Goodbye 2020 and welcome 2021. Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you a lot of happiness, stay healthy, stay creative.
This is my first blog post in 2021. During this year, I have planned to share with you a lot of new posts, tutorials, news. But I need your help. I want to ask you to share with me what you would like to see from me in 2021. What topic(s) you are most interested in. For me, it’s important to have a two-way conversation with you. If you have a few minutes to spare, please, help me to understand what you would like to see from me, answering a few questions from the form below. Thank you in advance!
Hello everyone. Welcome to another Monday blog post day. Today I want to wish each of you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! 2020 wasn’t the easiest year. This year was difficult for everyone. The entire world has been impacted by COVID-19. People lost their loved ones, people lost their jobs, families don’t know how they will put bread on the table. In 2020 we saw a lot of injustice. People with other than white skin tones were treated unacceptably wrong. With all these injustices, infections, cries, the hunger for many people we saw in 2020, we also saw something else. We saw that people with ALL skin tones, genders, religions were on the streets supporting Black Lives Matter. We saw so many people donating money, food to local food shelters. We saw our heroes in white uniform fitting for every single life of COVID patience. Our teachers, our heroes teaching our children via ZOOM. We saw how people come together in 2020 to support each other. This is what COVID could not take from us. This is what makes us human.
In this Holiday Season, I want to say thank YOU to my readers, my followers, my friends, and my family for being with me, for supporting me, for pushing me to dream, to be better, and simply to be who I am.
I want to wish you happiness and good health. I wish for you to be with the people you love and who love you. I wish for you to dream because if we can dream, we can create.
Hello everyone. Great to see you all here! Today is the day for many of you who asked me how you can convert your image into a painting if you are not a painter and don’t want to spend a lot of time painting. Topaz Studio is what you need. In just under 5 minutes, you can convert your photo into art. Let me show how. Open an image that you want to convert into a painting.
Click on Filter > Topaz Studio 2
Photoshop will launch Topaz Studio
Click on Add Look
Topaz will display a library with many different styles of painting looks (From Leonardo da Vinci to Pastel) that you can add to your image. I love many of them and I know you will as well.
Click on any look you want to add to your image. My favorite look is Cezzane so I will click on this look. After you specify the look you want, Topaz will display a slider that you can use to apply less or more of the painting effect to the image.
When we happy with a painting effect, we can click on Apply to apply this effect to the image.Now you can apply your personal touches to the painting to make it more personal and unique.
Click on “Impression.” Here you can change stroke, the number of strokes, and brush size.
From the Color and Lighting workspaces you can adjust colors and lighting in your image. I don’t use these features a lot because if I use Topaz as a plug-in in Photoshop, I prefer to adjust everything in my image before I launch Topaz.
Texture is my one of favorite features. Using the Textue workspace you can add texture to your image and the best part is that using Texture Strength you can adjust how much texture effect you want to apply.
After you are happy with everything you are ready to click on Accept and your image will return to Photoshop with an applied painting effect. This is how easy it is to convert a photo into a painting in just under five minutes.
Most of us feel better when we create. Some of us have painting experience, some of us don’t. Having no experience shouldn’t keep you from creating. I believe that all of us can create. Creation is our natural language and Topaz Studio makes our voices heard. If you wanted to paint, but never did before, today is the day. Start your art today with Topaz Studio.
It was a time in my life when my daughter and I were without food. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work. I wasn’t able to find a job anywhere. I was looking for a job all day and every day. We were able to buy a jar of pickles on sale for 85¢, and a loaf of bread also on sale for $1,07. We sliced pickles very thin to put it on top of a slice of bread. We ate it three times a day. We were happy to afford it and eat every day and to be honest, I love pickles.
It’s the Holiday season again, but this year it’s different than it used to be. The entire world is having to deal with COVID-19 this year. Every single person is affected by it in one or another way. So many people are without work, heat, or food. So many people could not put any food on the table. So many children are hungry. Together, we can help. We can help some families to put a slice of pickles on top of a slice of bread. I have created a few coloring pages for this Holiday Season. You can download them for free and use them in your traditional or digital painting. If you feel that you can spare some money to help the hungry people in Georgia, please donate anything to the Atlanta Foodbank you can (even $1 will be gladly appreciated).
With each year our phones become a bigger and bigger part of our mobile workflow. I would like to point out that when I say “mobile workflow” I don’t mean only the professional part of our lives. Our mobile devices are tools that are always under our fingertips. Using our phones record or take behind-the-scenes pictures, photographing the subject, creating our memories on vacation, birthdays, or wedding parties, the smile of our pets, or first steps of our children. So why not make all of this much easier, quicker?
Photography or Video Pocket Tripod Pro, at first glance you will think that it’s impossible this small (pocket) tripod will give you the stability to take a clean shot. I thought the exact same thing, BUT when I tried it, I was amazed and now I am using it all the time, everywhere.
This Pocket Tripod is great in landscape or vertical orientation. It has 180° of tilt in both orientations. Everything you need to adjust the tripod is included in the package. This package includes 7 common sizes for most common cases and phone sizes and also includes a coupon for any size not included. This tripod works with all phones iPhone or Android.
This lightweight, pocket-size tripod is all that you need to keep your phone steady, and best of all it folds down to the size of a credit card so that you can have it with you in your wallet/purse at all times.
I love my new Geometrical Pocket Tripod Pro and I definitely recommend it to anyone who is using their phone’s camera to create memories of everyday life or for professional life. By the way, you can use my linkto order this beauty 🙂
Digital Art and Design If you know me, you know that digital art is the biggest part of my creative life. I use desktop and mobile devices for my digital art. In my mobile digital art workflow, I use Adobe Fresco a lot and I was so happy when Adobe introduced Fresco for iPhone. Now I literally can paint at any time from anywhere because my iPhone is ALWAYS with me! Of course, I immediately started looking for a stylist I could use with Fresco on my iPhone. After some research, I found one. Active Stylus Digital Pen. It has a clean look (which I appreciate a lot), easy to set up, and the battery lasts for a long time. When I said “easy to set up” I meant that you don’t have to do anything. Just charge it, turn it on and you are ready to go! This is how easy it is. The full charge is enough for 8 hours working, 30 days standby. The full charge time takes 40 minutes. Digital Pen works with iOS and Android touch screen phones and tablets.
I like this stylist. It’s more comfortable than my finger (for sure). The simplicity of the stylist brings one extra good point to it. This is not an Apple pencil so it doesn’t have the built-in support for pressure sensitivity. The pen doesn’t work with Windows phones or tablets.
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Hello everyone, I took a few days off and after the Thanksgiving break, Now I’m coming back to work but with a different schedule. Many of you have asked me to share with you my live streaming day and time, my new video tutorial release days, etc. Below is my full schedule. Hope to see you all there!
Monday: A new blog post. Place: here (pavlovphotography.com/blog)
Creating custom art based on photographs has never has been easier than now. Today I will show to. you how to convert a photo into a sketch with one click.
Open the image you want to work with
With your image open, open your Creative Cloud Library panel. At the bottom of the CC library, click on “+” icon
Click on Create from image
Photoshop will redirect you to the Adobe Capture workspace
Every image is different. You need to make your own decision on how many details you would like to see in your shape. You can specify a detail value between 1- 100%. In this image I made a decision to specify detail value at 95%
Now I have converted the image into a sketch with only one click. The Smooth on Save feature will help to smooth all lines in a shape (it’s absolutely optional).
After you are happy with your shape click on Save to CC Library and Photoshop will save the new shape to the active (opened) CC library.
If you would prefer to have a white background, click on Invert and adjust details as needed. I am using this option when I want to have a transparent background instead of black.
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If you are a photographer, this new feature in Photoshop is what you were waiting for.
Open the photograph you want to change the sky.
Click on Edit > Sky Replacement
Photoshop will open Sky Replacement workspace and will replace the sky with the last sky you used/default sky in the Sky Replacement workspace
.
From the Sky Replacement default sky library choose any sky you want to replace your sky with.
Once you specify the sky, Photoshop will replace the sky. You can adjust the new sky’s brightness and temperature in the Sky Replacement workspace
Foreground Adjustment workspace will help to adjust the foreground if needed.
If you would like to reposition the sky you can use the move tool.
By default the Sky Replacement workspace has three default libraries with different skies
If you want to bring your own sky in you can do it by clicking on the “+” icon
Photoshop is NOT applying any permanent modifications to your original image. Photoshop replaces the sky adding a new sky as a layer group.
As a photographer, I am extremely happy about the new Sky Replacement feature. I have a huge library of images I need to replace the sky in. I would like to point out this: it’s not about being a good or bad photographer because the sky in the image needs to be replaced. Any photographer knows that we all depend on the right time and the right weather when we are shooting on location. Yes, we were able to exchange the sky before as well but now with the new Sky Replacement, everything is MUCH easier, most more enjoyable, and more productive.
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Some of my friends and followers asked me why I am asking the world to help the people of Artsakh, why am I so vocal about it. The answer is simple. I am Armenian. I am an Armenian woman whose grand grandmothers survived the Armenian genocide in Turkey and Azerbaijan in 1915-1923. My grandmothers, mother, auntie, and I survived a genocide of Armenian people in Azerbaijan in 1988-1992.
This is a short story of a few women from my family.
My great grandmother escaped the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey in 1915. She escaped with only the dress on her back. Her entire family was killed. She was just a teenager, and she lost everyone and everything. She was alone in the world. She did not talk a lot about what happened. She was always saying, “it was hell.” She did not want us, her children, and grandchildren to even hear about it because of all the horrors she saw. She also said that when Azerbaijani people killed the Armenian people in Baku, she was hiding underground in a sewer. When she opened the sewer cover after a few days, the blood of Armenian people was all over the streets.
My other grand grandmother ran on foot with her two babies from Nagorno- Karabakh after Azerbajni beheaded her husband. She was pregnant with a third child. She said that when she saw that her husband’s horse brought his body back home, she understood that she needs to run right now, leaving her house and everything. She was moving during the nights and hiding in the forest during the day because Azerbaijani people and the government were looking for Armenian people to kill.
The next generation of women from my family (including myself) escaped Azerbaijan in 1988-1992. Why did we run? Because the Azerbaijani government and Azerbaijani people started killing, raping, torturing the Armenian people in Azerbaijan.
I did not talk about this for a long time. Like my grand grandmother, I felt lucky because I survived. I tried to keep all that I saw and felt in Azerbaijan inside. But as an Armenian, mother, and human being, I am telling the story of my nation; I am telling the storyof many generations of women from my family. Every woman from my family saw and experienced the genocide of Armenian people by Turkey and Azerbaijan.
That’s why I am asking the world: Don’t be silent. Another genocide of the Armenian people is “in progress.” Don’t keep your eyes closed. Help protect Artsakh. Protect Armenian children, grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, women, and men. I am asking the world, “Please, don’t be too late.”
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