Learning and Growing

Last year I was playing with Photoshop on a photo I took in Italy two years ago.  I kind of liked the way it turned out, especially the patina on the fountain.  But I thought it was a bit dark.

Today I decided to use it to experiment with some of the new techniques I've been learning in Kim Klassen's Photoshop Essentials class.  First I came up with this one.

I played around with some adjustment layers and added a texture from Bonnie's blog.  Then I remembered Kim teaching us how to add a vignette around our picture and thought it might be a good look for this one.  Here's how it turned out.

I'm in awe of people who are able to explain what they did to get a certain effect, so I'll try.  I know I added an extra layer and then used a large soft brush to brush black around the perimeter of the picture until it looked filled in enough.  Then I changed the blending mode on the new layer to "soft light", and that made it look really nice.  As an added touch, I used a gaussian blur on the same layer to further soften the effect.  Now that I look at all three pictures, I want to add a bit of blue back into this one to enhance the great patina on the metal.