Soft, Romantic, Dreamy Pictures With Coloured Aura

[Nai]

This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it

 

( Updated October 26, 2014 )

 

Who says we can't create a soft, romantic, dreamy picture ( with additional special effect-coloured aura ) with Paint.Net ? Two floral bouquet pictures in the collage below are the proofs.

 

Since the original blog post is not available anymore, here are the salvaged blog post to be posted right here :

 

************SALVAGED BLOG POST*************

Intro :

Like many other photo-editing tutorials for Paint.Net in this blogs, this tutorials also inspired and motivated by GIMP and Photoshop tutorials- by both Eric R. Jeschke ( The GIMP Guru ) and Hannah Hathaway ( We Live Happily Ever After ). This tutorial will show you how to make a picture that not only having a feeling of soft, romantic and dreamy ( or ethereal, to some of you ) quality, but also having slightly coloured vintage tints and coloured ‘ aura ‘. By using multiple layering technique, the original picture will remain untouched until the time you flattened the image and saved it into jpeg or png format. And if you save it in pdn (Paint.Net native file ) format, you can always fine-tuning or replacing any layer to suits your need; and so, can turns it into a massive photo-editing template that make your life easier- in case you’re editing tons of pictures in a month.

Process :

1. Open/load the image with Paint.Net.  Resize the picture if necessary.

2. Set a new layer. Name it ‘Tinted’. Then paint the layer with white colour- either with solid colour fill or gradient fill.

If you choose to paint the layer with gradient fill options, set the secondary colour to transparent/alpha white.

Set the layer blending mode to ‘Screen’, with opacity set to 71.

Apply Gaussian Blur to the layer, in a range of 100-150.

After that, select Effects> Photo>Glow, and set the glow with Radius = 7, Brightness= 65 and Contrast =78. Repeat the option twice, right after the first application; if you opted for solid colour filling. There are no repetition for gradient filling options.

( Side note : Interested with the rose bouquet picture ? The picture can be found right here )

3. Set a new layer. Name it ‘White Vignette’

Draw a selection area ( preferably an oval ). Go to ‘Invert Selection’ right after finishing it.

Paint the selected area with your favourable colour.

Blur the selected area with Gaussian Blur. Set it in 120-150 range. Then glow it using ‘Glow’ option ( Radius = 7, Brightness = 7, Contrast = 78 ). Here are how the layer looked like after blurring and glowing :

Go to Effects >Distort and choose ‘Wobble’, set the value as seen in the picture above. Blur it with Gaussian Blur. Set the blur strength to 50. Deselect the area afterwards and repeat Gaussian Blur with the same value. You will get something like this :

Go to Effects >Distort and choose ‘Wobble’, set the value as seen in the picture above. Blur it with Gaussian Blur. Set the blur strength to 50. Deselect the area afterwards and repeat Gaussian Blur with the same value. You will get something like this :

Set the layer blending mode to ‘Glow’, with opacity 225.

4. Set another layer, name it ‘Aura’. Draw an oval with 7 pixels line.

Apply Gaussian Blur to the layer. Set the strength to 25 and do the blurring twice. Glow the aura with ‘Glow’. Set the glow until you get hazy ring ( in this case purple hazy ring ) or coloured haze at the area where the shape line used to be.

Adjust the colour with any saturation altering options available ( build-in or optional plug-in ).

Adjust the layer opacity to 186, or just left it in full opacity ( for those who opted for using gradient filling in ‘Tinted’ layer.

Apply the wobble effect to the aura if you like.

5. This step is optional. Duplicate the picture and make that duplicated layer into contrast mask, so that the picture will have a better contrast. How to do so can be found right here.

6. Fine tuning any layers you want until you satisfy with the outcome. Then save the picture.

Here are the same picture after some fine tuning, and a replacement at ‘Tinted’ layer ( On that moment I replaced the solid colour filling with gradient filling, on an experiment with options that I can try until getting the right one )

So, that's it !

 

Useful for wedding or graduation/convocation pictures. I'll be glad to see your results right here.

 

All the best !

[SAND33P]

Using wobble is a nice touch, ill be sure to keep that in mind while working on vignettes

[midora]

To select a set of harmonic colors (as used in this tutorial) you may have a look to the plugin Color Harmonies.

[Pixey]

That's so pretty @Nai and what a lovely idea .

 

@Midora - thanks for that link .... I never noticed it before   

[Nai]

Using wobble is a nice touch, ill be sure to keep that in mind while working on vignettes

 

So grateful that it can help you. Wobble+ gaussian blur are the way I can find to mock Photoshop's iris blur effects.

 

Photoshop tutorial using iris blur :http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/iris-blur-cs6/

[Nai]

To select a set of harmonic colors (as used in this tutorial) you may have a look to the plugin Color Harmonies.

 

Midora, thanks a lot ! That's a benefit for some members and a time-saving cross-cutting for me.

Honestly, I never use it before you mentioned it. I'm just relying on my spatial abilities to recognize colours, just like Munsell and his students ( for example, PSC's John Kitchener and the late Sci-Art Founder Katryn Kaliatz ) doing/did. Spent about one to two hours for doing colour harmonies like in the picture above, using colour picker tool to pick up the colours that I intuitively attracted to and put it to the blank colour pallete. 

[Nai]

That's so pretty @Nai and what a lovely idea .

 

 

Thanks Pixey ! I owe other people's Pinterest account and Hannah Hathaway's blogs for becoming a huge inspiration for me to do this. 

Hopefully it can motivate other members/Paint.Net users to have their own Pinterest accounts, so that Rick & Co hard works and generosity going viral.

 

BTW and honestly, you're cute like a button !

Edited July 19, 2014 by Nai

[shumi31]

Very sharp and nice touch up. Its really good to see the tutorial here.

[Boudreau]

On 7/17/2014 at 8:24 PM, SAND33P said:

Using wobble is a nice touch, ill be sure to keep that in mind while working on vignettes

This Is Fabulous & Great Work.......................

[Boudreau]

On 8/8/2014 at 2:32 PM, shumi31 said:

Very sharp and nice touch up. Its really good to see the tutorial here.

Thats Was So Lovely & Pretty Great Work