It’s week three of the monthly challenge, and we get to the image I’ve been looking forward to making. As a side note, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do for week 4, eep.
When I was flipping through the book, The Artist’s Guide to GIMP – Creative Techniques for Photographers, Artists, and Designers by Michael J. Hammel (O’Reilly, Amazon), this is one of the main things I wanted to try (and the steam from last week).
I tried several iterations of font and text, initially I just had the text Coffee • Tea • Hot Cocoa • on a repeat …which I then changed to all caps… COFFEE • TEA • HOT COCOA • … but ultimately my husband and I thought that actual text looked better, which I copied from Wikipedia (Green Tea and Coffee), and again I switched it to all caps.
The key to this technique is removing as much white space as possible so that you can still make out the image being made by the letters.
Once I had the font and text worked out, I added a white vignette and then played around with blend modes. I couldn’t decide which I liked best (see gallery below). My husband liked option 1 and option 4. Over several days I’d ask him again and he always picked those two, I on the other hand picked a different one each time. So the one above is option 4, my husband’s choice (and my compromise – option 1 being the one without the vignette). I like them all for different reasons. You can click on the gallery to see the images bigger.
Which one would you have chosen?
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- option 1
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- option 2 -vd
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- option 3 – vgm
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- option 4 – vo
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- option 5 – vv
Kind thoughts and comments are welcome!
I have joined a month-long photo post-processing challenge called One Four Challenge, hosted by Robyn at Captivate Me. “This challenge is about processing １ image in 4 different ways over 4 weeks.” Every Monday Robyn posts a new version of her photo and challenges us to do the same each week.
I’m still really behind in my offline life, the Santa Ana winds have brought not only heat (today’s high forcast is 90°F – even though we still have a week before it’s officially Spring), but also allergens which are kinda kicking my butt.
The tutorial for this technique is here.
Until next time…
~nic
Photography by Nic 
Great idea, I lean towards no.5. 🙂
Thanks, Lore! Yeah, I like that one because the color of the cup change. 😀
an interesting Idea adding text to the image, making it much more graphic and less photo. Personally I like version 3 as the text is stronger on the cup and fades out leaving the cup as the focus of the image.
Thanks, Ben! 😀 I do seem to gravitate to graphic lately, perhaps I’m just trying to get a new twist to my images. Thanks for your vote… if you are curious, version 3 has the blend mode Grain Merge for the white vignette layer.
I think creating a more graphic image is a good way of experimenting and pushing creative boundaries. There is a lot of i learned from taking some graphic design classes that I translated to my photography.
I think you are so right, Ben, having a little graphic design knowledge would be really beneficial. 😀
This is really cool and a very creative approach!! UniNic 😜 love it!!
I imagine there would be endless possibilities with this. I cant pick a fave sorry – I think its all very clever.. And fun!!
Thanks, Robyn! That’s cute, UniNic, heehee 😀
Hee hee glad you like that 😜
I do like it! Heehee 😀
Ha this is really clever! I like the big version you gave us, it shows the text clearly and still the cup of coffee too 🙂
Thanks, Stacey! The other 4 options can be bigger too if you click on the gallery. I’m glad you like this week’s edit. 😀
I really like this edit Nic! Coffee and newsprint… how appropriate is that! Very creative.
Thanks, Chris! You know, I didn’t even think of coffee and newsprint and found it interesting that both you and Cybel thought of that even though you couldn’t see each others comments yet. What a great concept, wish I’d thought of it, heh. I was just wanting to make an image out of words… and for some reason I thought of an old photo I took back in 2012 of a coffee cup… maybe I thought of it subconsciously? 😀
Cybele and I seem to follow similar thought processes…😊
I thought it was pretty neat that the two of you thought the same thing 😀
this is an interesting edit!! coffee and newsprint re coffee!!
Thanks, Cybel! I wish I could say I thought of coffee and newsprint, but it didn’t even occur to me, so it is a nice side effect! 😀 Really I just wanted to play with making an image out of words, heh. I’m so glad you like it.