978 - The Congregation

Ted Byrne is to blame. He made me do it. I swear!

You may have seen Ted’s recent experiments with the Alien Skin plugin Snap Art.

Well, we had some conversation about the merits of said software, and - without having tried it - I uttered my concerns that these were simply some canned effects, that everything made with it would look like Ted’s recent works.

Maybe not. Since then I have installed the plugin (along with “Bokeh” and the whole “Topaz” plugin bundle), have experimented a little, and I can see ways to put at least Snap Art to use. By the way, “Snap Art” is an incredibly stupid name, obviously catering to the non-artist crowd that may at times want to produce “something artsy”.

In reality this plugin is incredibly configurable. You have lots of pre-configured effects, but then you can begin to twist the parameters to your liking. And of course you can combine different effects with layers, blending modes and opacities.

The images shown here were made in reverse order. The Bamboo restaurant is the earliest, maybe still looking a little byrnesque, the street image looks more like where I wanted to go, and the Image of the Day finally has the composition as well.

The Song of the Day is “Come Together”. We had the Beatles version in “171 - Come Together”, this time it must be Ike & Tina Turner. See a video on YouTube.