A long empty expanse of beach, the sound of waves washing continuously onto and off the sand, the occasional background sqauwk of a gliding gull and a lone broken fruit basket settled in the the sand all say peace and solitude.

This photo was taken more than two decades ago in Seabrook Island, SC on Kodak color print film.  The negative was scanned to create a digital copy and a watercolor-like texture applied using Photoshop.  After years in storage the quality of the scanned negative was not suitable for a standard photographic print.  With a little restoration work and the application of the watercolor texture the photo was rescued by converting it to a digital painting.  This image hangs in my home today.

Sometimes I like a composition but don’t like the quality of the resulting image so I try to rescue it with digital filters.  I saw these trees on the side of the rode while driving through Chequamegon National Forest a little northwest of Ashland, WI.

It was windy and rainy and the processed slide lacked contrast as well as detail.  The slide was scanned to a digital file and the Spatter filter in Photoshop applied to the entire image.  Image colors were also selectively enhanced for saturation and hue to complete the transformation.   A 20 X 30 of this image printed on matte paper hangs in my home.

Don’t like the quality of an image, then think about converting it to a digital painting. I saw this group of trees from a top the fire tower in the Porcupine Mountains state park in upper Michigan. Unfortunately it was late in the day and the lighting was poor so the resulting slide did not look like what I had in mind when the shot was taken.

I did like the tonal range of colors in the image so the slide was converted to a digital file and the spatter filter in Photoshop applied to the entire image. Image colors were also selectively enhanced for saturation and hue to complete the transformation.  A 40 X 60 gallery wrapped canvas of this image hangs in my home.

The rich deep colors in this photo were an unexpected surprise.  What looks to the eye like dark shadows in the water from an over-hanging fir tree shows up as brilliant greens, yellows and blues when exposed to film or digital sensors.  Sometimes we see what we think we should be seeing.  Film and digital sensors capture true reflected wavelengths of light without the interpretive function of the human brain and can impart their own unique color charateritics to a photo.

Slow shutter speeds (0.5 seconds) were used to create a sense of movement in the water and allow colors to blend together.  I used a telephoto lens to isolate on just a small section of the water.

Don’t look at the water, look at what is in the water and you will see things you have never seen before.

I grew up in Maine so I am drawn to the ocean and its way of life. The rain soaked wood from a morning drizzle made for beautifully deep saturated colors and a fog over the water that was just starting to lift are what caught my eye for this photo.

This little shack rests on the rocks in Mackerel Cove on Bailey's Island, Maine and was taken in the summer of 2008 with a Nikon D300 and an 18-200mm lens. Photoshop was used to add a dry brush effect that makes the image appear as if it is a hand painted piece of art.

This image hangs in my living room as a 16 X 24 printed on archive quality matte paper.

This is one of those photos where the intent was good but end result wasn’t what I wanted so I converted the photo to a digital painting.  It was a dark gray very windy day and I could not shoot at fast enough shutter speeds with Fujichrome Velvia 100 slide film to prevent major blur in all of all of the trees.  The beauty of digital today is you could now punch up the ISO to 1600 or more and take this shot without issue but back a decade ago when this was taken it wasn’t possible.

I’ve always liked the composition of this photo so I scanned the slide and applied a paint spatter texture to the trees and a dry brush texture to the water.  The result is a digital painting based on an original photograph.   This image hangs over a fireplace in my home.

I make an almost annual pilgrimage to the upper peninsula of Michigan during the first week of October.  It was the bright red tree that caught my eye as a drove by and like I have done so many times before turned the car around, found a place to park and walked back to get the picture.

This photo was taken from the bridge on highway 45 where the Wisconsin River crosses the highway a little north of Eagle River, WI.  A local State Trooper eventually escorted me off the bridge!!

The original photo was modified using a dry brush digital filter effect to make the image appear as if it were painted.