the busier they are (lots of patterning), the harder it is to find a text color that will show up adequately enough for anyone to read it without straining their eyes. When this happens, people often give up attempting to read it at all. That's why, in the case of my current background, I use a single-color background in the text area. In my older blogs, where I didn't add a background color to the text area, the text can be difficult to read.

  
  

  Maybe I'll be able to create a paisley one!

  • 7:05 am
  • 7 Comments