HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL ABSTRACT ART

Have you ever wanted to create one of a kind abstract art?  Believe it or not, the process is really simple once you know how to use the tools involved in creating digital abstract art.  The site I use for creating all of abstract art is called LUNAPIC and you can google it and it will bring the site up.  I will walk you through how I created LET'S MAKE MUSIC to get you started.  This will give you enough information on how to use some of the basic tools so you will be able to begin creating your very own digital abstract art.

The very first thing I needed to do was come up with an idea.  Once I had a vision in my head of what I wanted to do, the next step was going into my files and finding a photo that suited my project.  I wanted a photo of streaks of light, and the photo marked as STREAKS OF LIGHT 1 is the photo I chose for my base or foundation.  I uploaded STREAKS OF LIGHT 1 up onto the Lunapic site.  How Lunapic works is pretty amazing, once you upload or edit anything, it is saved in a file on their site which is located near the bottom of the page, called edit history.  You click onto SHOW ALL HISTORY at any time, and every single edit you have done or photo you have uploaded will show up there.  So knowing my first photo, streaks of light 1 was in the history file, I then uploaded the main subject my my digital abstract piece, the guitar itself. 

Once the guitar was uploaded, it was useless as it was, because I wanted to have just the guitar along, with no background.  So I had to go to work and edit out the background of the photo.  To begin to do this, I went into edit and selected a tool called MAGIC WAND.  For creating digital abstract art, this is an amazing cropping tool.  In a lot of cases, simply by selectiing the magic wand and then clicking onto an area of the photo you want removed, it will give you very good results.  I cleared away a large section of the background just using the MAGIC WAND tool.

Then I ran into a problem - a section of the photo would not take well using the magic wand, what was happening was the magic wand was not only removing large sections of the background, but it was also taking big bites out of the guitar.  Whenever you are faced with such a problem, or anytime for that matter when you use any tool and you don't like the outcome, simply go to edit and click on UNDO.    You will find when creating digital abstract art, the undo button will become your best friend.  So to solve the problem I was faced with, I went back to edit and selected CROP IMAGE.  Now once you select crop image, you are given four selections to pick from, I selected the free form tool.  This gives your mouse pointer a cross hair on the screen.  Use the cross hair to trace out sections of the photo you want removed.  I like to work with small areas, the tool works best that way, and each time you trace an area to remove, simply hit apply and then go back into edit and select crop again.  In a short time I had removed all of the background, leaving just the guitar.

Now here is a rule to remember, the edited guitar photo is both on the screen before me as well as saved in the EDIT HISTORY file.  But in order to take a photo and place it over another photo, like I wanted to do, I had to go to EDIT and select COPY IMAGE TO CLIPBOARD.  Now my guitar, with no background, was safely on the clipboard. 

Now I went down the page to the SHOW ALL HISTORY and clicked onto the photo of my first picture, Streaks of light 1.  Now with this foundation back on the screen, I went to edit again and selected PASTE IMAGE FROM CLIPBOARD.  That easy, now my guitar was over the first photo of the streaks of light.  Now all I had to do was drag the top photo by the corners to line it up with the bottom photo, and click the apply button.  The two photos now merged as one.

I could of stopped right there, but I had envisioned a kind of three d type of abstract piece, so for that, I needed to add another layer of streaks of light.  Once again I went to my files and found just such a photo.  By the way, to create a file of such streaks of light is very easy, and you will need such photos as you get into the digital abstract art.  To create such photos, go out at night, I like to go down on main street, by the lighted stores, with traffic going by, hold the camera by the strap, with a night time landscape setting, a fireworks setting, or set the camera so the shutter stays open for a few seconds.  Press the shutter button and spin the camera.  Depending on your light source ( christmas lights work really great) and how the camera spins or how you move it by hand, will give you a wide range of results.

So I selected my second STREAKS OF LIGHT 2 photo, and I uploaded it onto Lunapic.  Now unlike the streaks of light 1 photo, this was not going to be a foundation.  that meant I had to remove a lot of the background on my streaks of light 2 photo.  For this, I went to edit and selected the MAGIC WAND again.  This time it worked perfectly, and in a short time I had edited out most of the background, leaving only the streaks of light.  This was going to be a photo I wanted on top of the other edited photo, so that meant I had to go to edit and select COPY IMAGE TO CLIPBOARD.  Now with the edited streaks of light 2 photo on the clipboard, I went back down to the SHOW ALL HISTORY near the bottom of the lunapic page, and clicked onto the photo I last did of the guitar, where I had merged the guitar with the first streaks of light. 

Once the guitar photo was back up on the screen, I then went to edit and selected PASTE IMAGE FROM CLIPBOARD.  I then adjusted the second streaks of light over the guitar photo and clicked on the apply button.  Now it is not important to line one photo evenly over another, what is important is that you line one photo over another as you want them to appear together. 

Now I could of stopped right then and there, but I decided the finished photo needed a little something else.  So I reached up to the EFFECTS and selected THERMAL EFFECT.  I was happy with the results and the photo was finished.  Now had I not been happy, remember that all I had to do was go to edit and select UNDO.  The photos below will show you the exact photos I worked with to create my digital abstract art work, LET'S MAKE MUSIC. 

Now I want you to get started off on the right foot, so I am now going to talk a little bit about a very creative tool on the site, and its called MIRROR AND COPY.  This tool is amazing and you just want to really test this thing out with a bunch of different photos and see what you come up with.  Crop a car in half on your computer, upload it to lunapic, hit mirror and copy and you end up with a car with two front ends, or two rear ends, which ever half you use.  But even using small pieces of a photo can result in some unpredictable results.  Below is a photo titled TREE BRANCH .  Nothing fancy, just a part of a tree branch, but look at the photo where I mirror and copied that branch.  You never know what results you will end up with.  I used the magic wand to remove the background, and placed the new branch photo over a photo of dancing flames to create yet another digital abstract photo titled TEMPTATION IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 

Don't be shy about jumping right into it, remember, anything you don't like, simply go to edit and hit UNDO.  The site is free, nothing to sign up for, you don't even have to log in.  Just have fun.