new play tool

MM, what a fabulous time waster tool 🙂 I usually just use my trusty free download of Irfanview to fiddle with photos. It has enough “effects” and capabilities usually that it suffices to get the fires going. I also don’t have one-a them fancy newfangled “smart” phones that can download all the (mostly) useless apps everyone thinks they have to have. Once in awhile though, a computer tool comes along on a site that is useful for manipulating colour, line and feeling. It’s good to shake things up once in awhile.

I really like this tool, so i spent a few hours with it this morning. Most of the “filters” distort your photo so much that the point is lost, IMHO. (And who really wants their work to look like a mass of peanuts or jelly beans, the American flag, or “Citradelic”????) I stuck to the “Kandinsky” filter, and found that while black and white uploads can give lovely images, the more strongly coloured your photo is, the more contrast and interest points there are. The panoramas below are the original sketches i used for my “The Weight She Carries” ( i used only one wing alone in the final work!) and the manipulated image. I find it fascinating that the mood of the original becomes completely different, joyful even. I still want to use the whole original sketches as works, but companion pieces in the “happier” version would be interesting as well, with different methods used in each.

If you want to play too, go to Dreamscope, but be warned: you could spend HOURS, DAYS, WEEKS futzing around. Be selective 🙂 I won’t be going back for awhile: i have all the grist for the mill i need right now. (The larger your photo upload, the longer it will take—and magically, a 650×871 sized photo becomes a 894×1200 manipulation, go figure…)